Question regarding wireless coverage

Hello there:

I wonder if someone can help with the issues that I have been facing with turris omnia wireless range since day 1 (I have it from Indiegogo campaign). I have been unable to configure the this great router to provide a good signal coverage in my house.

I recently updated to the latest 5.1.5 version and updated the router to a 5 antennas configuration removing the signal diplexers (so this can’t be the problem, but never was). Here is a image of the router after the mod:

And here is a map of my home (at scale) to summarize the problem:

The router is located in the red square. The problem is that I only have a good stable connection from the neighbor bedroom, while in the farther bedroom the connection is very unstable (not able to watch netflix) and in the living room depends on the device (some have an acceptable speed, some not). In the outside terrace the connection is very bad. There is a 12 meter distance between the two bedrooms (as showed in the picture) and in the worst case two doors closed. I know that the location of the router is not optimal, but relocating it is not easy right now.

I don’t know if this coverage is normal or not, but other wireless routers provides much better signal across the house. I would like to have good connection at least on the bedroom 3 and I think this is something hardware related. Both cards (2.4Ghz and 5Ghz) works similar in terms of coverage and I tried everything with channels and transmit power (which in previous threads is something that people don’t like to talk about even when complies with the local regulations). So, unless I missed something, I assume that the problem is with the stock cards, and I found several posts in the forum of users suffering the same symptoms.

I think that my options are or put another device (access point with better wifi, a plc+extender, etc…) or upgrade the wireless cars with new ones from mikrotik (R11e-2HPnD and R11e-5HacT). I would like to avoid the mess of another device and upgrade the cards but these cards quite expensive here (cost more than 100€ ) and I would like to know if this can improve the situation or even with these cards turris would be unable to provide a good signal for any reason (power, hw design, whatever…). Another drawback of this is not get the new wifi 6 standard but I don’t think that we will have a compatible card for the turris soon.

Any comments/suggestions are welcome. thank you!

It will be better to move your router to the new position … the best place is in the middle of your house.
If it is impossible, use some wifi repeater.

according to what instructions did you make the antenna connection? The router should be placed at a height of 1.5 to 2 m above the floor and not directly at the wall. not on the ground behind the table.

I have a router in an apartment with reinforced concrete walls, my longest distance is 8m. I have reduced the power to 1/2 (50 mW). Bandwidth 20 MHz. Signal strengths 2, 4 and 5 are excellent

@krasny: I’m living in a large house and did have wifi coverage problems for many years. I tested quite a few different routers (Apple, Linksys, Asus) with no luck. Because of cabeling my router can’t be installed at the center of my house and I need coverage across all floors and all rooms. In the past I used repeaters but was never really happy. Just to give it a try, I got 2016 a TO from the initial campaign and with the pre-installed wifi cards the coverage was bad. Therefore, I switched 2016 to the R11e-2HPnD and R11e-5HacT configuration and installed 5 dedicated antennas. At least in my case this solved all wifi coverage issues. I’m so happy that I got 2 additional TO’s and additional wifi cards just as spare parts so it should last. Wifi 6 is of no concern for me right now. By the way, I installed an additional heat sink. (See attached pictures from 2016.)

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Thank you for your replies!

@Nones I know that the position right now is not optimal, but considering that it is a small house I think it should be enough to get a good signal in the entire house. I have a cheapo xiaomi 7$ repeater in bedroom 3 which provides better signal across the house than the turris router which is… sad. Also my previous router (rt-n16) had no coverage problems and it was located in the same spot and reached the terrace without problems. I will try to relocate the router in the square in front of bedroom 1 but I cannot place where you suggested because it is the middle of a hallway.

@JardaB I did not follow any instructions. I bought rp-sma pigtails to the uFL connectors and removed the diplexers. It is very easy to do, I can give you aliexpress links of the pigtails. But I insist, the problem never was the diplexers.

I will try to reduce the bandwidth and tx power as you commented. And for the placement: in my case is not very easy since I have fiber connection and routing to other place is not always easy, but I will test in other places to see if I improve the coverage.

@Tom I followed your mighty high performance configuration since the beginning. I was reluctant to upgrade the wireless cards because the price of those is even more than a ax3600 wifi6 router (let alone the linksys antennas). But knowing that you are happy with the config and in your case it solved the problem I think I’ll give it a try, starting with the 5Ghz card and maybe in the future the 2.4ghz (I only use 2.4 for IoT).

I also love the Turris Omnia and everything related to this powerful router: the philosophy of the team, the software and the hardware. I got some spare ssds (my budget is not enough to have replacement routers hehe) because these things wears fairly quickly.

But in my opinion the wifi coverage problem is a flaw of design and this router deserves, at least, better cards.

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With all the mods, don’t forget to keep the enclosure on, which improves SNR by lowering the noise floor by a lot.
If you’re not one of the lucky ones and the fiber goes to an ONT first, just get a patch cable and try different placements and orientations in the room. Then outside the room. Do it until the worst corner reception improves.

Turn off wifi and do a survey with your phone of neighbouring networks in all locations. Disable one of the wifi modules altogether. Go from base 2.4GHz 20MHz, try all free channels from your survey and measure reception. Better yet, choose a channel with the lowest noise floor. I have -95 dBm for 2.4 and -98 dBm for 5 on the channels I am using.

Then swap modules and try 5GHz. Always start with thinner bandwidths. You can open luci on your phone, move around in your house and look at SNR changes for that client. Make sure SNR is good in the router’s room. I have 50-60 SNR depending on what data rate the access point is using in that moment.

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Thank you very much @elodg for your input.

I will try to do a lot of test with the suggested configurations proposed by you and others in this thread and post results soon. What’s the problem having a ONT for the fiber connection? I thought it was better than an all-in-one router.

I also found a sale in my country of Mikrotik r11e-2HPnD and r11e-5HnD and bought a pair of them and I will try it, if the 2HPnD improves the signal in 2.4Ghz band I’ll buy also the more expensive ac version. But I’m waiting for the pigtails that come from China and they are in the middle of the New Year’s holidays.

I’ll report my findings.