Multiple AP on one PI?

[Northern Mike]

Has anyone tried or know if it is possible to run more than one AP on a single pi?
I'm working on a project with my son where we will have more that one directional antenna, same AP info, just different channels aimed in different directions.
I know we could run a few pis but we would rather keep the power requirements down by using one pi instead.

[epoch1970]

Well for sure you can run multiple instances of hostapd, with separate configs.
I think there is also a mode where you specify multiple APs in one single config file (example) however I've never used it personally since my experience with hostapd is mainly related to Pi 3, and its built-in wifi interface doesn't support that.

[Northern Mike]

I am playing with hostap right now on my pi3. It runs fine with the built in wlan0 but fails with the external wlan1.
The usb wifi works fine for normal us and with airocrack so I may just need to find the missing item in the hostap configs.

[epoch1970]

Yes, everything wifi is very much hardware-dependent.
I'd advise looking for the chipset name ("lsusb" should disclose this info) and use it to search on the forum for specifics about driver module or hostapd config requirements.

[Northern Mike]

Running now on the USB wifi. Had to kill a few services bound then resolve the IP address wlan0 had (even down) which was the same as wlan1.

Going to play a bit with trying to run a second AP on the same PI. Will use the onboard wifi (wlan0) for now to test.