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karaYusuf
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Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Wed Nov 30, 2022 11:23 am

Hello,
Right now the only thing i could see in my mikrotik-router hapac2 is that wlan1 can only be 2Ghz and wlan2 is 5Ghz, but I wanted to know if there is any possibility to have bouth wlan1 and wlan2 as 2Ghz wifi.
Any help or information about this topic would be appreciated.
 
erlinden
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Wed Nov 30, 2022 11:49 am

There is no way to make a 5GHz radio into a 2.4GHz radio (and vice versa).
People tend to move away from the 2.4GHz radio (due to heavy interference), what makes you want to use this specifi band?
 
holvoetn
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Wed Nov 30, 2022 2:26 pm

Yes, is possible using virtual wlan.
It will be tied to the physical wlan1 (using same channel and other wifi related settings) but it can have a different SSID.

@erlinden:
- older devices not capable of 5Ghz (yes, they still exist)
- longer range when speed is of little importance (I use it typically for IoT devices in my garage and basement)
 
karaYusuf
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Wed Nov 30, 2022 2:35 pm

There is no way to make a 5GHz radio into a 2.4GHz radio (and vice versa).
People tend to move away from the 2.4GHz radio (due to heavy interference), what makes you want to use this specifi band?
I have a device which is not capable to connect to 5Ghz only 2Ghz and i already connected the 2Ghz channel to another network to get internet access on the hapac2.
Yes, is possible using virtual wlan.
It will be tied to the physical wlan1 (using same channel and other wifi related settings) but it can have a different SSID.

@erlinden:
- older devices not capable of 5Ghz (yes, they still exist)
- longer range when speed is of little importance (I use it typically for IoT devices in my garage and basement
Thank you. I would have never thought about using a virtual wlan
 
erlinden
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:58 pm

Yes, is possible using virtual wlan.
It will be tied to the physical wlan1 (using same channel and other wifi related settings) but it can have a different SSID.
Agree, but that was not the question, hence my answer.

Therefor I prefer a topicstarter to explain the problem instead of coming up with a solution themselves.
 
karaYusuf
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:27 pm

Yes, is possible using virtual wlan.
It will be tied to the physical wlan1 (using same channel and other wifi related settings) but it can have a different SSID.
Agree, but that was not the question, hence my answer.

Therefor I prefer a topicstarter to explain the problem instead of coming up with a solution themselves.
You are right. I am sorry for the confusion.
 
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:31 pm

You are right. I am sorry for the confusion.
No need to apologize, and feel free to ask for help if required.
 
karaYusuf
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:56 pm

You are right. I am sorry for the confusion.
No need to apologize, and feel free to ask for help if required.
I will ask any time needed. Thank you
 
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mkx
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Wed Nov 30, 2022 9:24 pm

I would have never thought about using a virtual wlan

As already written, it is possible to have virtual AP on same master interface which is configured as station. However, there are a few gotchas:
  1. interface configured in station mode has to be master interface, not virtual interface. The reason is that only master interface controls radio (frequency etc.) and station has to follow its AP. If you know that upstream AP doesn't change radio parameters, then you manually configure master interface with same parameters and use it as AP (and configure station on virtual interface). But upstream connection will break if upstream AP changes radio parameters.
  2. if master interface is configured as station and the link breaks (e.g. your wifi device moves out of coverage or some such), then also slave interface configured as AP "disapears from ether". The reason is that master radio is busy scanning for AP to connect to, hopping over all the channels and slave (confugured as AP) can not operate on a stable frequency channel
  3. thusly configured AP will hog frequency channel because it'll consume a lot of air time (packet will go from end client to hybrud AP and then from hybrid AP to main AP), add additional guard time to avoid collisions (virtual AP will be a very strong co-channel interferer to main AP and vice versa)

These problems would indeed be solved by using two 2.4GHz radios, but even that would be quite tricky because one would have to ensure good isolation between both sets of antennae (to avoid excessive interference between the both radios which could happen even if both radios used distinct frequency bands).
Does the main AP offer 5GHz? You could then use the 5GHz radio on hAP ac2 as station and 2.4GHz radio as AP.
 
karaYusuf
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Thu Dec 01, 2022 10:27 am

I would have never thought about using a virtual wlan

As already written, it is possible to have virtual AP on same master interface which is configured as station. However, there are a few gotchas:
  1. interface configured in station mode has to be master interface, not virtual interface. The reason is that only master interface controls radio (frequency etc.) and station has to follow its AP. If you know that upstream AP doesn't change radio parameters, then you manually configure master interface with same parameters and use it as AP (and configure station on virtual interface). But upstream connection will break if upstream AP changes radio parameters.
  2. if master interface is configured as station and the link breaks (e.g. your wifi device moves out of coverage or some such), then also slave interface configured as AP "disapears from ether". The reason is that master radio is busy scanning for AP to connect to, hopping over all the channels and slave (confugured as AP) can not operate on a stable frequency channel
  3. thusly configured AP will hog frequency channel because it'll consume a lot of air time (packet will go from end client to hybrud AP and then from hybrid AP to main AP), add additional guard time to avoid collisions (virtual AP will be a very strong co-channel interferer to main AP and vice versa)
Thank you for your reply. It is very helpfull.
Does the main AP offer 5GHz?
Yes, it does.
You could then use the 5GHz radio on hAP ac2 as station and 2.4GHz radio as AP.
What are the steps to change this? I tried that many times before but there is something I do wrong.
 
