Zephyr Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 In fact don't use it at all. Unfortunately the power level cannot be set to anything above 20dBm. I've tried configuring the NHA under OpenWRT and Backtrack 5. Same result in both cases, you can't bring the power above 20. I've tried different driver installs. Same issue. Stick with the Alfa AWUS036H. It still works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineDominator Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 In fact don't use it at all. Unfortunately the power level cannot be set to anything above 20dBm. I've tried configuring the NHA under OpenWRT and Backtrack 5. Same result in both cases, you can't bring the power above 20. I've tried different driver installs. Same issue. Stick with the Alfa AWUS036H. It still works. Maybe? But u need atheros chipset to use karma on it. Plus n speeds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerCPU Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 (edited) Looking at that card here the spec for 802.11N max power output is 27dBm. It can't go any higher that than. Edited March 2, 2013 by TylerCPU Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 iw help Do NOT screenscrape this tool, we don't consider its output stable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trip Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 http://bit.ly/YdVpZF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerCPU Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 (edited) http://bit.ly/YdVpZF I'm not that dumb. I did google it. But I was wondering what that(screenscrape) has to do with anything? I should have said that instead. I don't know what @Mr-Protocol is trying to say by that for this topic. Edited March 2, 2013 by TylerCPU Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerCPU Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Do NOT screenscrape this tool, we don't consider its output stable. Hmmm. When I run that command iw help I get that too. Do NOT screenscrape this tool, we don't consider its output stable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Basically that the iw results are not 100% reliable. Per the manual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerCPU Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Basically that the iw results are not 100% reliable. Per the manual. That makes sense, but what does that have to do with setting the power higher? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephyr Posted March 2, 2013 Author Share Posted March 2, 2013 Maybe? But u need atheros chipset to use karma on it. Plus n speeds Hey Peter, it does have an Atheros chipset, AR9271. Looking at that card here the spec for 802.11N max power output is 27dBm. It can't go any higher that than. Your screen shots look like you are trying 30dBm. Try something lower. The spec also says it varies 2 dBm up or down. Hey Tyler, I tried every txpower setting from 10 to 30 in one dB increments. You brickwall it at 20. The NHA is supposed to have an output of at least 30dBm. Some have allegedly reported coaxing 32-33dBm out of it. It is advertised as a 2000mW adapter ... albeit perhaps falsely. I'm only interested in getting it to 27dBm. Seeing that the AWUS036H is a solid 30dBm adapter, I would assume at least that much from the NHA. What is screenscrape? Sorry if it's a dumb question? Not sure but here I'm assuming it to mean my screen shots of Backtrack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Let's break this down a different way. The spec on the site says 27 dBm ± 2 So if the max Tx power set is 20, plus a 5 dBi antenna that comes with it. That falls within the range specified. I'm not a wireless standard professional, so this may be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 This might be why. https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=40417 results of iw phy2 info after iw set BO, 00, US Frequencies: * 2412 MHz [1] (20.0 dBm) * 2417 MHz [2] (20.0 dBm) * 2422 MHz [3] (20.0 dBm) * 2427 MHz [4] (20.0 dBm) * 2432 MHz [5] (20.0 dBm) * 2437 MHz [6] (20.0 dBm) * 2442 MHz [7] (20.0 dBm) * 2447 MHz [8] (20.0 dBm) * 2452 MHz [9] (20.0 dBm) * 2457 MHz [10] (20.0 dBm) * 2462 MHz [11] (20.0 dBm) * 2467 MHz [12] (20.0 dBm) (passive scanning, no IBSS) * 2472 MHz [13] (20.0 dBm) (passive scanning, no IBSS) * 2484 MHz [14] (disabled) So the