Manual:Wireless Advanced Channels

Applies to RouterOS: v6

Overview

Note: This article describes features not yet available to general public. It's expected to be released in RouterOS v6

Advanced Channels feature provides extended opportunities in wireless interface configuration:

• scan-list that covers multiple bands and channel widths;
• non-standard channel center frequencies (specified with KHz granularity) for hardware that allows that;
• non-standard channel widths (specified with KHz granularity) for hardware that allows that.

Configuring Advanced Channels

Advanced Channels are configured in interface wireless channels menu. This menu contains ordered list of user-defined channels that can be grouped by means of list property. Channels have the following properties:

• name - name by which this channel can be referred to. If name is not specified when adding channel, it will be automatically generated from channel frequency and width;
• list - name of list this channel is part of. Lists can be used to group channels;
• frequency - channel center frequency in MHz, allowing to specify fractional MHz part, e.g. 5181.5;
• width - channel width in MHz, allowing to specify fractional MHz part, e.g. 14.5;
• band - defines default set of data rates when using this channel;
• extension-channel - specifies placement of 11n extension channel.

Using Advanced Channels

In order to use Advanced Channels in wireless interface configuration, several interface settings accept channel names or list names as arguments. It is possible to configure interface with channel that interface does not support. In this case interface will not become operational. It is sole responsibility of administrator to configure channels in proper way.

frequency

To use particular Advanced Channel for wireless interface (applies to modes that make use of interface frequency setting) specify channel name in interface frequency setting. For example, to configure interface to operate with center frequency 5500MHz and channel width 14MHz, use the following commands:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add name=MYCHAN frequency=5500 width=14 band=5ghz-onlyn
 list=MYLIST
[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> set wlan1 frequency=MYCHAN 

scan-list

Interface scan-list is used in multiple modes that either gather information for list of channels (like interactive scan command) or selects channel to work on (like any of station modes or AP modes performing DFS). Interface scan-list can be configured with comma-separated list of the following items:

• default - default .11 channel list for given country and interface band and channel width;
• numeric frequency ranges in MHz;
• Advanced Channel, referred to by name;
• Advanced Channel list, referred to by list name.

For example, to configure interface to scan 5180MHz, 5200MHz and 5220MHz at first using channel width 20MHz and then using channel width 10MHz, the following commands can be issued:

[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5180 width=20 band=5ghz-a list=20MHz-list
[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5200 width=20 band=5ghz-a list=20MHz-list
[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5220 width=20 band=5ghz-a list=20MHz-list
[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5180 width=10 band=5ghz-a list=10MHz-list
[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5200 width=10 band=5ghz-a list=10MHz-list
[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> channels add frequency=5220 width=10 band=5ghz-a list=10MHz-list
[admin@MikroTik] /interface wireless> set wlan1 scan-list=20MHz-list,10MHz-list

Hardware support

Non standard center frequency and width channels can only be used with interfaces that support it.

Currently only Atheros AR92xx based chips support non-standard center frequencies and widths with the following ranges:

• center frequency range: 2200MHz-2500MHz with step 0.5MHz (500KHz), width range: 2.5MHz-30MHz width step 0.5MHz (500KHz);
• center frequency range: 4800MHz-6100MHz with step 0.5MHz (500KHz), width range: 2.5MHz-30MHz width step 0.5MHz (500KHz);