Equipment Support > Hardware By Brand > Buffalo Tech > [Wireless] Two Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 with Tomato v 1.27

[Wireless] Two Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 with Tomato v 1.27

Since your thread at DD-WRT indicates that you set the power level to 251 mW while hooked to the external amplifier, there is about a 108% chance that you have fried the external amps. They can only tolerate a maximum input of 100 mW. The Buffalo HP radio set to 251 mW is actually transmitting 720 mW. I have used external amps with these radios and you need to set the TX power to a range of 1 - 4 mW so you don't over drive the external amp.

For future reference, the proper way to adjust the power of any radio transmitter system is to start with the lowest possible setting. Increase the power a little at a time to the point that the receiving radio can no longer see an improvement in signal strength.

The external amp also has a built in receive pre-amp, as does the radio. Running both will totally fuck up your signal. If the amps were not already fried, then that would also be preventing a functional link. You need to turn off the RX amp in the Tomato GUI. The TX amp cannot be turned off with software, so Tomato should remove the TX control field. It does nothing.

Before you spend any more money on new amplifiers, you should be aware that this radio / amplifier combination has been obsoleted by a much higher performance and more functional type of radio. What you have now is a half fried cluster fuck that will likely never work properly, unless half of it is replaced. If you want to fix it properly once and for all, get two of these and be done...

»store.wisp-router.com/itemdesc.a···&eq=&Tp=

They have an integrated antenna and are powered over the network cable. This eliminates your antenna cable loss, which is your biggest single problem. With these radios you will no longer need your external antennas or amplifiers.

Edit - Set your ACK value to the proper distance. Setting a value for further than the actual distance will diminish your bandwidth proportionally.

I don't disagree with you. I guess I was getting frustrated after so much money/time wasted and decided to bump things a bit. It's very possible some of the equipment now has issues (fried amps on the Buffalo or the external amps).

Now as far as your suggestion I actually been looking at these devices recently. Looks like these also run dd-wrt firmware but not tomato? Why would I need two of these? Point A is the store, I need a router there (to connect to the DSL modem, there's a couple PC's here using ethernet connections and need wireless access available). The Buffalo there appears to be working ok but even if it's not I have the original router that was there available (an old dlink wireless G router, I think DIR-605 . I will need to connect the Engenius device at Point B to a power outlet, I cannot use ethernet there is nothing there. I'm assuming these come with a regular AC/DC power adapter? The idea here is to bring wireless Internet access to Point B. I guess I would setup the one or two Engenius devices using WDS? Please give me an overview of what my setup should look like if you can and why you envision two Engenius devices. Appreciate your help on this and the common sense. I sure hope this does the trick, I'm already at a huge loss but at least I picked up allot of good new knowledge (tomato, dd-wrt, blah blah).

-Manny

1 - Can you provide a link to the specifications of your antennas? I want to know the gain and radiation pattern.

Here it is. Same antenna at both ends. I believe these are directional antennas and pretty decent overall. Doesn't look like the site gives much info:

»www.cptechusa.com/cpt/index.php?···Itemid=1

2 - What is the physical layout of the gear you have now ?

Point A: Small store. DSL modem setup in bridge mode connects to the buffalo, from the buffalo a very short wire goes from the buffalo to the external 1 watt amp and from the amp there is a longer wire that goes to the antenna. I'm using the wires that came with these devices. The antenna is mounted vertically on a plastic overhead (it's a giant cigarette holder) in the counter/cash register area. In this are there is a small LCD monitor and a small form factor computer. Behind the register there is a window, in front of the register across there are several large refrigerators that store sodas. On top of these refrigerators lie one CRT TV along with some security camera equipment, a LCD TV and a Dish received.

How long, and what type of antenna cable connects the radio to the amp, and the amp to the antenna?

I'm using the original cables that came with the amp and the antenna. The amp cable is less than 1 foot and the antenna cable let’s say 3 feet maybe.

3 - How high above ground are each of the antennas?

At Point A, the buffalo router sits behind the PC's LCD monitor at the cash register area because this is where a few Ethernet cables for PC's come in. The antenna sits around 5 feet from the ground. At Point B the antenna sits near a small window (this window does not Point A, there are no windows facing Point A) about 6 feet above the ground. At Point A (the basement) I have multiple places where I can place the equipment. Also outside of Point A in the yard this is a storage area composed of plywood and a steel door where I can also mount equipment inside and possibly even outside of it. This weekend I tried to move the equipment from the basement (buffalo, amp, and antenna) and mount it inside but the signal shown by Tomato was actually worse. By the way it looks like this is the buffalo that has the fried amp or the external amp is fried on this thing because this one never connects to Point A using WDS but the buffalo at Point A shows a connection to Point B. I have a feeling using the Engenius with the internal antennas alone might work even better since we are avoiding the additional signal loss; I guess the only challenge will be finding the best placement.

At Point A (the store) I need to have wireless internet access and PC's connected to the Ethernet ports of the router. At Point B (the basement) there is nothing here and I need to be able to either deliver wireless internet access to a laptop or connect the laptop to the Engenius using an Ethernet cable. Either option will be fine. At this location the laptop has built in wireless and I also have an external USB Hawking high gain wireless G adapter(uses the Atheros chipset) with a dish antenna which does a very good job of picking up far away signals.

