Adding a WiFi (5Ghz) USB wifi dongle to a GL-MiFi

guest · 2016-08-27T23:13:37.000Z

Anyone here been able to add an USB wifi dongle to a MiFi board (to be able use the 5Ghz band too.)

If so, do you mind sharing a howto on how to do this?

alzhao · 2016-08-28T22:20:11.000Z

first, do you have a 5G USB wifi dongle? if yes, can you pls share the link?

guest · 2016-08-29T02:07:30.000Z

Hi alzhao,

Plenty on ebay (dual band)

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I’ve got no clue which one I have. It has no name on it, and I got it from a friend.

groentjuh · 2016-08-29T04:12:32.000Z

It’s really hard to say how you can use the USB dongle, without knowing what you have. First you need to figure out what kind of chipset is inside of that dongle, so you can use opkg to add the needed drivers.

After that you need to adjust /etc/config/wireless to add another radio section. You can use the command “wifi detect” to get the section you need to /etc/config/wireless . After that it should work like any other device with a 5GHz radio. In my case I used a Netgear WNDA3200, which works nicely!

guest · 2016-08-29T04:28:21.000Z

I understand, and believe me I’ve tried several times to make it work.
Basically I get stuck at needing to install some “drivers” witch are not available anymore for BB.
I guess that I need to recompile a new “firmware” and this is where I’m lost.

Anyway. If you are saying that a Netgear WNDA3200 will work, than I will try to buy/find one, and use your info.

groentjuh · 2016-08-30T04:33:09.000Z

There’s plenty of USB dongles that will work. Can you do the command: “opkg install usbutils” and “lsusb” in a terminal (quotes excluded) and post the output of the last command while the dongle is plugged in. Maybe we can get something from the vendor and product id!

guest · 2016-08-30T05:23:19.000Z

Thank you for trying to help.

Unfortunately I’m not home at the moment (I’m on a boat), but will/should be back sometime next week, and report than.

guest · 2016-09-12T21:26:38.000Z

Groentjuh.

Finaly time to do some more work on this project.
Here you go…

root@GL-MIFI:~# lsusb Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0846:9018 NetGear, Inc. WNDA3200 802.11abgn Wireless Adapter [Atheros AR7010+AR9280] Bus 001 Device 004: ID 05c6:9003 Qualcomm, Inc. Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05e3:0752 Genesys Logic, Inc. Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05e3:0618 Genesys Logic, Inc. Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub root@GL-MIFI:~#

As you can see. The NetGear (a WNDA3200) is being recognized.

guest · 2016-09-17T19:58:08.000Z

@Groentjuh.

Do you mind sharing your /etc/config/wireless with me?

guest · 2016-09-17T21:46:25.000Z

Never mind. I got it working (after installing some needed drivers/files)
My /etc/config/wireless looks like this now:

config wifi-device 'radio0' option type 'mac80211' option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac' option htmode 'HT20' option channel '3' option hwmode '11g' option txpower '18' option country 'US'
config wifi-iface
option device ‘radio0’
option network ‘lan’
option mode ‘ap’
option encryption ‘psk-mixed’
option ifname ‘wlan0’
option wds ‘1’
option key ‘1234567890’
option ssid ‘AP_2.4Ghz’

config wifi-device ‘radio1’
option type ‘mac80211’
option channel ‘40’
option path ‘platform/ehci-platform/usb1/1-1/1-1.3/1-1.3:1.0’
option hwmode ‘11a’
option txpower ‘23’
option country ‘US’
option rts ‘root’

config wifi-iface
option device ‘radio1’
option network ‘lan’
option mode ‘ap’
option encryption ‘psk-mixed’
option key ‘1234567890’
option ssid ‘AP_5Ghz’

Only problem (for now) is when I scan with radio 1 (the 5Ghz one) I still see the 2.4Ghz AP’s.

rjdcsgroup-com · 2017-02-23T13:45:44.000Z

Turn off the built in radio. Just use the dongle.