Feature request: It would be cool if the AR150 could route between two wifi devices. One would be the onboard wifi device, and the other a supported USB wifi device.
It can be done via the ‘advanced’ openers Luci interface, but it would be more convenient if there was a way to manage this in the simple AR150 interface.
An extra wifi device is better than just a repeater over one device, as both have full access to their bandwidth.
No, I mean the same feature the Alf Network R36 router has.
Connect to a wifi network, and broadcast your own Wifi network. Create your own hotspot from a distant source.
This is ideal for campsites, harbours, to share a distant wifi over your own hotspot.
Not with two WiFi antenna’s
Functionality like http://www.ezwifi.eu or the Alfa R36 would be cool…
I’m guessing this is not possible with the default firmware, however if you build OpenWRT yourself and select the rt2800usb kmod (Kernel Modules -> Wireless), the Alfa AWUS051NH and AR300M play very nicely together. I STRONGLY recommend one of the Ralink-based Alfa USB devices. Anything Realtek-based will perform very poorly. (Yes, I know Realtek bought Ralink - and every product released after the buyout is utterly garbage in Linux.)
Later this weekend I’ll be trying it with my AR750S.
The AR9271 Alfa also works - uses the ath9k-htc driver…
Challenge with some of these hi-power USB adapters is that one needs to ensure that the power for the router is enough.
The Alfa wants just as much power as the AR300M, so that’s something to plan for.
MediaTek bought Ralink…
The Realtek’s - some are better than others - the older 11g/11n seem to be fine, it’s the newer 802.11ac USB chips that can be troublesome - not just on Linux, but also on Win…
For some reason I thought it had been Realtek, not MT.
Not much difference, both companies are absolutely horrendous as far as open source and Linux support, including MediaTek frequently committing GPL violations and in some cases even forcing their customers of mobile SoCs to violate the GPL.
I’m shocked that the RTL8812 family of chips, which were released LONG after it was made clear that WEXT was deprecated, apparently don’t support NL80211 and use WEXT instead?
Has anyone gotten this to work? I’m trying to do exactly this. I have an AR750 in my camper and instead of dividing the wireless bandwidth I bought an Alfa AWUS036NH and I can connect it to the AR750 and it is recognized but I don’t see how to configure it.
I tried using Advanced and had it connect to my home wifi in client mode but it doesn’t seem to know how to route it.
Another problem is that if I have it connected while the router it booting up it seems to hang.
hello hobbes,
I’m nowhere near as good as the guys here but I see if i can help. first off you have to know if the device driver loaded. since it’s usb you have the install the kmod firmware for your device and the the “usb” driver
from a ethernet connection to the router,
first find out the the make and chipset being used by installing “usbutils” from luci/system/software. then from a shell type “lsusb” to show the usb devices connected to the router
for example lets say you have the AR9271
goto luci/system/software -filter “9271”
you would load both the firmware and the usb driver from that search.
then from luci/network/wireless click “scan” on the new adapter and seeing if it is scanning local networks. if not reboot. and test again. if not you might need to delete /etc/config/wireless (bak it up first) and reboot and let openwrt rebuild /etc/config/wireless. repeat scan. fyi your comment of “seeming” not to route sounds like a guess.how ever way you are using it either as a client or an additional wireless access point will help here to help you solve further questions
hope this helps