Hello all! Need recommendations on best overall connectorized antenna. Ive deployed the intergrated 450i AP and there seemed to be some interference with my other APs on the tower (450 medusas), sometimes radar. Ive since replaced this with a connectorized 450i using RF Elements 60 degree symetrical horn and it seems better, however my power level to SMs have decreased. Want to also note that I have adjusted the power controls on the AP to what is recommended. Overall it seems to be the better option with modulation improvement, but was not able to reach all previous SMs due to gain. Any recommendations or suggestions would be appreciated!
Maybe this should be on a different topic, but for some reason our 450b SMs that are registered to the connectorized 450i AP have bad uplink modulations, whereas the retired 450 SMs have good dl/ul modulations...
450i AP and registered SMs are all on a 5.4Ghz frequency, 20mhz channel, 16.1 firmware. Thoughts on this also please.
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I have forwarded this to the support and development teams
There is a lot to unpack here.
First off, I am making an assumption that you're within the United States (if not, this may not apply). Using 5.4 GHz requires that you strictly follow the power limits of this band to avoid interfering with TDWR radars, if you're nearby any of those, or causing any other interference. So, good news that it seems you've adjusted the power levels appropriately. You may want to review the regulatory requirements to ensure you're following them with these antennas.
Regarding your first statement, you should be able to mitigate interference with your own equipment by ensuring that all of the GPS Synchronization parameters are properly set up among all of your equipment. The Integrated 450i AP is the best antenna we would recommend for use with this equipment and is highly optimized for this purpose.
That said, RF Elements makes extremely good highly directional antennas, but the EIRP limitation (required by 5.4 GHz DFS band) may limit the benefit you'll see from this, and may explain the reason you can't connect to some of those longer range SMs.
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Regarding your last statement (on 450b), please see these threads here... there are some antenna gain differences and deployment notes that you should be aware of.
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That makes sense. I appreciate the feedback!
I found that rf elements has a sector antenna with a "backshield". Im curious how much of an improvement this may have in my world. Unfortunantely, they do not make these for the connectorized 450i and im not seeing anything similar on the market. Have you guys considered something similar as an option?
Our integrated antennas are designed with extremely high front-to-back isolation across the entire back side of the antenna. This is very intentional to allow frequency re-use in a back-to-back fashion (i.e. a 360 degree coverage using only 2 frequencies, or N=2, ABAB scenario).
Doing this eliminates the need for any cumbersome ancillary "shielding", which has proven to not always have the intended result in the field (at least in our experiences).