topic Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10? in Aerohive Migrated Content

How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

ewejin_yeap — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 12:35:38 GMT

I'm trying to lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 but it could only go as low as 10.

My settings for Wifi0 are

Supported Radio Modes: g/n

Maximum Transmit Power: 10 dBm

Transmission Power Floor: 5 dBm

Transmission Power Max Drop: 5 dBm

Maximum Number of Clients: 100

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

samantha_lynn — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 00:21:40 GMT

Thank you for those details, I replicated your setup in our lab with an AP250 and I was able to get the power to 5dBm. Would you be able to add me as an external user to your HiveManager account with the email slynn@aerohive.com so I can take a look at your configuration and make sure I've matched everything properly?

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

ewejin_yeap — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 09:26:13 GMT

I only have Operator access as the this HM is being managed by our partner. I will try to get your login added to the particular site.

Please be careful. Do not modify or apply anything. I've had instances where applying settings to AP's caused the AP's to not be able to check in. You'll notice some system core dumps in the logs.

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

samantha_lynn — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 21:18:14 GMT

Of course, no changes will be made without express, prior approval. Thank you for working on getting me access. Please also let me know the Organization Name found in Global Settings> Account Details, so I can be sure to look at the correct VHM instance.

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

ewejin_yeap — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 13:27:24 GMT

I've been told that you have been added as an operator. Let me know if you've managed to get in.

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

samantha_lynn — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 00:03:47 GMT

Thank you for letting me know. Would you be able to also let me know the Organization Name found in Global Settings> Account Details, so I can be sure to look at the correct VHM instance?

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

AnonymousM — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 16:25:54 GMT

Hi, What is the answer! Is it via Supplemental CLI?

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

ewejin_yeap — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 16:31:11 GMT

@Sam Pirok I thought I replied but forgot to press send. Anyway, it's FAVE ASIA. You should only be seeing one VHM instance, I think.

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

samantha_lynn — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 21:19:30 GMT

@Jason Hills , we haven't quite gotten to the answer yet. I can tell you that I was able to set an AP250 to 5dBm and then 1dBm in my lab without issue. My next step is to take a look at @Ewe Jin Yeap 's HiveManager to see if there are any differences between his instance and my lab that would explain the different results.

Ewe, thank you for the organization name. I will take a look now and update you in a few minutes.

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

samantha_lynn — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 21:25:59 GMT

@Ewe Jin Yeap , I see that you have your radio profiles set to have 10dBm as the max, and you have the APs set to Auto power in the device specific settings. This allows the APs to choose their own power level based on background scans, within the parameters you set in the Radio profile. If you would like to set the AP power to something other than 10, please go to Monitor> Check the box next to the AP(s) you would like to adjust> Click on the note pad icon next to ADD at the top of the page to edit the device(s)> Interface Settings (left hand side menu)> Wifi0 tab> Set the Transmission Power to "Manual" and then set the power to what you would like the AP to use. You would want to push out a delta configuration to the APs, which will not reboot the AP but will apply these changes for you. Could you let me know if that works for you?

@Jason Hills , could you also navigate to the same place and let me know if you are using Auto or Manual power? If you are using Manual power and the APs are still not taking your power setting, could you add me as an external user to your HiveManager with the email Slynn@aerohive.com and let me know your organization name?

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

AnonymousM — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 03:49:08 GMT

@Sam Pirok Sorry Sam, I should have been clearer - my issue is the Max Power Cap can only be a min of 10dBm. Is it possible to set this to a power less than 10dBm in the Radio Profile. Presume that it can be done via Supplemental CLI?

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

samantha_lynn — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 05:02:36 GMT

My apologies, I misunderstood the question. I had to check on the logic behind that limitation for you, and it's an ACSP limitation, it needs to have at least 10 (half the available power) set for a maximum power option. The other power settings I mentioned help us fine tune that closer to the power settings you would like to see.

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

ewejin_yeap — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 09:26:48 GMT

@Sam Pirok So are you effectively saying that, if I want it to be auto, then it cannot go any lower than 10dBm? That's slightly annoying, having to manage the AP's individually where that's concerned. 

In any case, given the previous answers I need clarification on the following:

If I change it to manual, does it mean that, Maximum Transmit Power, Transmission Power Floor, Transmission Power Max Drop no longer have any effect?
Can I turn off Background Scan - since I presume the main purpose of this feature is to determine auto power settings.
With Delta syncs, what is the kind of disruption I can expect on active users?

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

samantha_lynn — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 22:06:58 GMT

Not quite, I'm saying if you want the power to be auto then the lowest max power we can set is 10. That does not mean the AP can't use a power level lower than 10 when using auto power, it just means that the max the AP could choose to broadcast can't be lower than 10. Auto power settings mean giving the AP a range to choose from, and the range can't start any lower than 10dBm.

To answer your other questions:

Correct, the manual power setting will override the auto power settings in the Radio Profile.
You can turn off background scanning, but I wouldn't recommend it. It does more than adjust the power and channel settings if those are set to auto, it also populates quite a bit of data in the buffered logs and GUI reports.
Delta updates won't interrupt users at all. The AP won't reboot or stop passing traffic so the users will not be interrupted.

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

w1f1n00b — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 23:33:56 GMT

Unfortunately in my experience when using 5GHz the AP will almost always run at the max power when in auto mode, so it would be nice to have the “auto” option at a lower max power. Any idea if this has been talked about?

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

Tomasz — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 18:17:24 GMT

Hi John,

Radio Profile for either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz allow you to specify maximum transmit power that is available for ACSP for selection.

Is that what you’re looking for?

Hope that helps,

Tomasz

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

w1f1n00b — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 20:35:16 GMT

@Tomasz I’m wanting to know why 10 is the lowest max power that can be selected? What if I want the Radio to be in “auto” but want the max power to be 6 or 8? Why the seemingly arbitrary limit?

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

Tomasz — Sat, 25 Jul 2020 00:00:41 GMT

Hi John,

Franky speaking I don’t know either why the max TxP lower limit is set to 10 (and why the minimum TxP floor is 2 at least and not 0). It can be some arbitrary OS limitation or ACSP protocol caveat. Perhaps it will be changed upon requests in the future.

If I had to justify this from a presales standpoint, I’d say we either rely on our predictive modelling and adjust powers manually (so we can go to below without issue) or we rely on the protocol that will start from some power level and go down and try on each iteration with an adjustment not greater than TxP Max Drop. But in case of any issue it is still able to go a bit higher (up to 10) than we’d like to (e.g. 8).

Summon @Ash Finch.

Cheers,

Tomasz

Re: How do I lower the Wifi0 radio power on the AP250 to lower than 10?

Ash_Finch — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 16:37:31 GMT

Hi guys,

Unfortunately I don’t know why those boundary values are set as such either, but I do agree being able to go lower than 10 would be useful in certain deployments. I did bring it up with an Extreme SE a while ago, but not quite sure where it got to in the feature request pile!

In addition, personally I think having the EIRP rather than an arbitrary value would be more useful as with different APs you’ve got different gains, so if you set them all as 12 for example, one AP model would be broadcasting “louder” than another. Additionally having this would make it easier to monitor in respect to regulatory power levels.