Great list. I would add:

Consider both access points and clients. For example, a directional antenna on a client might be a good way of reducing interference from a close neighbour.

Do you have an static IP-adress on the wireless interface?

Thanks for the links,  google doc spreadsheet seems to indicate the Atheros cards can do pretty much everything?  Will keep tinkering with this over the weekend and see what I can come up with…

I wait this too long

Brilliant :) I read it and recognised your handle before realising you replied to this! Very helpful post, thank you.

This is typically seen with shared IRQ issues, disabling whatever shares the IRQ of the ath card is often the key to get it working.
Also remember that some PCI to minipci converters have issues, and don't try the dual or quad PCI-Minipci converters combined with ath this will result in all sorts of grief.

OK, it looks like I'm looking at the wrong half of the ARP protocol. I have noticed that the firewall does not have an entry in it's ARP table for the affected hosts and seems to be therefore silently dropping the replies.

If I add a static ARP entry for a problem host (in this case a Pure Sensia Internet Radio), things spring back to life.

i'm not sure i want to replace my WORKING Edimax card with tenda/tplink crap. besides, as i stated before - it works in windows/linux and even in monowall, from which pfSense was forked

@Piplfox:

Is there any step by step guide how to setup this easy scenario?

Have you looked in the pfSense documentation collection: http://doc.pfsense.org

@Piplfox:

Maybe I need to add virtual adapter and reconfigure the bridge to that virtual adpater (OPT1)?

By virtual adapter do you mean the ability of some interfaces to act as multiple Access Points? If I recall correctly that feature was new in pfSense 2.0.

I suggest you upgrade to pfSense 2.0. I think it is unlikely you will be able to persuade a volunteer to make serious changes to pfSense 1.2.3 if they should prove to be necessary to address your issue. pfSense 2.0 has newer device drivers than pfSense 1.2.3 and it is POSSIBLE that will fix your issue.

@wallabybob:

Have you configured the WiFi interface as AP?

Yep.

-apbridge means (I think) that the access point does NOT as a bridge between wireless clients.

Other settings on my interface:

| WPA Mode | | WPA2 |
| WPA Key Management Mode | | Pre-Shared Key |
| Authentication | | Open System Authentication |
| WPA Pairwise | | AES |
| Key Rotation | | 60 |
| Master Key Regeneration | | 3600 |
| Strict Key Regeneration | | unchecked |
| Enable IEEE802.1X Authentication | | unchecked |

It looks to e that you have an unsupported device. It might be supported in versions of FreeBSD after 8.1.

Never mind i had a bad connector(UFL) after changing it to the AUX connector the signal got normal .
And i think this was interfering with the other card signal.

source port any and destination port 9100

Sorry to undig this post
I am having some problems with an alix 2c2(older model) the signal on the cards is not constant.
Tips i tried may help:
-Try to disable diversity on the network cards and find the one you have the pigtail attached to.
-Try different regulatory domains or country settings .
-Try the B and G mode just to try to find a cause.

Hi,

You have to disable the DHCP Service of your DLINK in-order for you to obtain an IP from your pfsense/dhcp server if you connect the wire on the LAN (not on WAN) of your DLINK from your PfSense.

Problem solved…..it was as Einstein predicted that only 2 things are infinite universe and human stupidity, and he wasn't sure about universe.
Anyway solution.
1. In Interfaces>Assign->Wireless as i suspected add ur wireless clone as BSS under some name.
2. Then in Interfaces> choose for wan that particular clone of wireless card
3. Next step in Interfaces>WAN way down properly configure parameters of ur home wireless network, BSS, encription, channel key etc.
4. In System-> General setup just switch on 1st dns server from none to WAN
apply each step, and everything work as charm. Cheers

Awesome thank you!

i figured it out guys
thanks anyhow

You could use also Cisco Systems wireless mesh devices, those are expensive. But the problem really is that like dhatz sayed consumer devices radios isn't capable doing such big amount of users.