Increase signal strength of a single AIR-CAP3602I-A-K9 access point

[SCOTTA63123]

I have a Cisco AIR-CAP3602I-A-K9 access point that started acting up and it's my belief that it went bad and I need to replace. I had to take the AP down and it's currently removed from my network. I now have a black hole in coverage and I need to increase the signal for an AP (or two) to fill that hole until my new replacement AP arrives. I administer the APs via a 5508 Wireless Controller running Software Version 8.0.121.0

How can I increase signal strength of AP to fill in my black hole of coverage?

[Rasika Nayanajith]

If you have enable RRM - Radio Resource Management, WLC will take care of power level of APs. So you do not want to manually do anything.

By the way increasing AP power beyond what's client capability may result adverse effect. Client will see AP signal, but AP cannot transmit back to AP (as client got low power), below diagram illustrate this point

HTH

Rasika

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[SCOTTA63123]

If you have enable RRM - Radio Resource Management, WLC will take care of power level of APs. So you do not want to manually do anything.

But I do want to manually adjust because my boss told me to turn it up! It may result adverse effect but then again it may fix my problem. Sometimes theory and best practice don't line up with the real world but my instructions are to modify signal strength. My situation is service affecting and I need to find a solution.

[Rasika Nayanajith · Accepted solution]

Hi Steve,

Manual power changes are easy to do. Pls see below screen

Let us know if it helps in your case. Typical client power level would be between 8-17dBm. If you set your AP to power level 1 , it would be 23dBm, so power level 3 is 17dBm (each level reduce power by half in mW or -3dBm).

HTH

Rasika

*** Pls rate all useful responses ***

[SCOTTA63123]

Rasika,
Beautiful, that is exactly what we are looking for! A few minor modifications have been made in the past by previous administrator to resolve coverage issues. We will deliberate as a group and fully discuss before making this custom change. Thank you so much, we can now add that option as possible solution.

[Scott Fella]

Just to note, it seems like you don’t have enough density in your current design. Majority of current designs I have seen, you have AP’s running lower tx power and in case of an AP down, you have enough overlap. It’s just something to think about.

[Johannes Luther]

Besides all the correct statements from Rasika, I want to outline, that power levels are not referencing to a static TX power (dBm) value. Depending on the 5 GHz band, the regulatory domain and the active TX antennas, the effective TX power might be different from device to device.

For example: In Europe, an indoor AP displays 23 dBm for power level 1 for UNII-2 extended channels. This is true if all four TX antennas are transmitting (e.g. three streams and one beamform link).

However the max. TX power for a SISO (legacy) device is 17 dBm max at power level 1.

I wrote a small article about this behavior here:

https://netgab.net/web/2018/08/07/understanding-ap-power-levels/

Perhaps this will help as well.

Cheer

Johannes