Transmit Power capped at 23dBm

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi all,

Enthusiast here, who's still very green on OpenWRT.
Trying to improve my WiFi's range on my Linksys WRT3200ACM running the latest version of OpenWRT.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to be able to set the Transmit Power to higher than 30dBm, even though the radios do support it (according to the spec sheet). I tried setting it to a different country (US) and I'm still capped to 23dBm on the 5GHz radio.

The 2.4 seems to be capped at 20dBm which checks out with the spec sheet.

Any ideas and tips on improving range and reliability on both the 2.4 and 5GHz networks would be much appreciated.

Thanks :slight_smile:

Screenshots:

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2

(Ab-)Using regulatory domains other than the one you are residing in is illegal in (almost) all jurisdictions and not only fined (mid 5-figures into the 6-figure range) but also detrimetal to yourself and your neighbours (as it messes up the client side regulatory scanning).

You will not get advice for illegal activity here.

3 Likes
3

Ch44 in France or Guernsey is permitted to transmit at 23 dBm. Ok?

4

This device is very picky about the country configuration. Please execute 'iw reg get' and post the results here to assess the current configuration.

1 Like
6

That signal strength box is fairly useless
Start with setting tx power.
https://w1.fi/cgit/hostap/tree/hostapd/hostapd.conf#n240

option min_tx_power '21'
7

Hi, thanks for the insight.

Screenshot:

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8

I was able to set the maximum transmit power to 30 dBm with the US country code on channels 149, 153, 157 and 161.

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9

You have to be in US to do this, just in case. ETSI has 26dBm in ch 100@160

10

Set channel to 100 (160 or 80) 116 (80) and youll get 26dBm

1 Like