[Commotion-announce] Picostation tx power offset

[Adam Longwill]

Josh, there is so much power that the hardware is designed to put out. It
is almost always better to improve the antenna rather than just pump up the
volume with radio. By increasing the tx power, each router's "voice" is
louder, but their "ears" stay the same size. If you increase the size of
the antennas, then their "ears" get more sensitive and you will see an
increase in gain. This is an unscientific explanation.

You're probably not going to find a way to increase the tx past 16db. But
by going about it that way you're going about it in the wrong way anyway.
Invest in some ballin RP-SMA antennas. Here, let me help:

Your connector:
http://www.amazon.com/Connector-RP-SMA-Antenna-Pigtail-Cable/dp/B006Z8MJ6Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424786811&sr=8-1&keywords=rpsma+to+n

My fave little omni antenna:
http://www.amazon.com/Engenius-Outdoor-High-Antenna-EAG-2408/dp/B000VIA4CA/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1424786864&sr=8-7&keywords=hi+gain+wifi+antenna

good luck!

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 7:59 AM, Josh Harle <josh.harle at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I'm a newbie to commotion and open-wrt, and I could really do with some
> specific guidance.
>
> I'm just gearing up to set up a mesh network across a small town as part
> of an art festival.  I have 20 x Picostation M2HPs and have installed
> Commotion on them all.  I took a battery-powered PoE and one of the APs for
> a walk, and the range was terrible.  This led me to check the tx power and
> it looks like it's way below the maximum.
>
> I can't get it above 16 dBm, and I think it's because it (wrongly) thinks
> there's a 12 dB antenna attached and so is applying that as an offset to
> the 28 dBm the device can do.  (here's the output from various commands
> <http://tacticalspace.org/archives/fixing-low-transmit-power-for-picostationm2hp-with-commotion-wireless/>
> )
>
> I don't have enough experience of open-wrt to know how to get around
> this.  The actual antenna is just 2 dB.
>
> I've been looking at bug reports and conversations for a few hours, and
> can't figure out how to change the tx power about 16 dBm.  At the moment I
> can set it lower but not higher, and I am assuming I need to modify the tx
> power offset?
>
> Thanks for any thoughts!
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Dr Josh Harle
> ____________________
> http://joshharle.com
> http://tacticalspace.org
> ph: +61 (0)409 771 163
>
> _______________________________________________
> Commotion-announce mailing list
> Commotion-announce at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-announce
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/commotion-announce/attachments/20150224/d09ef4e4/attachment-0003.html>