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Is there a way to force more channel selections in 5Ghz?

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This will all become moot with 6E. Plenty of contiguous bandwidth there and no DFS. But will work only for 6E devices.

For now, just use 80 MHz channels. Too many headaches for too little return.

Yup. I live in a congested area and regardless of the 160mhz AC and AX routers I've tested (AX200 clients), the 80mhz 155 block works much better here. Higher speeds are much more consistent vs the lower 160mhz 50 block available to me.

I still think ASUS should potentially fix/patch the router for Canadians. I'd be pissed knowing I bought a product that isn't capable of spec. I feel like they were just too lazy to implement a custom table.
 
Yup. I live in a congested area and regardless of the 160mhz AC and AX routers I've tested (AX200 clients), the 80mhz 155 block works much better here. Higher speeds are much more consistent vs the lower 160mhz 50 block available to me.

I still think ASUS should potentially fix/patch the router for Canadians. I'd be pissed knowing I bought a product that isn't capable of spec. I feel like they were just too lazy to implement a custom table.

Indeed. I had the same issue where the backaul on the XT8 was limited to 100-140 and 36-64 was not available.
Just a simple change and I wouldn't have had to send £400 worth of mesh back to retailer.
Or they could have implemented 80+80 to avoid channel 124 (weather radar)

I'm now waiting on XT8 on 6E.
 
Wait, choose EUROPE as your location. Then you will have complete freedom of Wireless channels and DFS selection.

Have you tried that? Should I send a screen shot?

EDIT: Oh wow, there have been 2 pages of replies since I've reloaded the page! :p

good info. I've been looking around for a long time and it was only last week that I found this site.
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...es/33210-160-mhz-wi-fi-channels-friend-or-foe
and I just noticed now that this forum is part of that, lol.
As far as I know, all AX routers support all the way through the 5GHz range. But certain regions are turned off because of radar. It is interesting that they list specific channels for each of the bandwidths though. Like you can only get 160MHz with channel 50 and 114. I have actually asked Asus, repeatedly, that exact question. "What channels support 160MHz?" You would not believe some of the stupid answers I got back from them (their 3rd party tech support). And I mean, really, really stupid - retarded, like "how the F*** are you in tech support?" stupid.
 
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Is there any software where you can perform a scan from your notebook (obviously modern) to determine the current signals on all these channels?
Or possibly perform the scan from the router?
There needs to be some diagnostics software builtin (or available for download) to perform a site survey and determine the saturation of various frequencies / channels plus obviously their interference... It is not productive to just go randomly selecting DFS or non-DFS channels to determine which will provide best performance, signal strength and signal quality...
 
Is there any software where you can perform a scan from your notebook (obviously modern) to determine the current signals on all these channels?
Or possibly perform the scan from the router?
There needs to be some diagnostics software builtin (or available for download) to perform a site survey and determine the saturation of various frequencies / channels plus obviously their interference... It is not productive to just go randomly selecting DFS or non-DFS channels to determine which will provide best performance, signal strength and signal quality...

I do not know of any software for the PC (Windows) to show the info on the connection information. There is WIFI Analyzer for Android that does, but I don't even know if the WIFI card on my phone supports 2x2 and/or 160MHz. There is also the Wireless Log in System Information. I can scroll down to the bottom of that and it will show me all the MAC addresses of the devices connected, and their speeds.

I can't select DFS channels to test which would be faster. As it says in my first post, there are only a certain number of channels I can select. I can't figure out where I can change my location, I don't see that option. I am not sure if it would work since it seems like the router 'scans' every 30 or 60 minutes and picks up on these DFS channels. The radar must be pretty far away, and that would explain why very rarely it will actually show the DFS channels if I keep looking and refreshing.