highest TXpower you can set is 20 dBm from the device. You will have to add bigger, badder, antennas to get more from it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephyr Posted March 2, 2013 Author Share Posted March 2, 2013 All spec amps/adapters are measured at a correctly matched and terminated output node: Pout. If we talk of the power from an isotropic radiator, we'd be talking ERP or effective radiated power. When you talk of adding the gain of a specific antenna, we then move to EIRP or Equivalent/Effective Isotropic Radiated Power. But let's suppose they're taking the antenna gain into account (fudging the figures) and talking EIRP instead of @ Pout to get their 27dBm. 100mw into a 5dBi gain antenna would give us only ~300mW or about 25dBm. Still not quite up to spec. Thanks for the link. Interesting reading, and it seems to confirm the findings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerCPU Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Hey Tyler, I tried every txpower setting from 10 to 30 in one dB increments. You brickwall it at 20. The NHA is supposed to have an output of at least 30dBm. Some have allegedly reported coaxing 32-33dBm out of it. It is advertised as a 2000mW adapter ... albeit perhaps falsely. I'm only interested in getting it to 27dBm. Seeing that the AWUS036H is a solid 30dBm adapter, I would assume at least that much from the NHA. After tinkering with my alfa AWUS036NHA I get that same problem too. Can't get it over 20dBm which is 100mW. On the other hand my AWUS036H works fine. I can get 30dBm which is 1W. I don't know if this will help but alfa has a blog post about installing the driver for the alfa AWUS036NHA here. I tried following that but I got an error when I got to the make & make install part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerCPU Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 (edited) This might be why. https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=40417 results of iw phy2 info after iw set BO, 00, US Frequencies: * 2412 MHz [1] (20.0 dBm) * 2417 MHz [2] (20.0 dBm) * 2422 MHz [3] (20.0 dBm) * 2427 MHz [4] (20.0 dBm) * 2432 MHz [5] (20.0 dBm) * 2437 MHz [6] (20.0 dBm) * 2442 MHz [7] (20.0 dBm) * 2447 MHz [8] (20.0 dBm) * 2452 MHz [9] (20.0 dBm) * 2457 MHz [10] (20.0 dBm) * 2462 MHz [11] (20.0 dBm) * 2467 MHz [12] (20.0 dBm) (passive scanning, no IBSS) * 2472 MHz [13] (20.0 dBm) (passive scanning, no IBSS) * 2484 MHz [14] (disabled) So the highest TXpower you can set is 20 dBm from the device. You will have to add bigger, badder, antennas to get more from itt Thanks for the info. So does this mean that The Alfa AWUS036NHA is hard coded at 20dBm? Edited March 2, 2013 by TylerCPU Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerCPU Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 All spec amps/adapters are measured at a correctly matched and terminated output node: Pout. If we talk of the power from an isotropic radiator, we'd be talking ERP or effective radiated power. When you talk of adding the gain of a specific antenna, we then move to EIRP or Equivalent/Effective Isotropic Radiated Power. But let's suppose they're taking the antenna gain into account (fudging the figures) and talking EIRP instead of @ Pout to get their 27dBm. 100mw into a 5dBi gain antenna would give us only ~300mW or about 25dBm. Still not quite up to spec. Thanks for the link. Interesting reading, and it seems to confirm the findings. Well the site said +-2 dBm so 27-2=25. At this point i'm just guessing. I don't know much about EIRP. Isn't that within the range. So is alfa just using the antenna gain to get at least 25dBm? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephyr Posted March 2, 2013 Author Share Posted March 2, 2013 After tinkering with my alfa AWUS036NHA I get that same problem too. Can't get it over 20dBm which is 100mW. On the other hand my AWUS036H works fine. I can get 30dBm which is 1W. I don't know if this will help but alfa has a blog post about installing the driver for the alfa AWUS036NHA here. I tried following that but I got an error when I got to the make & make install part. Thanks for the link. I also had found this page from Here several days ago (see the bottom post). Went through the same procedure in BT5r3 as he did. Everything went well but the new driver yielded the same result as far as output