In one embodiment, a supervisory process receives wireless signal quality measurements obtained by a particular node of a wireless network. The wireless network comprising a plurality of mobile nodes. The supervisory process computes, based on the wireless signal quality measurements, an optimal amount of radio frequency attenuation that the particular node should use. The supervisory process generates an attenuation configuration for the particular node that specifies the optimal amount of radio frequency attenuation that the particular node should use. The supervisory process pushes the attenuation configuration to a variable attenuator of the particular node.