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Topic: Howto enable channel 12 and 13 on TP-Link WR-1043ND?

The content of this topic has been archived between 24 Mar 2018 and 30 Apr 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

Hello!

I'm using dd-wrt for many years but with my new vdsl-isp-connection I have to switch to OpenWRT.

I need vlan tagging 7 and 8 for my isp connection. But I also need the 13th wlan channel. With the latest stable release I can't select channel 12 or 13 via Luci even if I select Germany as region domain.

I read via google that I have to build OpenWRT again and force the region domain. I also looked into the wiki and loaded the latest trunk via svn. But all these option massivly confusing me...

Is there a small guide for the 1043ND or can I load the latest generic trunk and install Luci?

I just need the wlan channels 12 and 13 and OpenVPN in the OpenWRT binary.

Thanks for any help!

Either you compile the firmware with ATH_USER_REGD on (the official compiles don’t enable it because Atheros asks for this) so the driver chooses the country you want and overrides the EEPROM.

Or, 2, you get a ‹ regulatory.bin › that maps the regulatory settings that your Behörde allows to the country that the EEPROM wants (e.g. US with DE limits). This option just requires you to find this hacked file and to drop it in the right place on the boxes file system. No building necessary. But it’s a bit ugly. The wiki has more.

What does « iw reg get » say? When you look at dmesg you can see that EEPROM has the final say and « iw reg set DE » doesn’t have an effect.

I recently followed a guide I found and it explained how to modify regulatory.bin so that the world (00) and US restrictions were minimum which results in channels 12 and 13 being available when selecting a country that allows them.

I wish I had known it was as simple as editing .config to enable CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD.

towolf wrote:

Either you compile the firmware with ATH_USER_REGD on (the official compiles don’t enable it because Atheros asks for this) so the driver chooses the country you want and overrides the EEPROM.

Or, 2, you get a ‹ regulatory.bin › that maps the regulatory settings that your Behörde allows to the country that the EEPROM wants (e.g. US with DE limits). This option just requires you to find this hacked file and to drop it in the right place on the boxes file system. No building necessary. But it’s a bit ugly. The wiki has more.

What does « iw reg get » say? When you look at dmesg you can see that EEPROM has the final say and « iw reg set DE » doesn’t have an effect.

How can I enable ATH_USER_REGD and what's the standard firmware settings for compiling?

root@OpenWrt:~# iw reg get
country US:
        (2402 - 2472 @ 40), (3, 27)
        (5170 - 5250 @ 40), (3, 17)
        (5250 - 5330 @ 40), (3, 20), DFS
        (5490 - 5600 @ 40), (3, 20), DFS
        (5650 - 5710 @ 40), (3, 20), DFS
        (5735 - 5835 @ 40), (3, 30)
root@OpenWrt:~# iw reg set DE
root@OpenWrt:~# iw reg get
country DE:
        (2400 - 2483 @ 40), (N/A, 20)
        (5150 - 5250 @ 40), (N/A, 20), NO-OUTDOOR
        (5250 - 5350 @ 40), (N/A, 20), NO-OUTDOOR, DFS
        (5470 - 5725 @ 40), (N/A, 26), DFS

If I enable DE reg domain I still can choose between channel 1 - 11. That seems to be very complicated. sad

It is complicated but it's also reasonable for OpenWRT to work this way and leave it to the user to sort it out.

The switch to US regulations occurs during boot as a result of TP-Link leaving it as US in the EEPROM regardless of where it is sold. The US strict restrictions cannot be revoked once they are set so after boot you can try change to DE but it won't allow it because it's already switched to strict US regulations.

What manufacturers are supposed to do is set the EEPROM for the country the item will be sold so for you in Germany they should set it to DE and then on bootup it switches to DE and you can use it happily.

(Last edited by j8soot on 29 Mar 2012, 18:24)

Ok, but can you show me a guide how to activate the 13th channel in the "make menuconfig"? I read here http://smorgasbord.gavagai.nl/2010/09/w … to-fix-it/ that it can be activated in the config menu... But I can't find it.

It should be possible to make a command that run "iw reg set DE" at the beginning of the boot.

I also have some atheros devices and have the same problem. When you set to Germany (DE) the available TX power get down to legal 20 in germany but you cant choose channel 12 and 13. I remember that i had that working like that before a longer time. I just set it into the configuration file and it just worked. Have to check what "iw reg get" have told to that time.

What you could also do is to change this in the kernel sources and build then the firmware. Then it stay US but you can set up what you want.

Here is what you need for VLAN 7 and 8 to use on "Telekom VDSL Entertain":
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=29088

(Last edited by Lubomir on 29 Mar 2012, 21:31)

DerUltrazauberer wrote:

Ok, but can you show me a guide how to activate the 13th channel in the "make menuconfig"? I read here http://smorgasbord.gavagai.nl/2010/09/w … to-fix-it/ that it can be activated in the config menu... But I can't find it.

Instead of typing "make menuconfig" you can do "nano -w .config" and search for "# CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD is not set" and change it to "CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD=y".

DerUltrazauberer wrote:

Ok, but can you show me a guide how to activate the 13th channel in the "make menuconfig"?

Hi, you can do:

echo "CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD=y" >> .config

or open some editor and look for "regd".

In openwrt it is out from menuconfig (or I didn't found it yet). Regards.

(Last edited by almursi on 30 Mar 2012, 17:36)

Thanks for that information! I will try this. Is there something to do additionally in the menuconfig or I just have to load the right profile for the 1043ND with the OpenVPN package?

