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    Dual Band Wifi AP with pfSense 2.2

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved 2.2 Snapshot Feedback and Problems - RETIRED
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    • A
      Asgaroth
      last edited by

      Hi All,

      I have an Atheros 9220 mini-pci card sitting in my soekris net5501 and would like to configure both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands in pfsense. I tried doing this by creating "virtual" interfaces in Interfaces->Assign->Wireless. I then tried to setup 2 WLAN interfaces and selected 2.4GHz and 5GHz modes respectively when configuring the interfaces. What I have noticed is that both the interfaces operate at either 2.4GHz or 5Ghz but not both simultaneously. Is this a supported configuration in pfSense?

      I have seen people mentioning that they have got it to work, but I cannot, for the life of me, find any tutorial on how to do it, or if there are any specific settings I need to apply to get it working.

      Any comments/suggestions/links on how to get it working would be greatly appreciated.

      This is the output of my dmesg relating to the atheros interface:

      
      ath0: <atheros 9220="">mem 0xa0010000-0xa001ffff irq 15 at device 17.0 on pci0
      [ath] enabling AN_TOP2_FIXUP
      ath0: [HT] enabling HT modes
      ath0: [HT] 1 stream STBC receive enabled
      ath0: [HT] 1 stream STBC transmit enabled
      ath0: [HT] 2 RX streams; 2 TX streams
      ath0: AR9220 mac 128.2 RF5133 phy 13.0
      ath0: 2GHz radio: 0x0000; 5GHz radio: 0x00c0</atheros> 
      

      I cannot recall the exact vendor/model of the device, but I think this link is the closest I've found to describe my card.

      There are two major products of Berkeley, LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be strictly by coincidence.

      — Jeremy S. Anderson

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      • T
        thermo
        last edited by

        It's working as expected. One radio can operate at either 2.4 or 5ghz - not both simultaneously. If you want concurrent dual band then you need a second card/radio installed.

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        • A
          Asgaroth
          last edited by

          @thermo:

          It's working as expected. One radio can operate at either 2.4 or 5ghz - not both simultaneously. If you want concurrent dual band then you need a second card/radio installed.

          Hi, Thanks for the info, however, I was under the impression this particular card had 2 radio's, I'll have to confirm that, maybe the dmesg output is a little misleading then, specifically:

          ath0: 2GHz radio: 0x0000; 5GHz radio: 0x00c0

          There are two major products of Berkeley, LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be strictly by coincidence.

          — Jeremy S. Anderson

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