Check Radio Settings
After confirming a mesh route exists between an offline repeater and its mesh neighbor, the next step is to check for radio configurations or environmental
factors which adversely affect mesh. These factors are:
• Channel selection and transmit power
• DFS
• RF spectrum
Channel Selection and Transmit Power
For any two APs to become mesh neighbors, they must be able to hear each other. This requires that APs on each side of the link operate on at least one
common channel and have enough transmit power for transmissions to be received by its neighbor. Simply put,
the distance between nodes should not exceed
the distance the radio signals can travel
. You will need to confirm the channel selection and transmit power configured on each AP in a mesh link will meet this
requirement.
The first section of this document provides an example of how to compare the channel information using the details page of both APs. Additionally, the channel
and transmit power configuration on the Radio settings page should be also be verified.
Figure 8: Two APs, each AP is set to a different 2.4GHz channel and the transmit power is off. These devices will not mesh.
Figure 9: Two APs manually configured to use channel 36 with a transmit power of 5dBm. The transmit power level could be an issue if the nodes are
too far apart, but if they are close enough they should become mesh neighbors.
Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS)
In certain regulatory domains, 5GHz WiFi channels are shared with radar.
regulation in these environments require that an AP change it's channel
whenever it detects a radar pulse.
Note:
Dashboard will calculate the distance between neighboring APs when placed on Google map. The distance is based on the lat/long (from
Dashboard) of a mesh repeater and the neighbors it sees.This distance is then reported in the Dashboard mesh neighbors table.
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