As for the "legality" of using the DFS channels, or "forcing" my router to be able to do it, I find that a huge grey area. One. If DFS channels are not permitted, and DFS channels are required for 160MHz, then Asus and every other WIFI router company should not be able to advertise it. Canada has/had strict laws about that stuff, though lately it seems that the department that looks after it has maybe 5 people in it. I constantly find things being sold on Amazon and other stores that are hugely wrong (like a dash-cam being advertised as FHD - Full HD, and the resolution is 720x480). Since 5GHz has a very small range for WIFI devices (tiny in comparison to radar), I highly doubt that my router, living on the ground floor, inside a townhouse, is enough to interfere with local radar. Maybe if I was in an apartment building and high up, but even that, I'd have my doubts.
And my question wasn't saying anything about it "must" break the law. I am not sure about any specific laws that specifically forbid a user from using certain frequencies within their home. Since microwaves are enough to mess up WIFI, an argument could be made that they should be just as illegal, if not more so since they are much more powerful. But my specific question was broad, and I believe I ask for any and all options, including wearing a tinfoil hat. While meant as a joke, it had a grain of truth in it. I have seen, and used in the past, antenna mods to increase the range using a cardboard cut out and tinfoil. A few years ago we lived in an apartment and shared our Internet with our neighbours. The one guy lived down the hall. The WIFI didn't make it that far on it's own, but adding those little antennas, he got Internet for $20/month. So if there was a way I could even stop the DFS from interfering with me getting those channels, it would be much the same thing.
 
Is there any software where you can perform a scan from your notebook (obviously modern) to determine the current signals on all these channels?
Or possibly perform the scan from the router?
There needs to be some diagnostics software builtin (or available for download) to perform a site survey and determine the saturation of various frequencies / channels plus obviously their interference... It is not productive to just go randomly selecting DFS or non-DFS channels to determine which will provide best performance, signal strength and signal quality...

Check out WinFi Lite (for Windows PC), just search it here for the comments about it and where to get it. Awesome tool.
 
Check out WinFi Lite (for Windows PC), just search it here for the comments about it and where to get it. Awesome tool.

Cool. I did a Google for it, I'll check it out soon. Having a bad EDS (Ehler's Danlos Syndrome) day, so not very mobile right now. I'll see about checking it out a bit later. Google also showed there's an app on the M$ Store.
 
As for the "legality" of using the DFS channels, or "forcing" my router to be able to do it, I find that a huge grey area.
This is not a "grey" area. It is illegal to operate in channels that are not authorized for a region. Most router/AP manufacturers have taken steps to lock down their products so they can't be modified to bypass region settings.
 
This is not a "grey" area. It is illegal to operate in channels that are not authorized for a region. Most router/AP manufacturers have taken steps to lock down their products so they can't be modified to bypass region settings.

Thats true, but considering the situation of legal DFS channels being blocked (UNII-2) on AX86U, it seems like a simple oversight by ASUS in this case.

The second 160mhz 114 block is clearly off limits. (80mhz 106 block should be valid though).
 
Thats true, but considering the situation of legal DFS channels being blocked (UNII-2) on AX86U, it seems like a simple oversight by ASUS in this case.

Or not, FWICS ASUS have rationalized the regions so that they get fewer region definitions to support (and probably fewer SKU variants to support) in firmware leading to some regions missing out on some available channels but it's fairly close to what should be available.

For example Australia used to be an available region but now region Asia is the default without Australia as a choice and it's almost the same but not quite.
 
Or not, FWICS ASUS have rationalized the regions so that they get fewer region definitions to support (and probably fewer SKU variants to support) in firmware leading to some regions missing out on some available channels but it's fairly close to what should be available.

For example Australia used to be an available region but now region Asia is the default without Australia as a choice and it's almost the same but not quite.


Sure.. but it opens up legal issues considering 160mhz isn't currently possible w/o DFS on the 5ghz band.
 
Yup. I live in a congested area and regardless of the 160mhz AC and AX routers I've tested (AX200 clients), the 80mhz 155 block works much better here. Higher speeds are much more consistent vs the lower 160mhz 50 block available to me.

I still think ASUS should potentially fix/patch the router for Canadians. I'd be pissed knowing I bought a product that isn't capable of spec. I feel like they were just too lazy to implement a custom table.

I just want to add I have RT-AX88U and it allow me to use DFS channel and Yes I am from Canada and my router is also bought in Canada, along with boot loader which also set for Canada.
DFS Channel.PNG
 
I just want to add I have RT-AX88U and it allow me to use DFS channel and Yes I am from Canada and my router is also bought in Canada, along with boot loader which also set for Canada.
View attachment 26861

Yeah its clearly an ASUS oversight. You can see canada weather radio channels are simply removed.

Sure.. but it opens up legal issues considering 160mhz isn't currently possible w/o DFS on the 5ghz band.
 

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