What exactly is the real difference between "Station-WDS" and "WDS-Slave" ?

the description in the manual is rather vague.

I currently have a WDS system and my main 433 is set to AP-Bridge.
The 333 is set to Staion-WDS
Would it be safe to switch the station-wds to wds-slave and not lose its connection?

in the manual it says WDS-Slave automatically adapts to the WDS-Peer channel. Which is what i want in the event i change channels for my AP-Bridge.

Thanks

WDS-Slave is identical to AP-Bridge with the single exception that the WDS-Slave will first scan around like a station to see if it finds an AP with the appropriate SSID and then uses that frequency for running in AP-Bridge mode (yes it's running as an ap-bridge even through you have it set to WDS-slave). If the WDS registration is lost, it scans again and attempts to find the freq of the/an AP with the matching SSID. I've never tried it with 'WDS Ignore SSID' enabled, but I would expect it to either not work at all or simply lock on to any other AP it might hear; which if it's not yours, then your out of luck. Also, you should not enable Hide SSID because the scan may not find the AP to lock onto either.

In Station-WDS mode, the unit operates as a Station to an AP but then uses a proprietary mode (meaning it will not work with all 802.11 AP's in WDS mode) to send up to 4 MAC's in each wireless frame thus enabling the wlan interface to be bridged to another interface (usually an Ethernet). Without this mode, you cannot bridge the station-mode wlan to an Ethernet and expect it to work. If you don't understand the 4 MAC reference, go Google WDS mode and find some docs explaining the frames and why more than two MAC's are needed.

Hope that helps.

we know station-wds ..
but why we need wds-slave for ??

Other wireless clients can connect to mode=wds-slave.
Other wireless clients cannot connect to mode=station-wds.

Other wireless clients can connect to mode=wds-slave.
Other wireless clients cannot connect to mode=station-wds.

so i don't need wds-slave if i don't have clients to connect them to then station-wds node .. right?

WDS-Slave is identical to AP-Bridge with the single exception that the WDS-Slave will first scan around like a station to see if it finds an AP with the appropriate SSID and then uses that frequency for running in AP-Bridge mode (yes it's running as an ap-bridge even through you have it set to WDS-slave). If the WDS registration is lost, it scans again and attempts to find the freq of the/an AP with the matching SSID. I've never tried it with 'WDS Ignore SSID' enabled, but I would expect it to either not work at all or simply lock on to any other AP it might hear; which if it's not yours, then your out of luck. Also, you should not enable Hide SSID because the scan may not find the AP to lock onto either.

In Station-WDS mode, the unit operates as a Station to an AP but then uses a proprietary mode (meaning it will not work with all 802.11 AP's in WDS mode) to send up to 4 MAC's in each wireless frame thus enabling the wlan interface to be bridged to another interface (usually an Ethernet). Without this mode, you cannot bridge the station-mode wlan to an Ethernet and expect it to work. If you don't understand the 4 MAC reference, go Google WDS mode and find some docs explaining the frames and why more than two MAC's are needed.

Hope that helps.

well i made the mistake of switching it wds-slave and it left my network.
doing a wireless scan i found that it created its own ssid and it wont connect back to my AP-Bridge as a wds peer.

time to get that cable and go change it back to station-wds.

Other wireless clients can connect to mode=wds-slave.
Other wireless clients cannot connect to mode=station-wds.

but i do want clients to connect to wirelessly. isnt that what station-wds is supposed to be for? to expand the network by having multiple antennas in different locations?

but i do want clients to connect to wirelessly. isnt that what station-wds is supposed to be for? to expand the network by having multiple antennas in different locations?

Expanding wireless network, you can use station-wds.

One peer uses mode [ap-]bridge,
second peer station-wds on one wireless interface, mode [ap-]bridge om the second wireless interface,
and so on.

but i do want clients to connect to wirelessly. isnt that what station-wds is supposed to be for? to expand the network by having multiple antennas in different locations?

Expanding wireless network, you can use station-wds.

One peer uses mode [ap-]bridge,
second peer station-wds on one wireless interface, mode [ap-]bridge om the second wireless interface,
and so on.

i understood the station-wds part but i didnt understand what you said after that.

honestly i still dont understand what wds-slave is supposed to be for. oh well.