Wireless Access

I have a location where there is an auditorium for general meetings and the WiFI reception is not very good.  I have AP's on teh other side of the wall; but it appears that hte 5 Ghz signal is not coming through very good.

I thought about puttin ganohter AP-325 in that room; but, I do not want the signal to be strong outside that room.  I know with other places I worked, using other WiFi systems, we set the power settings on the A.P. down and that prevented the signal strength from reaching near by rooms. We are using version 8.3.0.3. with AP-325 and 7005 controllers.

My questions are:

1). Will changing the power lelvel for an AP from the AP-Group Level limit the signal strength for the AP/s in that group?

2).  How to set the power levels down for an AP?

      a.  I am thinking AP-Group Profiles: RF Management - 5 Ghz - Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) - General - 'MAx TX EIRP' and 'Min TX EIRP'.

3).  Has anyone ever tried this before?

Hi StavrosK,

Yes! Its even recommended to lower your TX power at any allmost every setup. Standard office recommendation:

2.4Ghz: min.6 - 9max. dBm (9dBm=8mW)

5Ghz  min.9 -15max.dBm (15dBm=30mW)

Sidenote: A access point is not the only tranmitting devices, clients are transmitting to on the same channel! When a device hear a active signal around -83dBm the client remain silent to avoid collisions and keep listening, and wait for the next transmit TXOP oppertunity. WiFi is always half-duplex like a walkie-talkie.

Airmatch (or ARM) will dynamic modulate the power levels between the min. and max. value based on RF calculations. 

And yes you can easly change it for all APs in de AP Group wizard  / (2.4 GHz radio profile an 5GHz radio profiles). 

EDIT: mkk answered

- If you are doing high density in an area (auditorium) I would only count on coverage from access points in that room, NOT from APs outside that room.  Rule #1 is to place access points in the room where users need them, otherwise their performance will be poor.

- If you place an access point in that room, you can avoid providing more coverage outside of that room by lowering the maximum power that the AP can transmit either through the radio profile (If you have an MM) or through the ARM max TX power (if you are not running an MM).  If you only want an APs RF to only be in that room, a maximum of 12 is what I would use in an open space.  The other side of a wall would see that RF poorly.

Do you have an MM in that network?