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morrownr / USB-WiFi

USB WiFi Adapter Information for Linux
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Lomubue M-1200M link goes to a possible scam #341

Closed Pointedstick closed 7 months ago

Pointedstick commented 7 months ago

On the recommendation of this website, I purchased a Lomubue M-1200M antenna from the provided link to Walmart.

Unfortunately I received a different device with a Realtek RTW8822CU chip, not the advertised Mediatek MT7612U. The seller reviews are all very bad, so it appears this product listing is not reliable and trustworthy, and I would recommend removing it.

morrownr commented 7 months ago

Hi @Pointedstick

Thank you. I removed the entire Walmart section. I have little toleration for bs.

Sorry for your experience. Hopefully you can get your money back.

Pointedstick commented 7 months ago

Thanks. I'm trying again with an Alfa AWUS036ACM.

morrownr commented 7 months ago

I have an Alfa ACM. It does very well in managed, monitor and AP modes. It is a good quality adapter. Right now Rokland has a sale on it:

https://store.rokland.com/pages/weekenddeals-sale

I can vouch for Rokland being a good outlet and they know Linux.

Pointedstick commented 7 months ago

Thank you, that's super helpful! Just placed an order from them.

morrownr commented 7 months ago

Let me know how it goes.

@morrownr

Pointedstick commented 7 months ago

The AWUS036ACM arrived and I was able to try it out for my intended use case. Unfortunately the experience has been disappointing so far.

Some background: I'm trying to improve the Wi-Fi speeds in my backyard office, which is about 40 feet away from the house. The house has a TP-Link Archer A7 AC1750 router running OpenWRT. In the house, speeds to my laptop are 160/20 (5 ghz) and 81/20 (2.4 ghz). When the laptop is in the office, it has a clear line of sight through two windows (one in the office, one in the house) to the router, and speeds are 11/20 (5 ghz) and 4/20 (2.4 ghz).

So far I've been using a Netgear EX6250 AC1750 repeater to improve this situation. With it, when the laptop is in the office, I get 77/20 (5 ghz) and 16/1 (2.4 ghz; not a typo; upload falls from 20 to 1 when using the repeater! So I only use the 5 ghz network). My hope was to use an external USB antenna connected to the laptop get better speeds than 77/20 and not need the repeater.

Unfortunately with the AWUS036ACM, speeds are only 10/8 (5 ghz) and 25/9 (2.4ghz). I tried replacing one of the included omnidirectional antennas with an Alfa APA-M25 directional antenna that I had bought for an earlier experiment, but the numbers didn't meaningfully change. Ping times are better with the repeater, too.

Environment is Fedora KDE 39, Kernel 6.6.2, NetworkManager 1.44.2, Plasma 6 beta (self-built from git master).

JFYI I in no way expect you to help me troubleshoot this, as it's clearly not your fault, but you did ask how it went, so I thought I'd provide that information.

morrownr commented 7 months ago

JFYI I in no way expect you to help me troubleshoot this, as it's clearly not your fault,

No problem. I enjoy it. I have the FLU right now so expect snappy replies.

One app I use in situations like this is "wavemon". Once installed, start it by typing "wavemon" in a command line interface (terminal). It would be good to know what signal level and link quality you are seeing at different locations.

it has a clear line of sight through two windows

Some glass works well with RF but some does not.

I recommend you use the laptop and wavemon to move around while watching the readings. It may be possible to figure out what is the primary cause of the poor transfer rates. There is also aluminum foil or a beer can.

morrownr commented 7 months ago

so expect snappy replies.

so don't expect snappy replies.

Pointedstick commented 7 months ago

Absolutely fascinating. It was my office window! When I relocated the AWUS036ACM with the directional antenna to under the window so that the signal had to go through a wall, speeds rose to 130/20! That's better than the repeater, and easily enough for my purposes. Thanks so much for your help!

morrownr commented 7 months ago

You are welcome.

It was my office window!

Not a surprise. When it comes to WiFi, don't guess, test.

That's better than the repeater...

I'm not a fan of repeaters as repeaters cut your bandwidth in half.

Does your wifi router support dfs channels?

Pointedstick commented 7 months ago

I'm having difficulty determining whether it does under OpenWRT or not.

morrownr commented 7 months ago

I'm having difficulty determining whether it does under OpenWRT or not.

If you are in the US, look at the 5 Ghz channels and if any channels in the range of 100-148 are available, those are the DFS channels. DFS channels are usually not used at all or at that is my experience so you can have all of the clean air and speed you want. Start with channels 100 and 80 MHz channel width and see what happens. Remember that DFS channels do not become active as to soon as boot is complete as a mandatory scan for interference can take about 60 seconds.

Pointedstick commented 6 months ago

Ah, in that case, yes, they are available. I'll experiment. Thanks for your help.