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To place an AP on the floor plan, press the
AP drawing tool button and select one of the pre-defined AP types;
for example “Generic 802.11n (2.4 GHz)” or “Generic dual band
802.11n.” Click on the floor plan to place an AP in a desired
location. After that you can change its properties by
double-clicking on the AP or by selecting the Properties
context menu item. The
AP
Properties dialog can be
used for loading AP characteristics from one the presets, assigning
a unique name to the AP, or for customizing AP characteristics.
Virtual AP icons are marked with a small blue “V” in the icon
corner so that you could distinguish between real and virtual
APs.
To customize an AP, you can use
two tabs: one for the 2.4 GHz Radio
and one for the
5 GHz
Radio. These tabs allow
you to turn on and off these radios independently (using the
Radio
enabled check box) and
configure the following characteristics for each of the two
radios:
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Standard.
Use this drop-down list to select one of the 802.11 standards:
802.11n or one of the legacy standards.
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Power. Use this drop-down list to select the AP
transmit power. Most of APs have the transmit power of 17 dBm (50
mW). It is always a good idea to refer to the documentation of the
specific AP model you plan to deploy to find out this value.
Remember that transmit power might depend on the channel frequency
and band.
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Channel.
Select the primary channel number to be used by the AP. Remember
that not all of the channels might be available in your regulatory
domain. For example, channels 12 and 13 are not allowed in North
America.
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MAC address.
You can change the MAC address
to your AP. Because the application always assigns unique MAC
addresses to the APs, this is typically not necessary.
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SSID. Use this field to assign an SSID to the
AP. The same SSID may be shared by several APs.
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802.11n
settings. Use this frame
to control advanced 802.11 parameters: channel width (20 or 40
MHz), secondary channel position (if any), number of spatial
streams, short guard interval, and supported rates. The
Supported
Rates dialog can be used
to specify which legacy and HT rates are supported by the AP. It is
a common practice to disable some or all of the legacy rates when
you plan a WLAN for performance rather than coverage.
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Antenna
settings. Use this frame
to specify what kind of antenna is used by the AP. You can choose
one of the antenna models by major Wi-Fi equipment vendors or one
of the generic antenna types. With the Rotation
control, you can specify the
angle (in degrees) relating to the horizontal positioning of the
antenna. With the Elevation
control, you can specify the
angle (in degrees) above the horizon; i.e., the angle by which the
antenna is tilted up or down in relation to the theoretical
horizon. The Height
control can be used to specify
the height of the AP above the floor level. The Advanced
dialog provides top, front,
right, and 3D views of the selected antenna diagram and can be used
to adjust the antenna orientation either by rotating the diagram
top, front, or right views or by entering numeric
values.
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When you have edited AP properties, you can
save the current configuration for future use by clicking
the Save as Preset
button at the bottom of the
dialog window.
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