we are connecting several client sites via a central repeater (on a hill) to a base station at our location, we are going to be using RB433AH and R52N's with dual polarity antenna. do we set it as
STATIONx2---AP BRIDGE----STATION---our office

or

pseudostation or whatever...what is the definitive way to configure this setup

WDS is better than pseudobridge, when MikroTik RouterOS is used as AP and station. WDS allows you to put client interface (station-wds) to bridge,
Transparently Bridge two Networks with WDS

i assumed WDS was not an option on 5ghz 802.11n as we are after absolute TCP/IP speed, the exterior circuit is 100mb and i realise this wont really be possible what i want is best effort...
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what i failed to mention is the middle AP so

customer network--AP1---wlan---AP2---wlan---AP3--our network

so we have put two R52N's in the middle AP...
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will WDS work in 5ghz N with dual pol antenna, if so will it slow it down to much.
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Thanks for any help you can give us, i have just spent 3 hours up a hill and was tempted to hit it all with a hammer, the distances involved are 1km, 3km

So if I understand you, you're doing:

Client->RB(1)<-p2p_wireless_1->[R52Ncard1]=RB(2)=[R52Ncard2]<-p2p_wireless_2->RB(3)<-office

You've got 3 RB devices, but 4 cards, and two completely separate wireless links. Your first post made it sound like the middle RB(2) had just a single antenna and was talking to two stations with it, instead of two separate point-to-point antennas/links.

Why not try running MPLS on all three RB devices with a VPLS bridge between the two end-point devices, RB(1) and RB(3)? Then the middle one will only need to switch MPLS packets while the two end RBs will terminate the VPLS bridge.

Since each wireless link is point-to-point, you can pick and choose which side is the AP and which is the station separately for each. The middle RB(2) could be acting as AP for one link, and STATION for the other, or STATION on both, or AP on both.

Aaron out.

Sorry for the confusion, we did try the MPLS side of things but being more wired the wireless we gave up as the samples we used just didnt seem to get things going. This will shortly replace our production WDS network which has run for ages but is just to slow. Are there any issues with the MPLS/VPLS, it seemed this was very hit and miss (according to the articles we read).
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you description of the setup is perfectly correct.
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Cheers

I'm using MPLS+VPLS for several point-to-point wireless hops, but not yet for a multiple-hop MPLS network (due to intermediate devices not supporting a large enough MTU). I hope to soon connect my isolated P2P MPLS networks into larger MPLS nets so I can do VPLS encapsulation only at endpoints as I upgrade intermediate devices.

The intermediate device issue is one reason I wish MikroTik made a RB450-style device that supported 9000-byte MTUs on all ethernet ports. I'd ideally like to support massively jumbo frames across my entire network.

Because I haven't yet created a RouterOS MPLS network across more than two consecutive devices, and I don't have one set up in the lab yet, I couldn't suggest a configuration. *sigh*

Aaron out.

cheers Aaron,
i would love to chuck mpls etc on the link but i need to prove these R52n on hese boards actually work so want to setup the link then try to enhance it. ive 5ghz dual pol antenna and on a point to point link over 3.5km it was awesome, add the extra card and extra hop and its stuffed

Are you perhaps getting interference bleeding from one card to the other in the single device case? I've heard others have some issues like that. All my links are one radio per board installations, so I have no experience yet with running multiple radio cards on a single routerboard. I'll be fascinated to learn what you discover...

Aaron out.

took out the second card and tried getting the 802.11n going point to point, i get 190mb one way udp, when i set to both directions, TX keeps dropping off then routers drop...2 way tcpip then the router drop...not good.
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i have ARC dual POL antennae with RB433AH and R52N cards, desperate for examples of a working 5ghz 802.11n example