Changing Radio Mode on an Airport Extreme (ac)

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Changing Radio Mode on an Airport Extreme (ac)

I have a 1st Generation Airport Extreme (802.11ac) the tower.

Using Airport Utility 6.3.1 there is no option available for changing the radio mode.

I have tried using the option key allowed me to open a summary window when clicking on the Edit Button, but not under any other circumstances.

(As an aside, when the summary window is open, you have a better way of tracking the AP clients)

I also have an Airport Express (802.11n 1st generation) Airport Utility 6.3.1 shows some additional radio modes and more with the option key pressed (see figure below)

If I use the Applescript kludge to open Airport Utility 5.6.1, I can get the options below, but there are some severe warnings that using this version of Airport Utility has a good chance of ruining your AirPort configuration.

Question 1: will using 5.6.1 really harm things?

Question 1a: is there someway of getting these to be available on Airport Utility 6.3.1

Question 2: is there any advantage to using any of these modes available using 5.6.1?

Question 3: Since I've shown that my Macbook will NOT switch to a different AP even though the signal strength from that AP is much weaker than another AP until I toggle my wireless on the Macbook on and off --- would any of these modes below help to solve that problem?

Question 4: Since the Airport Express (n) can use only one frequency, and the default option of 802.11a/n-802.1b/g uses the 2.4GHz wireless, is there an advantage to changing it's radio mode to use the 5GHz frequency? Consider that the Airport Express (n) is primarily servicing an Apple TV.

Thanks

Options on an Airport Express (n) using Airport Utility 6.3.1 with the option key pressed.

Posted on Nov 17, 2014 11:59 AM

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Bob Timmons

Community+ 2024

Level 10

159,266 points

Nov 17, 2014 12:53 PM in response to John Zwiebel

Using Airport Utility 6.3.1 there is no option available for changing the radio mode.

Apple has decided for you that you no longer need to change the Radio Mode from the Automatic setting if you have an 802.11ac router.

Question 1: will using 5.6.1 really harm things?

If you are referring to the 802.11ac products, probably not, but it won't help either, and 5.6.1 is not supported with the 802.11ac AirPorts, so results may be unpredictable. If you try to use a setting that is not present in the 6.x version of AirPort Utility, the settings will not "stick" on the 802.11ac product when try to update it.

Question 1a: is there someway of getting these to be available on Airport Utility 6.3.1

No, not if you are using an 802.11ac Apple router.

Question 3: Since I've shown that my Macbook will NOT switch to a different AP even though the signal strength from that AP is much weaker than another AP until I toggle my wireless on the Macbook on and off --- would any of these modes below help to solve that problem?

No

Question 4: Since the Airport Express (n) can use only one frequency, and the default option of 802.11a/n-802.1b/g uses the 2.4GHz wireless, is there an advantage to changing it's radio mode to use the 5GHz frequency? Consider that the Airport Express (n) is primarily servicing an Apple TV.

The AirPort Expess A1264 is a single band router. The Airport Express A1392 is a simultaneous dual band router. The default wireless setting of the A1264 Express is 802.11n (802.11b/g compatible)......not 802.11a/n -- 802.11b/g which is one of the settings available for the A1392 Express.

802.11n only 5 GHz is capable of faster speeds than the 2.4 GHz band, so in theory your connection might be faster.....but it will also be weaker, so you would want to have close to a line-of-sight relationship between the Express and Apple TV for 5 GHz to work well. Unless you have an extremely fast Internet connection....higher than 150 Mbps.....5 GHz offers no advantage in that regard since your connection speed will be limited by your Internet connection plan.

If there are a number of other 2.4 GHz networks around you that might be interfering with your network, the 5 GHz option might be good choice since there are very few networks using that radio band....for now. That will all change very quickly in the next few years.

It could not hurt to try the 5 GHz option to see if you think it works better than 2.4 GHz. There are never any guarantees with wireless, so it is not possible to predict what the results might be until you actually try things out in your own home.

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