I'm checking out a new TP-Link CPE-510 with the factory firmware and noticing that it only covers channels 36 to 48 and 149-165 (5180-5240 and 5745-5825 MHz)
The docs don't say anything about this gap. There is a "*" in all the docs that basically says "your mileage may vary by region".
Did I get a device coded for the wrong region? (I am in the continental US). Or maybe this is a side effect of DFS, which is locking out the whole UNC-2 band? Should AREDN unlock all the missing frequency channels as well as opening up the ham band?
I've been running my home system since forever on Ch 60. I switched to 161 and all is well. I get get a signal a couple blocks away in repeater mode.
I have a traditional ATT Pace gateway, it's good for channels 36-64 and 100-161 but defaults to 80Mhz channels (it can be set for 40 but not 20.) I have some oldish Dell laptops that cover only 36-64 and 100-153. I have a wifi scanner for my Pixel 3 that goes up all the way to 165, but I don't know if my phone supports it.
I ordered this device from Amazon and got V3.20 of the hardware, the next to most recent.
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CPE-510 doesn't cover UNC-2 channels?
Thu, 04/29/2021 - 23:55
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CPE-510 doesn't cover UNC-2 channels?
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"I'm checking out a new TP-Link CPE-510 with the factory firmware and noticing that it only covers channels 36 to 48 and 149-165 (5180-5240 and 5745-5825 MHz)"
Is 'factory firmware' the TP Link factory firmware or aredn-3.21.4.0-ath79-tplink_cpe510-v3-factory.bin ?
"The docs don't say anything about this gap. There is a "*" in all the docs that basically says "your mileage may vary by region". "
Is 'the docs' TP Link documentation or https://arednmesh.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ ?
"Should AREDN unlock all the missing frequency channels as well as opening up the ham band?"
No, AREDN firmware does not do everything in your query.
AREDN firmware does not 'unlock all the missing frequency channels'.
AREDN firmware 'opens up the ham band'.
With AREDN firmware you will not have access to non-ham frequencies.
"I ordered this device from Amazon and got V3.20 of the hardware, the next to most recent."
I am not following this 'V3.20' reference.
Are you indicating that you obtained a 'TP Link CPE-510 v3.20' and comparing TP-Link 'v3.20' to AREDN firmware releases '3.20.3.1' and 3.21.4.0' ?
The overall theme of your post leads me to suggest that you are interested in OpenWRT rather than AREDN.
Chuck
I meant "factory, as shipped from TP-Link". When I mentioned "V3.20 of the hardware", if you look at TP-Link's website and the AREDN SW versions there are versions of . I don't know what the hardware differences are but it's always good to know what you might be getting since Amazon doesn't usually say which HW version ships.
The "missing channels" are in the ham band where DFS is required. The shipped-frpm-TP-link ("civilian"?) SW does not cover the 5655 to 5740 part of the shared U-NII2 ham band. After installing AREDN I can see the pull down menu lets me set to any of the channels between 5655 and 5920. The CPE510 doesn't show up on my phone wifi scanner app presumably because it's in ad-hoc mode.
After reading between the lines in the manual, it looks like the way TP-Link handles DFS is to only possibly enable the missing channels when the device is used as an AP with "Auto" frequency selection. In repeater and client mode, though, the CPE510 will not connect to my Pace AP when the Pace is set to a DFS-required channel, you can't manually select the channel in those modes, and, yes, I waited 10+ minutes for DFS to make up its mind after rebooting the CPE510. The CPE510 civilian SW has no option to disable DFS or view its status. The SW web server's "Spectrum Analysis" feature only displays 5180-5240 and 5745-5825 MHz. Hope that helps.
The CPU510 lets you load firmware via the web management interface. Unfortunately reverting back to the "civilian" software fails:
I was hoping it would be easy to switch back and forth via the web interface. Trying to reinstall the civilian firmware via the dnsmasq tftp service nuked the LAN config, but I was able to recover to AREDN initial state by doing a factory reset. So I'm stuck with AREDN for now!