Wireless Access

Been configuring some building AP to act as portals - then using meshpoint to provide ethernet access to various sensors/monitoring devices that are just ouside or relatively short hop away.

In many location this works fine.... but we are pushing this to limits - are there specific optimizations I can do in mesh profile to favor low speed robustness over attempting to serve typicall wireless clients.   I am not beaconning client ssid's at the meshpoint - just using them for ethernet bridges.

Also there's no way for a portal to be a portal in both 5ghz and 2.4,

but can a meshpoint - be configured with a 5ghz mesh profile and an alternate 2.4ghz profile....     in attempting this it just seems to silenty ignore my reprovisioning request when I assing a group defined as such to a meshpoint - but perhaps there is a work-around - or something I'm missing?

running aos 8.2.2.0  with clusters

-Travis

In general, outside of configuring the 11a radio range (CLI right now in 8.x, sorry), so long as you leave the basic rates enabled on the mesh radio profile you should be fine (set power appropriately as well, max power for max range). And that is correct, mesh is either 5Ghz only (default) or 2.4Ghz, but a portal cannot be both, nor can the points. 

"configuring the 11a radio range"

is this maximum-distance in the radio profile?

ah - outdoor-mesh automatically use max - i have some "indoor ap" ie 215 acting as portals to AP275 meshpoints - 

should i be setting this value to match on portal/meshpoint?

As for setting  power limits in AOS8 - what is the best way to do this - I can set it in ARM profile - but that  appears to only be used if an AP needs to make an immediate change due to trouble seen.   Setting radio profile limits... seems I need to wait till next airmatch update get pushed out.

I can tell airmatch to freeze eirp at max - that appears to happen immediately...

then unfreeze it so airmatch can tune back power - if I set a  range vs just max - ie try not to use more power than necessary... ie be a good neighbor etc...

Yup, all good strategies. AP power generally needs to be higher over any distance where the FSPL attenuates the signal. Higher SNR = higher rates, so if the goal is maximum throughput, the higher SNR is needed. If the mesh link is sufficiently close that mesh throughput maximums are attained at lower power, or if the throughput requirements aren't that high, then you can lower power. That's a design and requirements descision for sure.

Airmatch should follow the max/min set forth in the radio profile. If you change it after the current solution has been in place, you would either need to wait for the next solution, or force a new airmatch solution to be implemented (which would be run across all Aps on that MM). Or like you noted, you can force a specific channel/power with ap freeze. 

Yes, if the distance is over 500m, you would need to set that distance in the maximum distance setting of that AP's 11a radio (which makes a good case as to why you would create a separate group for those APs so as not to impact the other APs that aren't doing mesh).