On Tue, Sep 4, 2018 at 1:51 AM Edward Cukiernan <ecukierman@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all, I was hoping to ask a question on if I should expect to be able to connect to hamwan. The short version is that I am using a Mikrotik BaseBox 5 RB912UAG-5HPnD-OUT, and I can occasionally get a connection, but it usually only lasts a couple of minutes and disconnects. When I am connected my status looks like this:

                  status: connected-to-ess
                 channel: 5880/5/an
       wireless-protocol: nv2
                 tx-rate: 10.8Mbps-5MHz/1S/SGI
                 rx-rate: 9.7Mbps-5MHz/1S
                    ssid: HamWAN
                   bssid: 4C:5E:0C:8B:0D:70
              radio-name: K7WAN/ETiger-S3
         signal-strength: -76dBm
     signal-strength-ch0: -76dBm
      tx-signal-strength: -75dBm
  tx-signal-strength-ch0: -90dBm
  tx-signal-strength-ch1: -75dBm
             noise-floor: -125dBm
         signal-to-noise: 49dB
                  tx-ccq: 49%
                  rx-ccq: 56%
   authenticated-clients: 1
        current-distance: 29
                wds-link: no
                  bridge: no
        routeros-version: 6.41.3
 
The things I was wondering about.

1) Any idea why I am seeing tx-signal-strength-ch0 being so much worse that tx-signal-strength-ch1? doesthis mean I don't have my antenna in the right orientation to match the polarization on tiger?

It could be that the second polarization is not enabled on your modem. Try this command and then take a look at the signal strengths again:

/interface wireless set wlan1 rx-chains=0,1 tx-chains=0,1
 
2) Is it a problem that I am running an old version of router os? I see I am running 6.37.1, but the sector is running 6.41.3

That's a problem, but unrelated to signal strength. Older RouterOS versions have security bugs. You should upgrade. I would start by upgrading firmware, then RouterOS, then see if a new firmware is available with the new RouterOS version:

Firmware upgrade:
/system routerboard upgrade
/system reboot

RouterOS upgrade:
/system package update install

Firmware upgrade:
/system routerboard upgrade
 
3) Any idea why I see to signal strengths for tx, but just one for rx?

4) sometimes I see a noise floor of -105, which obviously lowers my snr. Is this an indication that something is causing interference?  

-105 dBm is still a decent noise floor. It shouldn't be a problem.

-76 dBm should be plenty for a consistent signal. Once you take care of these little things, keep an eye on it to see if it continues to be intermittent. Maybe there is another problem somewhere.

Tom