Disable an antenna?

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hello

Is there a software setting to disable an antenna? One of the three antenna on my wr1043nd router is broken.
Or will the radio use the other two antennas automatically and I shouldn't even bother?

thanks

2

If your device is MIMO, this is likely not possible. The algorithm will compensate for the loss in gain.

Likely shouldn't bother.

3

yes it is a 2 streams, 3 antennas 802.11n device (300 Mbps) device

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4

Use

option txantenna <"all"|bitmask>
option rxantenna <"all"|bitmask>

which will translate to

iw phy phy0 set antenna all or iw phy phy0 set antenna <tx bitmap> <rx bitmap>

Use iw phy to discover available antennas:

root@OpenWrt:~# iw phy | grep "Available Antennas"
	Available Antennas: TX 0x7 RX 0x7
  • 0x3 to disable the first port (011b)
  • 0x5 to disable the second port (101b)
  • 0x6 to disable the third port (110b)
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5

thanks
must the interface be down to change these settings?

According to the wiki (https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/basic) I also have to disable diversity is it still valid?

6

The diversity remark refers to very old broadcom drivers, you can ignore it.

Not sure if antenna settings can be made effective without a radio restart, in doubt just call /sbin/wifi

1 Like
7

thanks (10 chars)