Hello! I just got my BPI-R3 today and will now be exploring how it works with OpenWRT. I don’t need its WiFi yet, it will be used as an advanced wired router for now. Can anyone say for sure if it is possible not to physically connect the antennas? Will this lead to the failure of the WiFi chips?
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If the interfaces stay down it should not harm card,but if the interfaces are put up or hostapd is started on it you risk damaging amplifiers.
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So we should always connect antennas if there is no possibility to physically turn off wifi chips. Software shutdown (disabling hostapd etc.) is not reliable. Right?
Here operates a R3 without antennas for more than a year without problems. For security I removed the wireless interfaces and packages. Because I’m compiling my own openwrt kernel I also removed the wireless driver packages in menuconfig.
Hth Go
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