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    pfSense as wireless AP transmit power adjustments?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Wireless
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    • JonathanLeeJ
      JonathanLee
      last edited by

      IMG_20231026_202850345.jpg

      pfSense aka the "King Fisher 9000" Yacht ⛵

      Make sure to upvote

      johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • johnpozJ
        johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @JonathanLee
        last edited by

        @JonathanLee what is that a printer right next to it.. Those are great for amplification of wifi ;)

        Especially when their wifi is on ;)

        An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
        If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
        Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
        SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

        JonathanLeeJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • JonathanLeeJ
          JonathanLee @johnpoz
          last edited by

          @johnpoz it's a printer. . . Oops 😬

          Make sure to upvote

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • JonathanLeeJ
            JonathanLee
            last edited by JonathanLee

            ifconfig ath0_wlan0 txpower 40

            this is the command to get out of 17% transmit power

            Make sure to upvote

            johnpozJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • johnpozJ
              johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @JonathanLee
              last edited by

              @JonathanLee and users wonder why their wifi is problematic.. hahaha

              An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
              If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
              Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
              SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

              JonathanLeeJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • JonathanLeeJ
                JonathanLee
                last edited by JonathanLee

                I found the best settings was wifi 802.11na and using -40 channel widths. It performs better than my apple airport Extreme. Whats weird is others in our area use 80 for channel widths on the 5ghz. My performance now with the 2100 is unreal. I didn't think it could do it. Movies streaming in a 3 bedroom house on different devices Xbox Nintendo switch etc iPad. It's running snort on wan and lan with AppID, squid and squid guard. I had to disable Clam AV to get my memory use down to 20-30 percent utilization. It is unreal it could be better than consumer grade equipment from that timeline now. It needed 802.11na not ng. Keep in mind my airport only ran wpa2 and with aes encryption options that thing was from 2009. I think the card dates to 2015 ish.

                Make sure to upvote

                provelsP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • provelsP
                  provels @JonathanLee
                  last edited by

                  @JonathanLee Weird, but whatever works. With ng I get a -40db signal, with na I get -70.

                  Peder

                  MAIN - pfSense+ 24.11-RELEASE - Adlink MXE-5401, i7, 16 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD. 500 GB HDD for SyslogNG
                  BACKUP - pfSense+ 23.01-RELEASE - Hyper-V Virtual Machine, Gen 1, 2 v-CPUs, 3 GB RAM, 8GB VHDX (Dynamic)

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    5Ghz is more easily attenuated by anything.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                    • JonathanLeeJ
                      JonathanLee @johnpoz
                      last edited by

                      @johnpoz
                      It is the same upstream.

                      https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/pull/880

                      https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/14925

                      Make sure to upvote

                      provelsP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • provelsP
                        provels @JonathanLee
                        last edited by provels

                        @JonathanLee Is this the Compex or the Apple card? I have the Compex and my txpower was set at 30 by pfSense. Also, the "txpower 40" argument seems to have no effect, stays at 30 for me.
                        Maybe that's because you're using na and not ng. EDIT - Yeah, that's it.

                        [23.05.1-RELEASE][root@fw.workgroup]/root: ifconfig ath0_wlan0 txpower 40
                        [23.05.1-RELEASE][root@fw.workgroup]/root: ifconfig ath0_wlan0
                        ath0_wlan0: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
                                description: ATH0_WLE200
                                ether 04:f0:21:4f:6e:e3
                                inet6 fe80::6f0:21ff:fe4f:6ee3%ath0_wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x9
                                groups: wlan
                                ssid WIFI_LAN_nomap channel 11 (2462 MHz 11g ht/20) bssid 04:f0:21:4f:6e:e3
                                regdomain FCC country US indoor ecm authmode WPA2/802.11i
                                privacy MIXED deftxkey 3 AES-CCM 2:128-bit AES-CCM 3:128-bit
                        =>        txpower 30 scanvalid 60 pureg protmode OFF ampdulimit 64k
                                ampdudensity 8 shortgi puren -ldpc -uapsd wme burst -apbridge
                                dtimperiod 1 -dfs
                                parent interface: ath0
                                media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11ng <hostap>
                                status: running
                                nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
                        
                        
                        

                        Peder

                        MAIN - pfSense+ 24.11-RELEASE - Adlink MXE-5401, i7, 16 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD. 500 GB HDD for SyslogNG
                        BACKUP - pfSense+ 23.01-RELEASE - Hyper-V Virtual Machine, Gen 1, 2 v-CPUs, 3 GB RAM, 8GB VHDX (Dynamic)

                        JonathanLeeJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • JonathanLeeJ
                          JonathanLee @provels
                          last edited by

                          @provels

                          @provels Take a look at this file with the built in editor in pfsense GUI

                          Screenshot 2023-10-31 at 7.49.01 AM.png

                          This may have blocked you from turning it up. It might be limited by way of this file. . .

                          Scroll down and find WiFi 11g and check for something called max power

                          Make sure to upvote

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