Standard parts like pppoe should already activated, right? Yesterday I looked in every menu and it was a huge list of additional packages...

almursi wrote:

Hi, you can do:

echo "CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD=y" > .config

really sure about this? i think that it will overwrite the entire .config file XD

Yeah, it should be

echo "CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD=y" >> .config

But it is useful to know which file should be modified...

DerUltrazauberer wrote:

Yeah, it should be

echo "CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD=y" >> .config

But it is useful to know which file should be modified...

Trick 17 for you: In menuconfig press « / » and type « REGD ». This will search all the menu items and display the path to reach it.

ATH_USER_REGD is a little buried. Editing .config is not recommended because some options have dependencies on other options. In menuconfig this is sorted out.

PPPoE is covered by the PPP daemon. If you want to change the default IP you can do that in Image config. If you want to seed some files like the ones under /etc/config you e.g. can create a folder « ./files/etc/config » on the root of the build tree. If you figure out what you want you never have to do anything else after flashing.

(Last edited by towolf on 30 Mar 2012, 15:08)

I think the only way to enable channels, that are allowed in EU and JAPAN but in the USA is to edit the ART-partition.

The question is, why such devices are being sold in the EU / JAPAN...

towolf wrote:
DerUltrazauberer wrote:

Yeah, it should be

echo "CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD=y" >> .config

But it is useful to know which file should be modified...

Trick 17 for you: In menuconfig press « / » and type « REGD ». This will search all the menu items and display the path to reach it.

ATH_USER_REGD is a little buried. Editing .config is not recommended because some options have dependencies on other options. In menuconfig this is sorted out..

Great tip. Thanks.

Where can I read tricks 1 to 16 and beyond?

towolf wrote:
DerUltrazauberer wrote:

Yeah, it should be

echo "CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD=y" >> .config

But it is useful to know which file should be modified...

Trick 17 for you: In menuconfig press « / » and type « REGD ». This will search all the menu items and display the path to reach it.

ATH_USER_REGD is a little buried. Editing .config is not recommended because some options have dependencies on other options. In menuconfig this is sorted out.

PPPoE is covered by the PPP daemon. If you want to change the default IP you can do that in Image config. If you want to seed some files like the ones under /etc/config you e.g. can create a folder « ./files/etc/config » on the root of the build tree. If you figure out what you want you never have to do anything else after flashing.

Thanks! Very useful tips! Now I can compile my prefered version. If I should not edit the .config file, how can I activate it in the most common way?

towolf wrote:

Trick 17 for you: In menuconfig press « / » and type « REGD ». This will search all the menu items and display the path to reach it.

Hi, very useful -many years using menuconfig and did not know smile -. However, use of one " > " was due I took a step prior to defconfig within a script (and then add target & profile is better). Is something going to comment, usually after updating I find that my config is gone, so if you have a script that recreates important options not spare. Regards.

I successfully compiled a firmware. Via SSH I run 'iw reg set DE' and then I was able to chose channel 13. I will hope this will be saved permanently because changing the REG-domain in the GUI doesn't have any effect.

But there is another issue: I changed the channel to 13 and enabled 40Mhz bandwidth (lower channel) but I just get 20Mhz bandwidth with 130mpbs. How can I enable the full bandwidth? My laptop uses an Intel WiFi Link 5300 AGN card.

Here are some pics.
http://www.abload.de/img/openwrt_wlan_3rdfco.png
http://www.abload.de/img/openwrt_wlan_4rxfvz.png

DerUltrazauberer wrote:

I successfully compiled a firmware. Via SSH I run 'iw reg set DE' and then I was able to chose channel 13. I will hope this will be saved permanently because changing the REG-domain in the GUI doesn't have any effect.

But there is another issue: I changed the channel to 13 and enabled 40Mhz bandwidth (lower channel) but I just get 20Mhz bandwidth with 130mpbs. How can I enable the full bandwidth? My laptop uses an Intel WiFi Link 5300 AGN card.

On the shell, can you run « wifi » and then look at the output. It might refuse to establish a 40MHz channel because it detected another network nearby. This is the 802.11 policy. Maybe even regulatory as well, not sure.

If you want to force HT40 you can add « option noscan 1 » to /etc/config/wireless (or « uci set wireless.radio0.noscan=1; uci commit » if you can’t operate vi.)

In that file it should also have « option country DE » now, which is where regulatory territory is set in Openwrt.

(Last edited by towolf on 31 Mar 2012, 23:55)

Thanks the hints. I will try this. Yesterday I configured the wlan and applied and saved the settings. After reboot the wlan won't came up. Have I to add a script line for autostart?

DerUltrazauberer wrote:

Thanks the hints. I will try this. Yesterday I configured the wlan and applied and saved the settings. After reboot the wlan won't came up. Have I to add a script line for autostart?

No you shouldn't need to do anything for it to autostart.

I built trunk for the WR1043ND and can confirm there is an issue with wlan not starting automatically after a reboot.

I changed the wireless channel from 13 to 1 in and wlan now works automatically at boot.

Until today I was using a modified regulatory.bin to work around the channel restrictions but this faulty build is using CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD=y instead.

I am not sure how to troubleshoot the problem.

Very bad news. Is there a working workaround for this problem? Starts the wlan with the modified regulatory.bin? If it's working, can you send me the file?

I am not so good at troubleshooting with OpenWRT yet so I am unsure how to proceed. I will try tonight with the modified regulatory.bin and if it doesn't work I'll build again without CONFIG_ATH_USER_REGD and test regulatory.bin with the fresh build.

If you would like the modified file to test it just now I can email it.