Will MR42E work without external antenna

[kyd]

Hi all,

Can someone please give me some advice whether MR42E will work without external antenna?

The reason I asking is I not sure if the MR42 will have good coverage for my office so looking into option of buy MR42E instead.

If coverage is not good enough, than will purchase external antenna to boost the signal.

Is this workable?

Thanks

[kYutobi]

MR42E
Dual-band, 802.11ac Wave 2 access point with
external antenna connectors for general-purpose
Wi-Fi and focused coverage

[PhilipDAth]

You need external antennas.  Don't use it without attaching antennas.

Without a way of dissipating the RF energy, you risk damaging the radios if you don't use antennas on it.

[JohnD · Accepted solution]

The MR42E has no internal antennas whatsoever, so in effect it will not work without external antennas. I don’t know if Meraki took the effort to either block the radios from coming online without an antenna attached or otherwise safeguarding the unit itself from physical damage, but even if that’s the case, you effectively will have no wireless coverage.

In my line of work I have tested client devices with no antennas attached and they have maybe 6 inches of wifi reception at extremely low data rates, enough to get an IP address... but it’s effectively useless.

[kyd]

Many thanks for all the advices

[theshmike]

As others mentioned, don't do it!

Are you sure about which antennas to use for the MR42E?

I am just wondering why you are trying to save ~30 bucks for the antennas when you're going to pay hundreds of bucks for the AP and the license...