Pistar on Raspberry Pi 4

General support for the Pi-Star System
AF6VN
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Re: Pistar on Raspberry Pi 4

Post by AF6VN »

KE0FHS wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 9:17 pm
KE7FNS wrote: Tue Aug 20, 2019 8:58 pm Page 23 in the manual.

On the wireless settings configuration.

Its 2 down from "Band Steering"
amplifiwifisettings.jpg

EDIT: Advanced shows the option ("Automatic" on/off) and bandwidth for the bands.
Looks like it moved up and got renamed "Additional SSID"

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KE0FHS
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Re: Pistar on Raspberry Pi 4

Post by KE0FHS »

AF6VN wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2019 2:57 pm Looks like it moved up and got renamed "Additional SSID"
Maybe, but their online description (more up to date than the PDF) for the Additional SSID option is quite different from the description of the Separate SSID option.
Adding an Additional SSID

The AmpliFi router has the ability to broadcast an additional SSID as well as select the frequency on which it will broadcast. The steps below outline the required configuration to enable an additional SSID on the AmpliFi router and the AmpliFi MeshPoints.

Adding an SSID is done individually per each device on your network: the router and the meshpoints. For example, if an Additional SSID is only configured for the AmpliFi router, when a user is close to a MeshPoint but not in range of the router, that SSID would not be available. You can add an additional SSID to each MeshPoint and router separately.

And when you wish to remove the additional SSIDs, just follow the same path described in this article and toggle the feature off. Remember to do it for the router as well as the meshpoints!
vs.
Separate Wi-Fi SSID

Disabled by default. Select this option to create separate wireless networks for the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio bands.

This may be helpful if you want more control over which radio band a client device uses. For example, if your device can use the 5 GHz radio band and it is within range, then the best option is to connect to the 5 GHz network.
When I played around with the Additional SSID option, it looked to me like it was almost like adding another guest network, but I could be mistaken, I'm not very well versed with networking stuff.
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Re: Pistar on Raspberry Pi 4

Post by KE0FHS »

You know, reading the online description of Band Steering has given me an idea:
Band Steering detects clients that are capable of 5GHz connection and steers them to that frequency. By doing this, it leaves the 2.4GHz band less congested for the devices that are not capable of connecting to the 5GHz band. This feature is enabled by default.
In the Pi-Star 4.1 Wireless Network Configuration, I can choose either 2.4 or 5.0 GHz. If I've chosen 2.4 GHz and Band Steering is enabled, maybe the router is still detecting that the Raspberry Pi is capable of 5.0 GHz and is attempting to steer the connection to that, even though Pi-Star isn't configured for that. That might explain why I have problems connecting in that scenario, though it doesn't explain why I have problems connecting when I select the 5.0 GHz option in Pi-Star.

Would it make sense to set up both the 2.4 and 5.0 GHz option in Pi-Star? And then enable Band Steering?
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
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Re: Pistar on Raspberry Pi 4

Post by KE0FHS »

KE7FNS wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2019 9:48 pm Upon 5 Ghz connection, it requests an IPv4 address and IPv6 address, and both are assigned by the router. After that point the IPv4 address will only respond to one ping from another device on the network, all pings from that point on are unreturned. What blew my mind is the IPv6 address is pingable continuously. So then I completely disabled IPv6 thinking that it was IPv6 causing the issue and now I'm back to IPv4 connecting, getting an IPv4 Address and becoming stale after responding to a single ping. I now am trying to figure out if something is different in the default routing configuration. I know theres something that is slightly different between stock raspbian and pi-star I just can't seem to find it.
If I'm understanding correctly, that fits the experience of it sometimes not connecting for one or more power ups, and then connecting on the next power up. I guess it all comes down to whether that one ping is successful or not.
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
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Re: Pistar on Raspberry Pi 4

Post by KE0FHS »

And, unfortunately, what I thought had fixed the problem I was having didn't actually fix it. I guess I was just lucky that a couple power ups worked first time, but today I've had multiple times when it didn't work the first time, and in some cases, it didn't work for several power ups. So selecting 2.4 GHz in Pi-Star and turning off Band Steering in the router did not fix the issue. Back to square one.

BTW, I looked the other day, and my Raspberry Pi 4B+ running Raspbian Buster is connecting at 5 GHz, and never has any problem.
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
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Re: Pistar on Raspberry Pi 4

Post by KE0FHS »

An update: still having problems connecting to WiFi with my ZUMspot + RPi 4B+ + Pi-Star 4.1.0-RC4 hotspot.
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm
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