Community discussions

MikroTik App
 
User avatar
woland
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Topic Author
Posts: 258
Joined: Mon Aug 16, 2021 4:49 pm

CAPsMAN and TX Power

Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:53 pm

Hi,
could someone please help me with the following questions:
1./How to check current TX power used, if the AP is associated with CAPsMan?
2./Which TX Power setting takes precedence in the CAPsMAN ?
(It would be nice to know how any other settings precedences work in CAPsMAN ...)

Explanation:
I'm having some issues with my Capsman setup at my home, I have a HEXs with CAPsMAN running and 3 APs (2x cAPac + 1x WAPac), everything running on v6.49. I have set up 2 SSIDs assocciated with VLANs and they are locally forwarded to a trunk interface on the APs. (as a Mikrotik newbie, this was hard to configure, but works like a charm, unlike the radio part, which is still giving me some headaches)
I am living in an apartment, surrounded by around hundred other flats with WLAN APs. So my environment is extremely noisy. Therefore I began experimenting with WLAN settings. Currently I am trying to tune TX power , but I don't find any info on the precedence of the settings.
I can set it in the capsman/channels, but also in capsman/configurations. Which is the one used if both are configured?

I'm struggling to find any info on how to check the currently used power on the APs?
I could only find on the AP in the Winbox on Wireless Tables/Wifi Interfaces/Status, where the Channel field shows some dBm value:
2412/20/gn(5dBm)
Unfortunately this not, what I have configured anywhere else! Also I have automatic frequency selection enabled with a few preconfigured frequencies. The dBm value changes with frequency sometimes (my idea is that the maximum is capped according to the set country, but somehow the values don't add up).

Thanks!
Woland

Ps. I am very happy to have found Mikrotik devices and after 20 years I have turned from OpenWRT based WLAN setups to Mikrotik.
I think the biggest selling point is exactly CAPsMAN, at least for me this was very important, besides nice PoE HW, great power efficiency and very reasonable prices. BUT do yourself a favor: please document your biggest selling point better Mikrotik!!! I am a networking professional, but I believe that there are some others who just give it up after not finding enough and more user friendly info in the Wikis.
 
wispmikrotik
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Posts: 137
Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2017 10:43 am

Re: CAPsMAN and TX Power  [SOLVED]

Tue Oct 19, 2021 1:33 pm

Hi,

I answer:

Which is the one used if both are configured?

Order of priority:

1- Configuration
2- Channel

I could only find on the AP in the Winbox on Wireless Tables/Wifi Interfaces/Status, where the Channel field shows some dBm value:
2412/20/gn(5dBm) Unfortunately this not, what I have configured anywhere else!

The gain of the AP is taken into account for this value in dbm. For example, my wAP AC:
/interface wireless info hw-info wlan1

      ranges: 2312-2732/5/b,g,gn20,gn40
              2484-2484/5/b,g,gn20,gn40
   tx-chains: 0,1
   rx-chains: 0,1
  extra-info: pciinfo:0x0, cid:0, gain:3

Results:

/caps-man configuration print
channel.tx-power=20 (-3dbm antenna gain) = 17dbm

Cap:

Image



Regards,
 
User avatar
woland
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Topic Author
Posts: 258
Joined: Mon Aug 16, 2021 4:49 pm

Re: CAPsMAN and TX Power

Tue Oct 19, 2021 4:12 pm

Hi,
thanks a lot, that's the perfect answer! Almost everything adds up now.

Just a tiny little piece is missing: since I have configured automatic frequency selection, the frequency is changing sometimes.
With it also for some channels in the 5GHz Band the power gets reduced. I suppose, that is because of my regions regulations.
Is there a way to read the limits set for the set region from the Device itself? I know I'm lazy....But also a bit distrusting if it comes to networking software. :)
Can there be some other reason behind that, like thermal protection or DFS?
How can I know if DFS has been triggered because of a weather radar? Can I set logging for that?
What happens if I set skip-dfs-channels is set with my auto frequency selection on 5G? Will it still automatically just select from the given frequencies, the ones with no DFS (5180,5200,5220)?
/caps-man configuration
add band=2ghz-onlyn control-channel-width=20mhz extension-channel=disabled frequency=2412,2437,2462 name=ch_24_a \
    reselect-interval=10m tx-power=7
add band=5ghz-onlyac control-channel-width=20mhz extension-channel=Ce frequency=5180,5200,5220,5500,5560,5600,5640,5745 name=\
    ch_5_a reselect-interval=10m skip-dfs-channels=no tx-power=12
BR
Woland
Ps. Wow, I didn't even know I had so many questions, sorry if that's to much for a first posting, besides it might just be a bit off topic...

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: grusu and 36 guests