Appreciate all the help. I think I saw one of these Engenis devices locally and I might try to pick one up today so I can start playing with it and plan it out. If necessary I will get another one later but since we are going to use WDS shouldn't we avoid using two of them?

-Manny

I was not able to find the Engenius locally (they had an older model which didn't appear to have any amp) but I did order one yesterday and I will probably order another one. I am going to test all the existing equipment as you suggest but I like the idea with the Engenius of being able to use the 5 Mhz wide channels which I feel will help my situation in many ways (avoid interference from other wireless networks in the area, etc). So I think I want to go this route. Now if I just put one in place will the Buffalo router support the 5 MHZ band to communicate with the Engenius bridge? If not then I guess my alternative would be to run a network cable at the store from the Buffalo and then install an Engenius bridge there in the best spot I can find (probably above the refrigerators close to the window (right now the buffalo with the ext antenna sits across from this area). And then i'm assuming I might possibly need another Engenius bridge either at the basement (at Point B) or in the outside wooden shed. What do you think? I rather go for the 5 MHZ band and have a more solid and more reliable link. Also for my future reference can you use these Engenius bridges with any wireless router or does the wireless router you are using it with need to support WDS/Bridging? Reason why I ask is that I see myself using these bridges in the future to solve coverage issues rather than spending the money on antennas/external amps. Thanks for you help.

Thanks again for all the info. I have received one Enginius unit yesterday and should have the second one by Monday or this weekend. I plan to setup one tonight. Here is how I plan to set it up. At the store I will use the existing buffalo router which appears to be working fine. I will remove both the external antenna and the external amp. I will connect a network cable from the buffalo to the POE injector and then use another network cable to conenct the injector to the bridge. At the basement I will remove the existing buffalo and use the Enginius only.

What mode should I use for the Buffalo and the two bridges? On the Enginius I am assuming that I can create a custom SSID for each unit such as Bridge1, Bridge2. What general settings do you recommend for the Buffalo/Enginius device for my setup? I'm assuming DHCP will only be turned on the Buffalo, all other devices will pull DHCP from the buffalo. At point B (the basement) I will be installing the second enginius device either inside the basement, outside in the shed or somewhere outside (I guess whatever I find more convenient that gives me a solid connection). The laptop at this location will use wireless to connect to the Enginius device correct? At point B I do not have any network equipment at all (no router, switch, etc). Can I simply run a network cable from the POE injector to the Enginius bridge and then connect the power adapter to the POE injector, will this power it? Appreciate all the help I will certainly update the thread with my results which I hope will be good

reply to usanetworks
I had to go out of town unexpectedly, and just got back home. Let me soak up some beer, and I'll edit this post with all the answers.

reply to usanetworks

I only have one laptop at the basement can I hard wire that to the Enginius unit that I am going to put there if I don't want to use a Buffalo there? I don't necessarily need wireless access there. As far as the distance setting on the Enginius devices (ACK timing I think they call it) the two devices will be less than 500 feet from each other do I specify 1 km or what value should I use there on both devices?

I already installed one bridge yesterday and I think the location where I put it is going to be good. Now I just have to find the best spot at the basement or put it somewhere outside and then use the Buffalo. I just received the other unit so I am heading to the site for setup today. Thanks for the help.

-Manny

Got you. You recommend using 10MHZ bandwidth or 5? I'll keep you posted from the location. I am feeling good about these units so far. At the store I am going to leave the external antenna but remove the external amp. I'll adjust the setting for the Buffalo amp. This way they get good wireless coverage at the store which is very small but it also has a evil basement with allot of metal and a small hidden office where wireless is useful sometimes. Thanks.

Ok I got it all setup yesterday and working but I think I need some further tweaking to make some improvements. I am using the following settings for both devices:

Data Rate: 6Mbps
Country: New Zealand
Transmit Power: 28 DBM
Protection Mode: Disabled
WMM: Disabled
Channel Bandwidth: 10 MHZ (tried 5 and 20 but 10 seems to work best overall)
Distance: 1 KM
Wireless Mode: G only
Wireless Channel: 13 (I don't think I really notice any difference using another channel but I figure this one is probably the clearest since it's probably not use by anything in the area).
Spanning Tree: Off (I got the impression turning it off was a good thing).

I installed the bridge at the basement right next to the external antenna that I was using before. At first I tried using the external antenna but it appears to offer the same results so I removed the antenna and am just using the internal antenna. The bridge is about 6 feet from the floor mounted against a wall near a small window that faces the side of the house. During the day while the store is open I am seeing around -78 DBM for the WDS connection status being reported at both ends, once the store closes (steel doors come down all around the windows) I think it goes to around -88 DBM or so. The link appears to still work ok but I think I saw a little bit of packet loss (when I ping from the laptop at the basement to the Buffalo router at the store). I think I saw this after the store was closed but the connection was still working. I then left and when I got home I saw that the connection was down. Today I notice the connection is up and all is well, not sure what caused the connection to go down I am going to look into further. Today after I turned off the "spanning tree" setting it appears that the link improved a few DB. Let me know what else you might recommend to improve things on two bridges and any changes I should make on my Buffalo running tomato. Right now I removed the external amp from it but i'm still using the external antenna with it for Wireless at the store. Here are some of the settings that i'm using on the Buffalo if you see anything that should be changed:

Internal amp: 25mw
Wireless Mode: Access Point
Spanning Tree: off
Mode: Gateway (the other option is router)
RIP v1/v2: disabled
Under Firewall
NAT Loopback: forward only
SYN Cookies: unchecked
Allow Multicast: unchecked
UPNP: enabled
NAT PMP: unchecked

Thanks for all the help.

