Atheros - txpower - Compex WLM54AG + WLM54AG-23

[Johann Hugo]

I'm busy testing two wifi cards from Compex under FreeBSD 6.2-STABLE. The 
WLM54AG card has a max txpower of 20dBm and the WLM54AG-23 has a max txpower 
of 23dBm. 
http://www.compex.com.sg/home/Datasheet/New_WLM_DSv1.9.pdf

The problem is that both cards produces the same RSSI value on my remote 
station a couple of km's away from my test setup. If I do the same test with 
the same cards under Ubuntu 6.06 then the  WLM54AG-23 produces a bigger RSSI 
value on my remote station than the WLM54AG card.

Under FreeBSD, with a country code of 710 the max txpower can only go up-to 32 
(16dbm) on both cards and vith a country code of 0 they can go upto 36 
(18dbm). Under Ubunti I can set the max txpower of the WLM54AG card to 20dBm 
and the WLM54AG-23 card to 23dBm.

I'm not to sure if this is the right place to post my problem, or whether I 
should rather try the MadWifi list or the manufacturer of the cards itself, 
but it feels like it's related to FreeBSD.

Johann Hugo

Here is some more detail of my setup
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Local test side --- 2km wifi --- Remote side (RSSI)

Local station:
wifi cards. Compex WLM54AG + WLM54AG-23
Soekris net4526 running FreeBSD 6.2-STABLE #15: Mon Jan 29
dmesg
ath_hal: 0.9.20.3 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0xa0000000-0xa000ffff irq 10 at device 17.0 on pci0
ath0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
ath0: Ethernet address: 00:80:48:41:49:3d
ath0: mac 10.4 phy 6.1 radio 6.3

Remote station:
wifi card = Aries5354
Wrap 2C running 6.2-PRERELEASE #9: Tue Dec  5
dmesg
ath1: <Atheros 5212> mem 0x80080000-0x8008ffff irq 9 at device 17.0 on pci0
ath1: [GIANT-LOCKED]
ath1: Ethernet address: 00:02:6f:34:21:a0
ath1: mac 5.6 phy 4.1 5ghz radio 1.7 2ghz radio 2.3

RSSI stats on remote side:
-------------------------
WLM54AG card

FeeBSD
rodricks:~ > ifconfig ath1 list sta
ADDR                   AID CHAN RATE RSSI IDLE  TXSEQ  RXSEQ CAPS FLAG
00:80:48:41:49:3d    0    5   2M   15    0     17  60368 IS   A

Ubuntu
rodricks:~ > ifconfig ath1 list sta
ADDR               AID CHAN RATE RSSI IDLE  TXSEQ  RXSEQ CAPS FLAG
00:80:48:41:49:3d    0    5   2M   13    0    108  61328 IS   A


----------------------
WLM54AG-23 card

FreeBSD
rodricks:~ > ifconfig ath1 list sta
ADDR                   AID CHAN RATE RSSI IDLE  TXSEQ  RXSEQ CAPS FLAG
00:80:48:7e:60:17    0    5   1M   13    0  38066  47824 IS   A

countrycode = 0
rodricks:~ > ifconfig ath1 list sta
ADDR               AID CHAN RATE RSSI IDLE  TXSEQ  RXSEQ CAPS FLAG
00:80:48:7e:60:17    0    5   5M   15    0     43  51008 IS   A

Ubuntu
rodricks:~ > ifconfig ath1 list sta
ADDR               AID CHAN RATE RSSI IDLE  TXSEQ  RXSEQ CAPS FLAG
00:80:48:7e:60:17    0    5   5M   20    0     62   4672 IS   A    WME