Disabling wireless signals in atheros cards

Hi,

I am making a testbed for wireless networks, with computers having atheros cards and ath5K driver.

I want to connect various computers through RF cables, instead of using an antennae. When I put atheros pci card in my computer, it starts showing available wifi networks even without connect the card to an antennae. Thus I need a way to some how disable the in built antennae in the pci card so that the communication between any two nodes can occur only via RF cable. Any suggestions?

On 02/12/2012 12:26 AM, vishaljain0819 wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I am making a testbed for wireless networks, with computers having
> atheros cards and ath5K driver.
>
> I want to connect various computers through RF cables, instead of using
> an antennae. When I put atheros pci card in my computer, it starts
> showing available wifi networks even without connect the card to an
> antennae. Thus I need a way to some how disable the in built antennae in
> the pci card so that the communication between any two nodes can occur
> only via RF cable. Any suggestions?

You are on the wrong mailing list. Try linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org.

My suspicion is that the receivers are sensitive enough to pick up signals from
the wiring between the antenna connection and the amplifier. What happens if you
attach shorted cables to the antenna connection points?

I’m not entirely sure if this is what you are looking for but have you tried using ifconfig? I’m not sure if this will bring down the whole card or not as have never had a reason to experiment but it’s something you could try.

you could try this, substituting your interface name between ifconfig and down

ifconfig wlan0 down