HaP AC Lite & 5Ghz Mesh - is it possible?

7 posts / 0 new

Mon, 09/30/2019 - 21:29

AA0Z

I purchased a bunch of Nanostation loco M5's and an HaP AC Lite. I was thinking the mesh would work on both 2Gzh and 5Ghz....nope...

I have all the Nanostations M5's talking to one another, but noticed when I just flashed the HaP, it will only talk with other 2Ghz stations on the mesh and reserves 5Ghz for local clients like my PC via WAP2.

Is there a setup where I can get the M5's talking to the HaP so if I do connect to the HaP via the wireless or wired ports, I can see the M5 nodes and services advertised through the HaP?

Can I flip the services? Mesh on the 5Ghz, local clients on the 2Ghz?

Mon, 09/30/2019 - 21:39

K6CCC

Not at this time

Nope. At thins time, the hAP only meshes on 2.4 GHz and uses 5.8 for WiFi (either as a client or an access point). There have been requests to either swap those or make it truly dual band AREDN mesh. You can connect the hAP via a DtD link (port 5 on the hAP) to one of the NSM5s and get it onto the mesh.

Mon, 09/30/2019 - 23:12

K9CQB

The hAP has 2 independent WiFi chipsets/radios

The reason the hAP-ac-lite or RB952Ui-5ac2nD can only do AREDNmesh on 2.4GHz and not on 5GHz is becuase the 2.4GHz chipset/radio is OpenWRT/AREDN compatible and just happens to be MIMO as well. However, the second WiFi radio is the 5GHz radio and it is an AC chipset (802.11ac), which is not compatible with OpenWRT/AREDN.

Most of the current Atheros chipsets that support 802.11n usually have good OpenWRT support for AREDN, but the chips that run 802.11ac currently don't.

The model names of MikroTik devices will usually give away their capabilities. Hence in it's model name RB952Ui-5ac2nD, the "5ac" means it has a 5GHz AC radio and the "2nD" means it has a 2.4GHz 802.11n radio with 'Dual chains' meaning 2x2 MIMO. By looking at the model I can see that the 2.4GHz portion of this router should do 2x2 MIMO mesh, but at a low power otherwise it would have "HP" following the 2 as in 2HPnD like with other nodes.

-Damon K9CQB

Mon, 09/30/2019 - 23:36

K6CCC

Thanks for that explanation.

Thu, 10/03/2019 - 09:55

KD9KCK

Maybe this should be

Maybe this should be clarified in the Supported Hardware Matrix as right now it appears like this device could work both 2.4ghz and 5.8ghz radios on the mesh. When it was just stated it can only connect to the mesh on the 2.4ghz and not the 5.8ghz

Thu, 10/03/2019 - 11:00

(Reply to #5) #6

K6CCC

It is there

Look at the notes at the bottom of the list. Item 7.

Thu, 10/03/2019 - 11:33

(Reply to #6) #7

KD9KCK

I can see the note. But why

I can see the note. But why is it green under 5ghz when that 5ghz can't actually be used with the mesh seems like that matrix just says what band the router supports normally and not about which band is supported by aredn on that device.

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HaP AC Lite & 5Ghz Mesh - is it possible?

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HaP AC Lite & 5Ghz Mesh - is it possible?