Wireless Access

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is the place to be asking questions regarding issues with Aruba products, but they don't seem to have any support where contacting them is an option, and there isn't much in the knowledge base.

I bought two Aruba 175AC radios set up and they both have the latest firmware (6.2.0.0-3.2.0.1_36844), I have the Min and Max transmit power set to Max, and set the external antenna gain to 10 dbi for the 2.4 and 5 Ghz bands (I did set the Min transmit rates for 2.4 and 5 to 6 to disable 802.11b).  I've tried a factory reset several times and all other settings are default (less the wireless network name) and I still have a range on the radios of about 20 feet (about 1/3 of the Linksys wireless router I bought at Best Buy).  I thought the wireless range on these radios was supposed to be more impressive. 

Does anyone have any ideas on how to extend the wireless range on these radios, or am I better off with my $80 router?

Thanks,

D

When you bough the 175 did you buy the Antenas from Aruba or did you buy it on some random company?

I ask this becasue not all the Antenas are compatible with the ArubaAPs...if you buy AP175 from aruba and then buy the Antenas from a random buyer then you mostlikely get that kind of issue.

Are these instant APs?

Cheers

Carlos

And can you confirm that you installed the antennas in over/under configuration vs. side-by-side?

The Instant firmware you are using (6.2.0.0-3.2.0.1_36844) is not the latest version, the latest version for the IAP-175 is currently ArubaInstant_Orion_6.3.1.2-4.0.0.3_41784.

Configuring the antenna-gain will lower the overall transmit power (so it will be within the regulatory domain's Max EIRP). You can try lowering the antenna gain to get higher overall transmit power (but please note this might not be legal, so beware :)).

Arjan,

Sorry, I assumed it was the latest because when I got these APs, I went through the GUI and checked for an upgrade and there wasn't one available.  I just checked now and the new one is showing up, so I'll try upgrading now.  

When I did lower the gain down to 1, I  was able to get the signal strength up to the same level as my Linsys router.  I was hoping that these radios would be able to do much better than the wireless radio I have now.  Odd that lowering the gain increases the signal strength.  I don't know much about how these things work, but I kind of though increasing the dbi number would increase the range.  

Thanks,

D

I'm not sure which antennas those are; but I think they have about 3dBi of gain.

The reason you have to fill in the antenna gain is because of the Max EIRP for you country code. For 2.4GHz in most countries the Max EIRP is 20dBm, if you fill in 1dB of antenna gain the TX power on the radio will be 19dBm.

In terms of Max EIRP your linksys router and this IAP-175 are not much different. Only in the 5GHz-band the IAP-175 can give a lot more power. It can do up to 25dBm of transmit power in 5GHz. In most countries you can have up to 23dBm of transmit power in the non-DFS channels (36-48) and up to 30dBm in the DFS-channels (52 and higher).

You might want to have a look for different antennas if you want to get more range: http://www.arubanetworks.com/pdf/products/matrix-antennas.pdf

Deadeye,

Not only are those not Aruba antennas, but they are almost certainly both vertically polarized.

To achieve highest performance with MIMO systems, you should have 1 H-pol and 1 V-pol antenna.

We sell kits that include 1 of each.   You want to buy (1) ANT-2x2-2005 and (1) ANT-2xs2-5005.

The -2005 goes on the 2.4GHz radios (radio 1) and the -5005 goes on the 5GHz radios  (radio 0).

Note that the connectors for the radios are **above and below** one another.   Not on the same side of the AP.   If you look at the labels you'll see R0 and R1.   

If you use antennas with the same polarization, this will greatly limit your performance.

I'm not familiar with those configurations.  Here is a photo of one of the radios and their antennas:
http://i.imgur.com/Paw3uCW.jpg

I'm guessing that this would be the side-by-side configuration?

The antennas came with the Aruba APs, but I did buy them used from a company that was clearing out their equipment.

They are instant APs.

Thank you,

D