Hi all,
I'm running my local network with one RB5009 Router and 4 x hap ax3 access-point for wifi, managed via capsman on the router.
What I notice is that by default all the four AP's are provisioned at the same time, and then they all choose the same frequency (for both 2GHz and 5GHz) and this is undesirable I think.
My AP's can partially 'see' each other since they are placed just a couple of meters away, every floor (3) in my house has one AP and on the ground floor I have an additional AP in the garage to cover our garden, so when they are using the same frequency this gives interference.
If I manually provision the AP's in sequence, e.g. first AP1, then 10 seconds later AP2, then 10 seconds later AP3 and then 10 seconds later AP4, i see they all choose a different frequency which is much better.
Is there any way to configure this so that the provisioning is always done in a sequence instead of 'all at once', I've been looking at all the settings related to capsman/provisioning, but cannot find anything related to sequence or so.

As far as I know there is no out-of-the-box solution for this.

You can either set channels manually (which would require a provision rule per radio) or you can use a scheduled script that turns off and on the radio (which will cause a scan for best channel). The latter is used by someone here on the forum (you would have to search for him/here).

You can either set channels manually (which would require a provision rule per radio)

You could also provision static interfaces and then overwrite the channel directly in interface settings. This way you don't need too many provisioning rules.

If you are gonna use caps... In caps man setup each channel / frequency as a configuration. Then manually set each cAP once you have them mounted.

You can either set channels manually (which would require a provision rule per radio) or you can use a scheduled script that turns off and on the radio (which will cause a scan for best channel). The latter is used by someone here on the forum (you would have to search for him/here).

I'm not very much in favor of setting channels manually, I also have quite some AP's from my neighbors which interfere and I don't have any means of controlling on which frequencies they transmit.
A scheduled re-scan of the best frequency would be a good solution I think, reading the manual for capsman I see a setting called 'channel.reselect-interval', I don't see this available in the winbox however, going to try and set this via terminal.
Hmmm, seems that this option is only available for the old capsman, not the new one I'm using for the hap ax3

Kusterh,

Is it possible that Mikrotik radios only scan at boot time?

As far as I know there is no out-of-the-box solution for this.

You can either set channels manually (which would require a provision rule per radio) or you can use a scheduled script that turns off and on the radio (which will cause a scan for best channel). The latter is used by someone here on the forum (you would have to search for him/here).

You have to reboot the whole thing. Not toggle the radio, right?

I used a script to disable the radio and reenable it when they would stop passing traffic. But there was no rescan at the time unless I rebooted the unit.

Is there a command for channel scan and selection other than reboot?

The caps I still have out there are manually set. Because that is what keeps them working. And if they were near other access points... I wouldn't be able to use them. As the proximity to neighboring access points is what cases the radios to "lock up".

I'm not very much in favor of setting channels manually, I also have quite some AP's from my neighbors which interfere and I don't have any means of controlling on which frequencies they transmit.

Well, using the auto frequency selection is not going to work very well anyway, as it does not really know which channels are heavily used. It just does a short one-time scan and it may not be representative.
Also, for 2 GHz it chooses any channel, not only 1-6-11 as it should. You can overcome that by adding a "scan list" with the proper frequencies (2412, 2437, 2462) but that is not done by default.

Although it's not my preferred solution, I now have given all AP's a fixed configuration for both the 2GHz and 5GHz bands.
It seems to work ok, but it's rather cumbersome to do, I would wish this could be done easier.....

Unfortunately there is no "easy" in frequency configuration... I manage a larger WiFi network at work and there I also have configured all frequencies as fixed, after careful planning so that adjacent APs are on different frequencies and channels where DFS tends to find radar are only used well inside the building (no windows).

Same here.
Capsman / warehouse config, low client usage, high mobility.
All APs where marked on a big plan of the building and I have specified all frequencies myself to assure no overlaps.
And then provisioning rules based on MAC address.

But I know exactly which frequency is used where (AND I have the luxury to have that setup in a relatively quiet and stable environment, radio-wise).

I use this as startup script with delay as quick dirty fix for automatic channel selection until mikrotik doesn't add channel reselect or better solution for auto channel selection in new capsman.