Strange behavior - getting 23dbm TX power on 2.4ghz when used for both repeater and LAN on slate

Technical Support for Routers
1

I have been using wavemon command line app to avoid going into Luci for wireless connection stats and noticed that in some conditions, the 2.4ghz radio was set to 23dbm on my slate… which, if I am not mistaken, is not supposed to be possible.

Normally I am repeating WAN via 2.4ghz and using only 5ghz for LAN. In this setup the max TX is 20dbm and changing the power in gl-inet web admin or Luci has a direct affect on the TX power of the repeater connection.

However, I noticied that when Slate is also hosting a 2.4ghz network as LAN whilst connected as repeater in 2.4ghz, Luci and Wavemon report 23dbm for Tx power as wlan-sta client.

Is it really possible then that by creating a 2.4ghz LAN you can connect at 23dbm with 2.4ghz repeater?

I think not, but if anyone know’s why or why is happening, I would be curious to find out.

2

You can set whatever value but it will be capped at the hardware preset value.

3

I guessed as much… thanks for the confirmation though @alzhao!

On a somewhat unrelated note: any chance that we can have more useful power settings reinstated in the gl-inet firmware?

I’m specifically thinking of 25mw (14db) which is an allowed level for channels > 149 in Europe.

Instead of scaling based on dbm (as is currently the case in the gl-inet web admin console power settings) it would make more sense to scale by mw. I have been learning about matching EIRP to boost signal strength recently and it would seem that the power in mw is the more useful baseline to get a useful scale of options (instead of dbm) - currently there is a huge difference between the ‘max’ and ’ high’ values - where ‘high’ is actually only 10% of power of ‘max’!

Honestly I think you guys may have oversimplified things by removing the granular options in previous firmware so I would be at least very grateful if you could reconsider this one option.

For extra info - if you are in europe, the only way to have full channel usage with gl-inet firmware currently is to use Australia or NewZealand region setting as you get to use channel 13 in 2.4ghz and you get to keep channels 149-161 in 5ghz. The caveat is that you are only allowed 25mw (14dbm) for channels 149-161 in europe but this setting is no longer accessible from your web admin console.

I’m currently staying somewhere with a 1-5-9-13 channel scheme and connecting to the nearest channel 13 AP ruined my config because I had been happily using channel 161 in 5ghz with a 00 (world) region setting.

I understand that certification is expensive and that your devices are primarily FTC certified (not ETSI).

However for your European users it is currently all compromise (or they will just be breaking the law unwittingly).

I understand that with openwrt you cannot have two different user-set regions simultaneously so if you would only reinstate the option to set the power to 25mw (14db) it would make 5gz more fun to use in Europe because your firmware does not fully support the current rules without a lot of hackery.

LuCi is of course available to make this change - but it is a total pain to use as it takes often a very long time to open each page. Not to mention that this is a regression as we were previously allowed to choose 25mw (14dbm) in previous firmwares.

Anyway - food for thought. Thanks again, I hope that you will consider it.

Also… have not seen anyone mention on forums yet but I want to wish you all the best in these trying times - you all have my support at least!

4

+1

The current testing firrmwares are even worse with Low, Medium, High and Max as your options!

5

I was actually referring to the ‘low medium high and Max’ settings - they are unfortunately not only in testing: they’re the only option available in current stable firmware if you have 3.1**

6

Regulations are making it difficult. But of course we will try to invest more.

7

Changing txpower from 17 to 18 does not make any difference. The reason we make it “low medium etc” is because of people are always confused and ask questions difficult to answer.

For example the max value are different for different models. We do not want to spent time on explaining why. Also for the question chromebook asked, why setting a value 23dbm does not work as expected. Some people will not listen to our explanation. Finally we believe it is better to hide these technical details.

Another example is Luci. When leaving luci there we are challenged of why it need to login again, and where there is no documentation about it, and why using it mess up the settings. So we will finally remove Luci from default firmware and you need to install by default.

8

This would be a catastrophe, in my opinion!

9

***** Redacted *****

10

In Mudi we do not have Luci installed. In other models there still are.

11

RE: Removing features because they confuse some people. Once again non-technical people messing with things they don’t know about, and the result is technical people lose the ability to be technical. As a technical person who loves to learn new things, I am sorry to hear this.

I have learned many things since I bought my GL-750S, and on this forum. Thanks.

1 Like
12

Life is always difficult.