-Manny

For the Engenius bridge, 5 Mhz channels will provide a stronger link, even if it is not immediately apparent from your testing. I was expecting to see more signal strength than what you are getting. Under the circumstances you will have better average bandwidth delivery if you set the link rate to auto instead of a fixed value. Channel one will theoretically perform better than channel 13 just because it is lower in frequency. You might want to do some site surveys ( in 20 Mhz mode ) to see which of the lower channels have the least interference. These radios typically do not perform very well at Full Power. I find that 24 dBm is about the max I can push them for a good clean data stream. Since you are so starved for signal, there may not be much room to drop the power and still see any improvement in data integrity. A little packet loss is not un-usual or a problem as long as you are able to get the bandwidth that the ISP delivers to you.

Spanning tree protocol is helpful for situations where you have redundancy in your link path, such as two wireless paths, or a wired + wireless path. STP is also necessary with broadcom chipset radios ( such as the Buffalo ) using WDS bridging and WPA encryption. Since none of those scenarios applies to your setup then STP should be left disabled. It is a connectivity protocol, and as such only affects the data stream and would have no bearing on your signal strengths.

Your Buffalo radio settings look pretty good. Two minor tweaks would be to enable frame bursting and to disable CTS protection mode. Be sure to set your ACK timing to about 20 meters. All of these settings are under Advanced - Wireless.

You kinda jumped the gun on me with your Engenius purchase. I was hoping to verify the poor signal strength before recommending that you buy them. In reality, what you need is a high gain antenna to solve your link woes. If the Engenius tweaks I suggested above do not improve your connection to the point of delivering all of the bandwidth that the ISP supplies, then a big antenna will be the definitive cure. The good thing is that they are not excessively expensive, but the physical size may make it cumbersome to use.

I purchased one recently, and found it at a better price than what most mainstream WIFI suppliers carry it for. It comes with the correct connector, which will fit the Engeniuses and the Buffalo radio. They use RP-SMA connectors.

I'm going to send you a private message with a link to the antenna in-case you would like to consider getting one. Adding just one to either end of the wireless bridge will improve the signal strength by approximately 14 dB, and would establish a much more solid link at faster air link rates.

Edit - Correction ! The antenna I suggested does not come with the correct connector. I was remembering something else. To use it with your Engenius, you would need to also get an adapter or a cable with the correct connectors on each end. I sent you a second PM with a link to an extension cable from that same supplier. You can compare that total price against this alternate supplier. This link should show it with an RP-SMA plug. If not you can select the RP-SMA plug from the drop down box in the product page.

»www.l-com.com/item.aspx?id=22448

Ok things have now been in place about a week. The user is happy I believe. Looks like after making the changes you suggested we now have more reliable connection and packet loss appears to be gone. While the store is open the signal is around -74 dBM and when the doors are closed it's in the upper 80's. Regardless I am no longer seeing packet loss and the connection appears to be solid. I am using the 10MHZ and channel 1 on both units, when I first set it up it the bridges would not connect to each other at all using 5MHZ. I will try it again but I don't want to mess with it today.

As far as the antennas go looks like those are nice outdoor antennas but I have the bridges mounted indoors and I have limited space, those antennas would not really work for me right now. I think later on I will probably move the bridge at the store a little bit which will probably further enhance the signal.

Tomato seems to run really well on the Buffalo routers, i'm really happy with it, very reliable o/s. Thanks for all the help I am going to be testing the equipment I removed (1 Buffalo router, 2 external 1 watt amps and 1 patch antenna). Let me know if you have any interest in buying any of these items assuming they test out ok. Really appreciate your recommendations and all the help. I really like these Enginius units and will be using them again, also find the setup extremely simple.

-Manny

reply to usanetworks
Thanks for the update ! I'm glad things are working out for you. Those Engeniuses are some real work horses.

Appreciate the offer to sell some of your other gear, but I'm afraid I'm only using only the newer generation of gear these days. There is a Wanted / 4Sale thread in the WISP forum. You might want to post your list of extra stuff in there.

Holler back if you hit any more snags.

Just wanted to let you know things are still working with the above setup. I haven't visited the user in a while but next time I go there perhaps I will try to switch to the 5 MHZ channels. I'm happy with these devices.

Also wanted to ask you for your opinion. I need to buy a wireless router for a customer and wanted something that can do wireless "N" band and have a built in amplifier, are there any Buffalo or Enginius routers that you recommend? Thanks.

-Manny