topic Re: Defining External Antennas in Wireless

Defining External Antennas

dunky — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 08:51:50 GMT

We have a wireless bridge at one site using MR76's and MA-ANT-25 antenna.

I noticed this on the Access Point page:

Does it matter that these are incorrect? Must admit I've never noticed this before.

All is working ok so just wondering if these being set incorrectly is an issue or should I correct them. If so, would it impact the bridge?

Re: Defining External Antennas

MarcP829 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 11:45:25 GMT

If it works, that’s good — but if it’s configured incorrectly in the system, it could of course mean that it’s using the wrong values for things like power or Auto RF.

Re: Defining External Antennas

pieterh — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:45:27 GMT

I partly agree with @MarcP829
but a "sector antenna" concentrates radio energy in a specific direction
as a result the transmit power of an AP's radio should be throtled back (by the AP or the controller)
this is to comply to max emit power (according to regulations.
-> if the wrong antenna is detected or configured , the max gain of the antenna is wrong and the emitted power is calculated wrong.
- if the calculation is too high you may not be compliant to regulations
- if it is too low, you may have less coverage than possible.

i'm not so familiar with Meraki,
but Cisco controller based AP's have some antennae that are autodetected
and others that need manually specification of the antenna gain.
as Meraki is meant to be connect and go, I expect antenna autodetect is available by default, but check the documentation.

added:
But what antenna is connected ?
if this is a non-cisco antenna, you need to specify the antenna gain,
it might be the current attached antenna, comes closest to the MA-ANT-25 ?
https://meraki.cisco.com/product-collateral/ma-ant-25-datasheet/

Re: Defining External Antennas

MarcP829 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:41:33 GMT

Antennas are autodetected.

Re: Defining External Antennas

Mark Elsen — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:48:55 GMT

- @MarcP829 That depends on the model of the access point

Re: Defining External Antennas

MarcP829 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:31:10 GMT

In Meraki? On which model it has to be done manually?

Each device I used so far was automatically.

Edit: 42,42E,74,76

Re: Defining External Antennas

dunky — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:38:13 GMT

Note sure why it has set them as it has when they are deffo MA-ANT-25's.

Should I change each antenna to Dual-Band Patch (MA-ANT-25), or leave as-is?

Re: Defining External Antennas

mloraditch — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:15:30 GMT

Antennas need to be manually set on the older (MR7X/MR8X) Meraki External APs. If the dashboard allows you to edit the settings it is not detecting anything it's just using the defaults. For the models like the CW9163 that auto detect you will not have an edit option.

Here is the general documentation:
https://documentation.meraki.com/Wireless/Operate_and_Maintain/User_Guides/Radio_Settings/Transmit_Power_and_Antenna_Configuration#Antenna_Configuration

Re: Defining External Antennas

dunky — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:27:13 GMT

Thanks @mloraditch

I've now corrected them.

Re: Defining External Antennas

joey.debra — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:30:09 GMT

If you are using 3rd party antennes then please use the closest antenna in terms of gain to be sure you stay within the local regulatory values.

To get a handy overview how much each antenna has in terms of gain please refer to this document: https://documentation.meraki.com/Wireless/Operate_and_Maintain/FAQs/Frequently_Asked_Questions_regarding_Cisco_Meraki_Antennas