Force 300 availability timeline

Any update on when we should be able to purchase Force 300 radios? I am seeing a few vendors starting to list them as in stock but when we tried to place an order at our regular vendor (Streakwave) we were told they are on backorder as they are still pending FCC approval.

1 Like

Same, when can we expect these ? I have 3 projects coming up in about a month and would like to know if these will be available or if I should be looking at a different solution.

Here in Italy they're expected around 20th April... I've just asked distributors for their availability!

I just read the FCC approval documents dated Feb. 15. They are not promising. Maximum EIRP for the Force 300 appears to be about +30 dBm, and that's on non-DFS  channels; DFS is not done yet. This does not compare well to the Force 200 or competitive products. Am I reading the report wrong, or if not, is this being addressed?


@fgoldstein wrote:

I just read the FCC approval documents dated Feb. 15. They are not promising. Maximum EIRP for the Force 300 appears to be about +30 dBm, and that's on non-DFS  channels; DFS is not done yet. This does not compare well to the Force 200 or competitive products. Am I reading the report wrong, or if not, is this being addressed?


care to share that link?

z8h89FT0017 at 5745-to 5825 output power is .9977 (dbm conducted from radio) plus antenna gain... which is 25db.  erip could reach 55db     output power and radiated power are very different measurements. 

1 Like

That's not how the report looked to me. Antenna 2 was 25 dB; antenna 3 was 2 dB. (Antenna 1 is 2.4 GHz, I assume management Wi-Fi.) Antenna 2 is limited to about 4 dBm; antenna 3 is allowed 30 dBm. So either way it's stuck around jack EIRP, as the report reads. Also, at high power, the emission mask (in the spectrum analysis shots) went to pot, which would explain it. This suggests that the final amp needs some tweaking to broaden its linear range.

And I am looking forward to this device. This (mostly as a CPE with an ePMP 3000, but also as a small-site backhaul) and the PTP550 could create a very interesting combination, especially where the ePMP 3000 AP and the 550 can co-sync on a tower.

re-read.   conducted power and ERIP are not the same.   conducted, plus antenna gain yields ERIP.    .9977 watts is just is tiny bit shy of 30 db, so lets round down for sake of argument.   29.   29+25 is your max erip. same power as the force 200.   if you don't believe me, go and find the Force200s FCC files and compare. 

the low gain antenna is the dipole at the end of the feed horn, add a dish and that 2 db dipole becomes a 25db direction parabolic dish.  also all low-cost radios have poorer radiation bells than better devices.    the 450 gear has much higher quality RF components which i'd dare say make up 4/5ths of the price tag on it.    

the 450 gear is probably the cleanest in the unlicensed stuff.     LTE nodes costs are much much higher, mainly due to the quality of the components used.   same applies with 2-way radios, for example, Motorola's APX 7000/8000 series portable.  about the same price tag as a 450m for a quality trunked handheld radio.

I don't believe the Force300 can take sync pulse either, its a basic PTP or CPE radio.  the epmp3000 ap will be needed for sync.   Cambium, please correct me if I'm wrong on that, and I really would like to be!

1 Like

I did pull the Force 200's, and none of their masks looked as "compressed" as the Force 300's did at  high power. Of course the two reports were done by different labs, so they are not so easy to compare. (WIPRO did the 200, Sporton the 300.)

See page 4 of 377.  Maximum conducted power for antenna 2, band 1, 20 MHz, -4.10 dBm; band 4, 2.2 dBm. (They call U-NII-3 "band 4".) For antenna 3, Band 1, 29.81 dBm, band 4 29.99 dBm. So that's the high power. (The actual certificate is odd because it shows both high and low power levels for the same  emissions on the same frequency without explanation.)

Now go to page 5,  "table for filed antenna".

Antenna 1, 2.4 GHz, 25 dB (and I don't believe a 2.4 GHz antenna has 25 dB gain here! This make me somewhat suspicious of Sporton's work.)

Anenna 2, 5 GHz, 25 dB (this has 2 ports)

Antenna 3, 5 GHz, 2 dB. (this has 2 ports)

Now put antenna 3 (2 dB) together with its band 4 power of 29.99 (call it 30) dBm and you get +32 dBm EIRP. Or put antenna 2 (25 dB) together with its band 1 power of 2.2 dB (all it 2) and you get 27 dBm EIRP.

The approval for the Force 300 is modular, so it is for 2 dB alone or "insert ...into Cambium housing".

The occupied bandwidth plots look good up to page 30 or so, at which point the power is higher (the FCC posted a scan, not a cleanPDF, so to be sure it's fuzzy) and the pictures get ugly. This suggests that the Qualcomm wave 2 chip is reasonably clean (not 450/650 clean but not bad) but the final amp is being pushed beyond its linear range and you can see the 3rd and 5th order intermod.

I suspect this could be improved with some minor tweaks in the final amp, but I'm just guessing. And btw the FCC has the interior pictures posted twice, once listed as the exterior picture.

Are you guys getting this from the FCCID site? All I can see, no matter how I pull it up, is pages 340-377. 

I'm getting it from the FCC's own web site, OET Equipment Authorizaton (EA) database. That's the official source.


@fgoldstein wrote:

I'm getting it from the FCC's own web site, OET Equipment Authorizaton (EA) database. That's the official source.


Went there last night too and could not download anyfiles. Now it is allowing me to download. I will look at these this evening. Thanks.