goes. Thanks for the info. So does this mean that The Alfa AWUS036NHA is hard coded at 20dBm? Evidently so. Apparently the NHAs are coming off the shelf with their EEPROM hard-coded to reg domain GB. in which the max limit is 20dBm. In short it would have to be reflashed to get a higher power. Well the site said +-2 dBm so 27-2=25. At this point i'm just guessing. I don't know much about EIRP. Isn't that within the range. So is alfa just using the antenna gain to get at least 25dBm? You're right (and Mr P.) about the allotted deviation, and 25dBm would be within that range. Only notice that the NHA consistently falls on the -2 side of the variance range. No one seems to find a NHA that just happens to fall on the 29dBm side ... or even right on 27dBm. I don't much like it when companies figure high and give low. And frankly speaking, for a relative small signal amplifier an allotted 14.8% skew in dB range and a 500mW variance in power output is huge. Either they're consciously fudging figures or they have very poor QC. I'd put my money on the former. All in all it isn't a major catastrophe. Just a bit disappointing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Keep in mind, it's not Alfa's fault completely. It's the radio inside that wasn't made for world-wide spec. That's why the radio cannot be turned up past 20. The hardware (Atheros radio) simply cannot handle it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimJensen Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 This probably won't help any but my AWUS036NHA works as advertised. jim@M68MT:/$ iw phy phy0 infoWiphy phy0 Band 1: Capabilities: 0x116e HT20/HT40 SM Power Save disabled RX HT20 SGI RX HT40 SGI RX STBC 1-stream Max AMSDU length: 3839 bytes DSSS/CCK HT40 Maximum RX AMPDU length 65535 bytes (exponent: 0x003) Minimum RX AMPDU time spacing: 8 usec (0x06) HT TX/RX MCS rate indexes supported: 0-7 Frequencies: * 2412 MHz [1] (27.0 dBm) * 2417 MHz [2] (27.0 dBm) * 2422 MHz [3] (27.0 dBm) * 2427 MHz [4] (27.0 dBm) * 2432 MHz [5] (27.0 dBm) * 2437 MHz [6] (27.0 dBm) * 2442 MHz [7] (27.0 dBm) * 2447 MHz [8] (27.0 dBm) * 2452 MHz [9] (27.0 dBm) * 2457 MHz [10] (27.0 dBm) * 2462 MHz [11] (27.0 dBm) * 2467 MHz [12] (disabled) * 2472 MHz [13] (disabled) * 2484 MHz [14] (disabled) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephyr Posted March 2, 2013 Author Share Posted March 2, 2013 (edited) This probably won't help any but my AWUS036NHA works as advertised. You're right, it didn't help any. ;) Just kidding ... partially. Seriously, that's interesting. Maybe you were fortunate enough to get one of the adapters that isn't regged for a low-power country. Looks like you're running Ubuntu? What version? Is this your out-of-the-box results? Edited March 2, 2013 by Zephyr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebkinne Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 I believe this is the case because it allows for world wide shipping and use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerCPU Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 You're right, it didn't help any. ;) Just kidding ... partially. Seriously, that's interesting. Maybe you were fortunate enough to get one of the adapters that isn't regged for a low-power country. Looks like you're running Ubuntu? What version? Is this your out-of-the-box results? I tried tinkering with that adapter in ubuntu and I can't get mine higher than 20dBm. My ubuntu version is 12.10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 I'm pretty sure it has to deal with where you purchase it from. I bought mine from data-alliance, a USA Alfa reseller. That is probably why mine is locked to 20. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephyr Posted March 2, 2013 Author Share Posted March 2, 2013 There's this tool CRDA. If the EEPROM can't be flashed maybe it can be overridden. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TylerCPU Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 I'm pretty sure it has to deal with where you purchase it from. I bought mine from data-alliance, a USA Alfa reseller. That is probably why mine is locked to 20. I got mine from the hakshop. I wonder how you check for these kinds of things.Looks like I can't rely on specs alone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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