[TriLUG] WiFi quality monitoring

[Igor Partola]

It's version 1.6. I am running OpenWRT Attitude Adjustment 12.09. Looks
like today my issues are, at least with regard to sporadic ping time
increases (snipped below signature) and slower than normal Wi-Fi speed
(down to 20 Mbps). I am still running with the stock antennas (2 and 3 dBi
for 2.4 and 5 GHz respectively). I took another look at the Tx power
settings and output. I missed that they are separate settings. Here's what
I have:

2.4 GHz radio is set to 26 dBm (398 mW). The reported Tx power is actually
18 dBm (63 mW).

5 GHz radio is set to 30 dBm (1000 mW). The reported Tx power is 19 dBm (79
mW).

Looks like the OpenWRT ticket #11896 basically says that if you set your Tx
power outside the range that the hardware supports, it will simply use the
nearest supported value. So when I set my Tx power for the 2.4 GHz radio to
26 dBm, it uses the highest possible value of 18 dBm.

Here's the really curious thing that I just thought of: the slow pings, low
bandwidth, etc. all seem to happen on both the 2.4 GHz radio and the 5 GHz
bands. Does this mean that external RF interference is unlikely to be an
issue? Or is there some frequency and strength of interference that would
actually cause issues on both of these bands at once?

Thanks,
Igor

P.S: Alan, thanks for the clarification! Very good info.

64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=107 ttl=64 time=0.825 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=108 ttl=64 time=3.539 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=109 ttl=64 time=3.592 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=110 ttl=64 time=3.399 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=111 ttl=64 time=0.804 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=112 ttl=64 time=73.802 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=113 ttl=64 time=19.042 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=114 ttl=64 time=13.340 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=115 ttl=64 time=12.992 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=116 ttl=64 time=58.042 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=117 ttl=64 time=0.949 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=118 ttl=64 time=2.492 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=119 ttl=64 time=4.604 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=120 ttl=64 time=52.643 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=121 ttl=64 time=87.227 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=122 ttl=64 time=3.914 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=123 ttl=64 time=52.791 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=124 ttl=64 time=3.708 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=125 ttl=64 time=3.720 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=126 ttl=64 time=82.932 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=127 ttl=64 time=0.946 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=128 ttl=64 time=40.452 ms
64 bytes from 172.20.20.1: icmp_seq=129 ttl=64 time=84.109 ms