i installed one a ways up a tower, so i could see how far i could detect the signal. this was right after i flashed it and had not done anything to settings other than give it my callsign.  I noted i could not see it with most regular wifi devices but managed to connect with another node at my desk.  I logged in to it,(on the tower) and was exploring settings when i found a dropdown with a "stanard access point"  and a "mesh access point" so i switched it to "standard access point" . i was pleased to see i could see and log in with any standard wifi device. but also seemed not to be able to see it with my other mesh node. so i switched it to "mesh access point"  now i can only see it with standard wifi devices, but can no longer log in at all, cannot see it with mesh, cannot telnet, cannot ping, version is about 1.1.3

please advise, thanks from kd5fgu

Linksys or Ubiquiti?

Ah than you have to do it the hard way.

When plugged into the Lan port set the ip of your computer to 172.27.0.4 subnet mask 255.255.255.0. Then use your browser to http://172.27.0.2:8080

This also may work via the WIFI but I'm not sure on that off hand.

mesh_ap is intended to be paired with a mesh node in mesh mode it acts as a simple access point to bridge wired to wireless.

When in mesh mode your laptop will not connect the mesh mode is only for mesh devices as you have to speak the routing protocol among other tasks to be able to connect to the mesh wifi.