Monitoring the quality of antenna or detecting degraded antennas.

[Gioacchino]

Hi all,

I found this document that claims APs can send SNMP traps whenever an antenna gets degraded.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/9800/17-5/config-guide/b_wl_17_5_cg/m_antenna-disconnection-detection.html

I wonder if this holds true both for external or internal ones. And as to test the SNMP traps, with external antennas, it's easy because it's as simple as unmounting them, because a trap should be sent out straight-away. Unfortunately I don't have any with-external-antennas model to test it.

For internal ones, is there a way? Or has anyone come to a method to trigger a SNMP trap when internal antennas change (I guess) impedance?

TIA, Gio

[Arshad Safrulla]

This is valid only for external ones. When we tested this feature in 17.5 in our lab last year results were not that great. I haven't tested this in the newer codes.

When you are testing please follow the antenna removal and installation guidelines per AP model as defined by Cisco to prevent harming the AP in the process.

[Gioacchino]

Thanks@Arshad Safrulla , do you say that it's for external antennas only just because of the title "Antenna Disconnection Detection".

From the explanation , it seems it's a method valid for both type of antennas.

Gio

[Rich R]

From the feature description it could theoretically work for internal antenna but it would be impossible to test that without physically opening and breaking the AP!

[Gioacchino]

@Rich R, what I thought as well.

Gio