900MHz Close link...

What are others here doing about really close 900MHz (or others, I suppose) SMs that are really overpowered?

I have taken to building a unity gain antenna, which is very simple and works fairly well, but being omnidirectional, picks up lots of crud.

Anyone have any other tricks?

Turn it backwards, maximum downtilt, put it in the customers house instead of oustide, or bury it in the front yard.

Just dont align it correctly.

If ur AP is Horrizontal polerized and it should be, by rotating a yagi to the vertical position will reduce the signal between 20 to 30 db. You can also use an attenuator inline.

Although the unity antenna picks up crud, what is the link test like? If the link test is good, then go with it.

If the link is poor, you could probably use a 9dB Yagi turned vertical. This would give you some off-axis rejection, and the polarity mismatch would give you the 20dB or so attenuation mentioned my attitude. I would also agree that using an inline pad would be a good solution.

Remember that the the power level at the AP is the concern. What is the power level set to on the SM? If the SM sees very high power levels from the AP that is not really an issue unless the level is over about -45dB.