From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Kristoff Subject: AC600 wifi USB sticks for ham-radio use (5 Ghz) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2016 22:29:48 +0100 Message-ID: <56CA2C4C.90107@skypro.be> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Sender: linux-hams-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: linux-hams@vger.kernel.org Hi all, I am interested in using wifi devices for ham-radio use, especially for HSMM (adhoc, olsr) and HAMNET; e.g. by extending their frequency-range for the complete hamradio bands. One of these devices I am looking at for 6 cm operations is the AC600 (mt7610-based). http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Mini-2-4GHz-5GHz-Dual-Band-USB-Network-Card-5dBi-Antenna-AC600-802-11ac-Wireless/32246544516.html For that, I have been hacking the kernel-driver found here: https://github.com/coolshou/mt7610u I managed to change the driver to get it to work on all channels in the 13 cm and 6 cm bands: channels 1 (2.412Ghz) to 6 (2.437) and channels 132 (5.660 Ghz) up to 168 (5.840 Ghz). As of today, I have been running pings and olsr between two linux PCs (Ubuntu LTS) using these devices on 5 Ghz in wifi ad-hoc mode. However, I am now running into a number of issues: - packets being queued before being send (i.e. a one-ping per second is not received at the same rate at the remote side: first 4 seconds nothing is received and then a burst of 4 pings in one go) - packets lost - "iwlist freq" only shows parts of the frequencies - "ifconfig" does not show the ESSID you have configures (but it does seams to use it). And, in short, the code can use a lot of cleaning. So I am looking for people who can help me with information about this: - does anybody have a good document that explains how userland application interact with a kernel wifi network driver: sending data, receiving data, iwconfig, iw, iwpriv, ... - Does anybody have experience with adapting wifi devices for ham-radio? I did some work on atheros-based wifi dongles to get them to operate on 2.3 Ghz before, but these "mt7610u" drivers seams to be a lot more complex. So any advice would be helpfull. Is there documentation of other simular projects? - When searching the web, I found multiple different drivers for the mt7610u; all a bit different and from different projects. Even on the kernel.org website, there is another version for the 4.5 kernel. Are there other / better drivers out there for the mt7610u then the one I use now, that can be more easily addapted for ham-radio use? My goal would be to run this on small unix-boards (RPi, BBB, ...) as dedicated network node for HSMM or hamnet; so drivers compatible with the versions of the linux kernel found on these devices are interesting. - Has anybody done RF measurements on these 5 Ghz wifi-sticks and looked at the RF signal they transmit, e.g. when using the frequencies not assigned for the official wifi-channels? - Has anybody ever tested these AC600/mr7610u devices and checked if they can operate below 2.4 Ghz? (like the atheros chips)? Any info would be very usefull. 73 kristoff - ON1ARF