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pfSense as wireless AP transmit power adjustments?

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Wireless
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  • J
    JonathanLee
    last edited by Oct 27, 2023, 3:32 AM

    IMG_20231026_202850345.jpg

    pfSense aka the "King Fisher 9000" Yacht ⛵

    Make sure to upvote

    J 1 Reply Last reply Oct 27, 2023, 4:01 AM Reply Quote 0
    • J
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @JonathanLee
      last edited by Oct 27, 2023, 4:01 AM

      @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

      J 1 Reply Last reply Oct 27, 2023, 5:49 AM Reply Quote 0
      • J
        JonathanLee @johnpoz
        last edited by Oct 27, 2023, 5:49 AM

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

        Make sure to upvote

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • J
          JonathanLee
          last edited by JonathanLee Oct 27, 2023, 5:23 PM Oct 27, 2023, 5:13 PM

          ifconfig ath0_wlan0 txpower 40

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

          Make sure to upvote

          J 1 Reply Last reply Oct 27, 2023, 6:10 PM Reply Quote 1
          • J
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator @JonathanLee
            last edited by Oct 27, 2023, 6:10 PM

            @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

            J 1 Reply Last reply Oct 31, 2023, 12:54 AM Reply Quote 0
            • J
              JonathanLee
              last edited by JonathanLee Oct 30, 2023, 4:16 AM Oct 28, 2023, 6:42 PM

              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

              P 1 Reply Last reply Oct 30, 2023, 2:10 PM Reply Quote 1
              • P
                provels @JonathanLee
                last edited by Oct 30, 2023, 2:10 PM

                @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
                • S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by Oct 30, 2023, 2:12 PM

                  5Ghz is more easily attenuated by anything.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • J
                    JonathanLee @johnpoz
                    last edited by Oct 31, 2023, 12:54 AM

                    @johnpoz
                    It is the same upstream.

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

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

                    Make sure to upvote

                    P 1 Reply Last reply Oct 31, 2023, 12:15 PM Reply Quote 0
                    • P
                      provels @JonathanLee
                      last edited by provels Oct 31, 2023, 12:25 PM Oct 31, 2023, 12:15 PM

                      @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)

                      J 1 Reply Last reply Oct 31, 2023, 2:54 PM Reply Quote 1
                      • J
                        JonathanLee @provels
                        last edited by Oct 31, 2023, 2:54 PM

                        @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

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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