Hak5 WiFi Pineapple Enterprise antenna question - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / rf-microwave

author: figment
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2025, 08:55:12 pm
content: This question is about a gadget called the WiFi Pineapple Enterprisehttps://shop.hak5.org/products/wifi-pineapple-enterpriseI bought one last week, and the documentation is poor. No one at Hak5 has any documentation about the 8 antenna ports. I raised a support ticket that was closed today with "we don't know" as the response.I want to use better antennas, but there is literally zero documentation to proceed.Are all 8-ports dual band 2.5ghz and 5.8ghz? Do all 8 ports both send and receive RF? -no one knows.Does anyone have suggestions on how I can take measurements of each port and determine what frequency band each port uses, and if each port transmits and receives, or only transmits, or only recieves?thanks

author: Kean
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 29, 2025, 10:26:56 pm
content: I don't know the specific unit, but at least some of the answers seem to be available from the specifications at the page you linked.QuoteQuoteSo I'd say that all radios and antennas support both bands as stated above. You may have the ability to control which bands are enabled on each radio (just a guess).Eight antennas on five radios likely implies three radios have antenna diversity with two antennas - which matches the mix of radios. It seems both IPQ4019 and MT7612U can support 2x2 antenna diversity, but they probably didn't use the extra antenna on the IPQ4019 radios (either for a technical reason or just because of lack of space to mount them).No idea if all ports are enabled for transmitting, but presumably you can use the web or CLI to see some network configuration details and stats to check. You shouldn't need to use any RF gear when you have access to the computer controlling the radios.Changing the antennas may invalidate any certifications for the device.Hak5 likely outsourced the hardware design and production, but I would have expected them to know (or be able to find out) these answers for a device in that price bracket.

author: figment
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 31, 2025, 12:40:20 pm
content: Yes I did read the basic specs page before I purchased the unit. Because Hak5 says they don't know, and no documentation exists, I was asking if there is a way to connect a device to each of the 8 antenna ports, and measure what frequency range each port uses. And if each port is transmitting or not.The dual-band antennas are cheap, low-quality AND dual-band. And the radio specs just tell me what chipset is used, not the frequency band of each of the 8 antenna ports or if each port is transmit AND receive, or just transmit, or just receive.Hak5 is basically OK with "good enough", yea it sort of works, dual-band antennas. The documentation does not exist to allow someone to replace the cheap antennas with better frequency matched antennas.

author: Kean
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 31, 2025, 01:32:09 pm
content: Sure, you can use an expensive real-time spectrum analyser to measure transmissions if you know what you are doing. You cannot really tell much about receive only devices though.But as I mentioned, you should have full access to query each of the radio modules which should tell you what you want to know.If the radio module interface details are not shown in the web UI, then use a command line tool like iwconfig to see band info and maybe try netstat to see receive and transmit packet counters. There are plenty of other tools available, and I'm sure some of them even come pre-installed considering the nature of this device.As the hardware supports dual band I cannot imagine they wouldn't be making use of it unless you specifically disable it. Whether the unit transmits on an interface probably depends on operating mode.