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mkx
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Fri Dec 02, 2022 3:51 pm

You could then use the 5GHz radio on hAP ac2 as station and 2.4GHz radio as AP.
What are the steps to change this? I tried that many times before but there is something I do wrong.

Let's say you want to connect to 3rd party WiFI AP and you want to hide the fact that your hAP ac2 has a whole subnet behind. So basically use QuickSet mode CPE. I'm not familiar with details of resulting setup, but I'm assuming it uses 2.4GHz radio to connect to ISP and uses 5GHz radio to provide wireless coverage for your LAN. In your case take note of configuration it comes up with (all the details) and then reconfigure device with roles of both radios reversed. From the top of my memory relevant places to look at are:
  1. bridge ports
  2. interface list members
  3. wireless configuration of both radios, including security section etc.
  4. IP dhcp client
Could be there are others, but I can't remember them now.

The rest of config can remain unchanged, e.g. firewall depends on proper interface list memberships and if you do it right in bullet #2 above, firewall will work as intended.
 
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:55 pm

I'm confused MKX, you have taken a very simple situation of just configuring a second 2.ghz network and SSID via the virtual WLAN process,into some monster.
If the OP is simply using his MT wifi router as a wifi router and not connecting to third party wifi devices over wifi, then WTF over??

To the OP very easy to do, recommend using vlans to separate your networks
For example.
wlan 2ghz master - ssid-home1 - vlan 10
wlan 5ghz master -ssid-home2 - vlan 10
virtual wlan 2ghz - ssid iot devices - vlan 20
virtual wlan 5ghz - ssid guest wifi - vlan30
Last edited by anav on Sun Dec 04, 2022 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:58 pm

I have a device which is not capable to connect to 5Ghz only 2Ghz and i already connected the 2Ghz channel to another network to get internet access on the hapac2.
Looks as this is the "station + AP" on the same 2GHz radio case to be solved. And I see MKX remarks as related to that. There is much more to talk about if we go into all "repeater" style setup and options of the MT
 
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Sun Dec 04, 2022 9:33 pm

Not convinced, the request seems simple, I want two have two wlans that are using 2.4ghz, probably because the penetration/distance is better.

Nowhere did the OP state he has a second AP that he wants to connect to wirelessly.

Is everybody drinking Christmas Rum early????

Edit: After a few drinks I see what I missed......
Last edited by anav on Sun Dec 04, 2022 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Sun Dec 04, 2022 9:36 pm

Reread post 4
 
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Sun Dec 04, 2022 10:17 pm

Ahh okay, this line,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, I already use 2ghz channel to connect to internet............... So the hapac is NOT connected directly to a modem aka wired.......

This should suffice..........
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzwZ8oMygZc
 
karaYusuf
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Re: Is it possible to have two 2Ghz wifi's on hapac2

Wed Dec 07, 2022 12:28 pm

So for my needs I made a script(the following code) to import it later in the terminal:
/interface wireless security-profiles
add authentication-types=wpa-psk,wpa2-psk mode=dynamic-keys unicast-ciphers=tkip,aes-ccm group-ciphers=tkip,aes-ccm name=xx wpa-pre-shared-key=xxxxx  wpa2-pre-shared-key=xxxx

/interface wireless connect-list
add interface=wlan2 signal-range=-75..120 allow-signal-out-of-range=1s connect=yes disabled=no security-profile=xx ssid=x

/interface/wireless
set [ find default-name=wlan1 ] band=2ghz-b/g/n \
    country=germany disabled=no frequency=auto mode=ap-bridge \
    installation=any default-authentication=yes \
    security-profile=default ssid="wlan1" 
/interface bridge port add bridge=bridgeLAN interface=wlan1

/interface/wireless/connect-list/disable [find interface=wlan1]

/interface/list/member/remove [find interface=wlan1]

#making station mode on wlan2 5GHz
/interface wireless
set [ find default-name=wlan2 ] band=5ghz-a/n/ac channel-width=20/40/80mhz-XXXX \
    country=germany disabled=no frequency=auto \
    mode=station \
    default-authentication=no ssid="" \
    station-roaming=enabled installation=outdoor
/interface bridge port remove [find interface=wlan2]

/interface list member add list=WAN interface=wlan2

/ip/dhcp-client/remove [find interface=wlan1]
/ip/dhcp-client/add interface=wlan2 
With this script I am just able to swap the task of wlan1 and wlan2, So wlan1 is now on ap bridge mode and wlan2 is on station mode and connected to another router.

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