FIX - Only 4 channels showing up for 802.11a on atheros
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I bought a couple of atheros a/b/g based mini-pci card a while back (Ebay) and have only been able to test them recently, I found that under 802.11a only four 5ghz channels would show up when configuring my pf wifi as AP.
I found this http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,854.0.html which basically explains the problem that some of these cards are locked down to Japan, the 2 cards I have are AR5006XS (atheros 5413), no matter what I did to change from console > sysctl dev.ath.countrycode=0, it was stuck on Japanese settings, the problem lies in value of > sysctl dev.ath.domainreg which wont allow you to change any of these 2 settings, to cut a long story short, I tried the method from the above link and I had no joy, a couple of google searches later, I found a fix that needs to be applied on a windows machine equiped with min pci slot.
1: Commview for Wifi http://www.tamos.com/download/main/ca.php
this needs to be installed for this fix to work, you dont even need to launch it…2: Go to device manager and located you atheros card, update driver and when it prompts you, select "Install from a list or specific file", then browse to "C:\Program Files\CommViewWiFi\Driver" and select "ts_athw.inf"...Commview will be appended to the start of the driver list dialog box then you need to select, follow the screen prompts right to the end as per usual in windows driver install.
3: Regdomain utility http://www.tamos.com/files/rcu.zip That app that does the magic
4: Run the Regdomain app, you will notice a list of channels and you current countrycode, just select the country that suitable for you or alternatively to get ALL channels, select "NO_COUNTRY_SET" then press Set.
Shutdown laptop, unplug mini pci and plug in to you pf equipment!
You should be good to go
P.S there is also a way to do it under linux using the ath5k driver, look at madwifis site for this.
Hope this helps
Slam
P.S.S, Also 802.11a turbo channels show up now ;D