Arcman supports a couple of routers, USB sticks and Wifi-Cards which are listed below. Generally the hardware needs one of the Wifi chips listed in the documentation. There are a lot of devices which are theoretically supported but we maintain only a few devices. If you want support for devices we don't support, you are on your own. Take a look in the forum, where you may find a thread for other hardware or you may find help from someone else. So, if a hardware is not listed below, we don't support it and please don't ask us to do so.

* openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-wr1043nd*

The process for other revisions is similar, see OpenWRT wiki for details.

• Download the correct image from the table above. Make sure it is the correct version. You need the factory image version. The hardware revision is on the sticker at the bottom side of the device.
• In order not to damage your home router turn off your Wifi or unplug the Ethernet cable of your home LAN.
• Connect the router to you PC/Laptop using one of the Ethernet ports. Do not use a Wifi connection!
• Start the router and establish a connection to the router using DHCP.
• Open the address http://192.168.0.1/ using your browser.
• You will see a TP-Link site requesting login information. Login using admin/admin as username/passwort.
• On the left navigate to “System Tools” → “Firmware Upgrade”.
• Select the firmware file in the dialogue and press “Upgrade”.
• The upgrade will take a moment. The site will tell you at some point “Please wait until system reboots…” and the browser is trying to reload the page. This will not work as the router has a different IP now - if it has an IP at all.

The router now has OpenWRT on it with our custom patches. Go back to the basic router set-up in the documentation to configure the router for ARCMAN.

For more details than here, please see the OpenWrt Wiki about the Linksys WRT54G v3.1.

To install an image on the Linksys WRT54G v3.1 router, …

For more details than here, please see the OpenWrt Wiki about the TP-Link TL-WR841ND.

Information you may need to use the router, build custom firmware, …

Patches are the default one, which are for all devices: https://www.arcman.de/pub/patches/
Firmware files can be downloaded from: https://www.arcman.de/pub/firmware/list.php
Config files can be downloaded from: https://www.arcman.de/pub/config/

This short instruction set explains how to flash the ARCMAN image onto the router for the first time. If you already have ARCMAN running on the router consider the guide Updating firmware.

The procedure is depending on the hardware revision of the router you have. For versions not listed below, please follow the instructions in the OpenWrt Wiki.

• Download the factory file from https://www.arcman.de/pub/firmware. Make sure it is for v9 or v10, whatever version your router is (it is written on the bottom side of the router)
• Rename the downloaded file:
  • v9: wr841nv9_wr841ndv9_en_3_16_9_up(150310).bin
  • v10: wr841nv10_wr841ndv10_en_3_16_9_up(150310).bin
• In order not to damage your home router turn off your Wifi and/or unplug the Ethernet cable of your home LAN.
• Connect the router to you PC/Laptop using one of the Ethernet ports. Do not use a Wifi connection!
• Start the router and establish a connection to the router using DHCP.
• Open the address http://192.168.0.1/ using your browser.
• You will see a TP-Link site requesting login information. Login using admin/admin as username/passwort.
• On the left navigate to “System Tools” → “Firmware Upgrade”.
• Select the renamed firmware file in the dialog and press “Upgrade”.
• The upgrade will take a moment. The site will tell you at some point “Please wait until system reboots…” and the browser is trying to reload the page. This will not work as the router has a different IP now - if it has an IP at all.

For more details than here, please see the OpenWrt Wiki about the TP-Link TL-WDR3600.

By now we tested one high power amplifier.

The COMFAST CF-G103 is a very cheap (<30€) RX/TX amplifier from China and has a claimed output power of 4-5W, depending on where you buy it ;) The cool thing about this amplifier is that it will switch between RX and TX for each package and can therefore be connected to a router straight away. It turns out this mechanism actually works. The amplifier simply detects the power on its router side and if it is higher than ~-6dBm it will turn into TX mode.

We also put the claimed output power to the test by measuring the 1dB compression point. The graph below shows the result. It turns out the Chinese people are claiming a bit too much output power but the gain is spot on.