TomatoUSB

Sharing my findings from my attempts to maximize router signal strength.

I have a Linksys WRT54G (v2) and Buffalo WHR-G125 configured as AP and wireless client.

Installed firmwares: Toastman (Tomato Firmware v1.28.7634 Toastman-IPT-ND ND VLAN-VPN) and shibby (Tomato Firmware 1.28.0005 112 ND SD-VPN) respectively.

Found that the WEB GUI's advanced wireless setting for Transmit Power is 400 maximum, but setting 400 will not give maximum signal strength.

Realized this when I telnet into the console and found 'wl txpwr' value is lower than if I set the Transmit Power to 0 in webgui.

See log:

(web-gui Transmit Power set to 400)
root@linksys:/tmp/home/root# wl txpwr
pwr in mw 104
pwr in mw after override adj 104
398

(web-gui Transmit Power set to 0)
root@linksys:/tmp/home/root# wl txpwr
pwr in mw 127
pwr in mw after override adj 127
1496

Can future firmware remove the 400 cap for the Transmit Power webgui setting, if i manual try wl txpwr values, mine goes up to 1455 giving the txpwr of 1496.

Just wondering if signal strength can be increased by any other settings?

Yes

Under Advanced - Wireless I also notice that the maximum link rate is 54 Mbps. 802.11N MIMO with AES encryption links at 300 Mbps. Besides the power bug it looks like the old 802.11G wireless limit of 54 Mbps is as fast as these branches of firmware can go.

Between these two items I can see why everybody complains that the wireless gets slower after upgrading from factory firmware.