Feedback / Feature Request: Limit 2.4GHz auto channel selection

Router
1

I cant see any other posts about this and have recently also raised on discord but wanted to raise here more formally
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I must also caveat by saying I only have a Beryl 7 to test with so this request comes from the default configuration of that device, others may behave slightly differently.

Details of the suggestion/request:

By default, the auto-channel selection permitted channels (on the Beryl 7) are defined based on safe regulatory requirements.

e.g.
2.4GHz has channel 12 and 13 disabled for auto selection
5GHz has all DFS channels removed from auto channel selection

For a simple to use out of the box device this makes sense as other channels may not be permitted in certain regulatory domains etc. but these can be enabled by advanced users if required.

My proposal is to change the 2.4Ghz defaults to also exclude all channels except 1,6,11 from auto channel selection. This would be for the following reasons:

  • Best practice to be a ‘good neighbor’.
  • Adjacent channel interference is a significant issue for wifi performance and far worse than co-channel interference
  • Advanced users can re-enable these if required for special case

Example: Having a device auto-select channel 3 as devices exist nearby are using 1 and 6 has the following negative effects:

  • Breaks CDMA collision avoidance and overlap is treated as noise. Causing collisions and retransmissions that would not occur if it shared channel 1 or 6 with another device.
  • By overlapping two other channels this impacts both other APs as well as the local devices rather than just one neighbour AP.
  • Worse-case performance situation for all users.

Although co-channel interference (having multiple devices on the same channel) still reduces Wifi throughput, this is not as severe as the reduction caused by adjacent channels because.

  • CDMA can operate and stations can wait for each other to transmit properly, reducing retransmissions caused by adjacent channel interference where stations do not wait.
  • Overall network performance impact is lesser compared other using an adjacent channel.
  • Best case performance reduction considering the shared environment.

I suggest this as a better default position, as again the device should work the best way for the most users out of the box and be less of an impact to an already congested space in this band.

Advanced users are free to configure as they wish, but for the majority of users that use the default configuration I feel this should be updated in future firmware releases and offer the best user experience.

Example external reference but many other exist

Thanks for reading.

1 Like
2

Hello,

I understand that using channels 1, 6, and 11 on 2.4 GHz will provide better bandwidth and help avoid interference from neighboring channels.

We checked the OpenWRT wireless configuration. Following the software design, it is not possible to restrict channels to the combination "1+6+11", and the configuration files do not support that change, or will may break the WiFi. Truly sorry.

When channel set to auto, the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios will automatically scan and select available channels with less interference at the router first boot, to achieve the best possible 2.4GHz performance in the current environment.

If this behavior does not meet your needs, the only option is to manually set a fixed channel in the GL GUI.

Thank you!

4

Interesting, I was able to block my Beryl 7 from selecting unwanted channels automatically by changing the following settings:

changed the default

wireless.MT7993_1_1.acs_skiplist='12;13'

to include additional channels to skip in auto selection

wireless.MT7993_1_1.acs_skiplist='2;3;4;5;7;8;9;10;12;13'

Perhaps this is specific to the MTK driver on the Beryl 7? (I dont currently have another wifi model to test with)

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5

OHHH!! I see — I just found this parameter on the Beryl 7, thank you very much for the sharing!

Bruce_2026-02-13_17-16-51
Bruce_2026-02-13_17-16-51596×222 5.28 KB

Bruce_2026-02-13_17-16-59

I had check this on the Beryl AX before and it didn’t work, so this should be specific to the Beryl 7 with the MT7993 chipset.

Since there is relatively little demand for this feature, we'll put it on hold for now and monitor how many users request it. Thanks!

1 Like
6

You are able to set the auto channel in vanilla Openwrt, I’m sure there is a UCI command but I’m too busy to figure it out.

/etc/config/wireless

config wifi-device 'radio0'
        option type 'mac80211'
        option path 'pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0'
        option channel 'auto'
        option channels '36 40 44 48 149 153 157 161 165 169 173'
        option band '5g'     
        option htmode 'VHT40'
        option country 'EE'    
        option cell_density '0'

If you use option channel ‘100’ (notice no s at the end) it set just 1 channel only
Dev’s need to look at this because i’m seeing conflicting post about channel and channels being interchangeably

2 Likes
7

You are able to set the auto channel in vanilla Openwrt, I’m sure there is a UCI command but I’m too busy to figure it out.

This was my understanding as well and I was actually looking at this today but got sidetracked as my vanilla test device I was using to check ended up being broken for other reasons due to being on 25.12rc4 so I didn’t get this far.
I would suggest it’s not entirely unreasonable that the driver also needs to support it though regardless of the option existing.

Either way if this is something you’d like to see with friendlier defaults please speak up so we can get this bumped up the priority list :slight_smile:

8

For the 2.4 GHz North American market I would suggest the sane default would be 1,6,11

For the 5GHz I don’t know, I also don’t know what outside of NA should be

9

I believe 36-48 on 5GHz is the only safe option pretty much everywhere to reliably avoid DFS etc.

10

I found a neat site that converts config files to UCI

uci set wireless.radio0=wifi-device
uci set wireless.radio0.type='mac80211'
uci set wireless.radio0.path='pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0'
uci set wireless.radio0.channel='auto'
uci set wireless.radio0.channels='36 40 44 48 149 153 157 161 165 169 173'
uci set wireless.radio0.band='5g'
uci set wireless.radio0.htmode='VHT40'
uci set wireless.radio0.country='EE'
uci set wireless.radio0.cell_density='0'
uci commit wireless

Note
I tried the single line from a config file “option channels '36 40 44 48 149 153 157 161 165 169 173'“ but it did not work, I had to use all these options

config wifi-device 'radio0'
        option type 'mac80211'
        option path 'pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0'
        option channel 'auto'
        option channels '36 40 44 48 149 153 157 161 165 169 173'
        option band '5g'     
        option htmode 'VHT40'
        option country 'EE'    
        option cell_density '0'
1 Like