Hey I was wondering does motorola recommend certain types of towers to put their equipment on? Also say I want to cover an area 20 miles from the tower on 900mhz how I should I place my AP’s? For example if I have a 120 foot tower should I put them over the tree tops? Trying to figure out how high is too high.
Well, the higher the better. You just have to be under 200’ if you don’t want to involve the FAA and have to put lights on it. I was going to move a 204’ tower, but it was too old and was used for an AM radio station for the last 40 years. I would say that as long as you clear the tree tops by 10 to 20 feet, you should get good reception from your CPE’s.
As for a “certain type of tower”, I would think that anything that is stable and is grounded for lightning strikes is a good bet.
What antennas?
What does the noise floor look like?
Other 900MHz Wisps in the area?
Is there a rise, watertower, or other height you can get on? Ideally you would be 100’ above the tree line if you want the best range.
20 miles might be a bit much to expect out of a single tower sight that low to the groound.
Ok there is a water tower, a couple of other towers radios/cell. They are not going to be right at this site. The closest one is the cell tower probably half a mile away. There are not a lot of trees at my tower’s site, but the area I want to cover is in southern GA so lots of trees. Mostly Pines. The tower I am thinking of putting up is 120 foot. Do you think I should go higher?
Thanks for the responses
Also I will be using the 900 MHz Integrated AP’s.
I think your expecation is high. Low to the ground in So GA, you are going to be lucky to get 5 miles through some trees. Heavy foliage will reduce that to a couple of miles. 900MHz is good but it’s not going to give you 20 miles at 120’. Assuming a noise floor of -85 or better you might get 10-15 miles using a high gain (13dB) antenna if you get above the trees. Elevation is everything.
Before you buy anything, you might want to know more about the RF background noise of the area you are going to service, work some deals with a tower space provider, and do some serious testing. This can be a really really expensive mistake if deployed incorrectly.
I would suggest that you start off with several 900 connectorized with Omnis 6-8 miles apart in a grid. See if you can work a deal with the City to provide them with reduced rate service in exchange for access to the water towers.
you can link the towers together in a very cost effective manner using Microtik links. start with a T1 with the expectation of binding a second T1 in about 6-12 months depending on rate of growth.
Look for posts on oversubscribing bandwidth. We ran 80 users on a single T1 before it saturated.
Ok well I haven’t purchased the tower yet, so if I need one higher I can go higher. I’ll take your advice and do some testing though. I’ll order the trial kit of the 900mhz AP. I’ll contact owners of the other towers in town and try working a deal to place my AP on one and do some testing from them.
So you think I should go with the 900 connectorized instead of the integrated? What is the advantage of one over the other?
Also is it out of reach to serve users in tree filled areas even with the 900’s? How is important is height and what height would you recommend to serve tree filled areas? What about 180 foot? If I can though I would like to stay under 200 feet is this feasable?
wesleyc wrote: Ok well I haven't purchased the tower yet, so if I need one higher I can go higher. I'll take your advice and do some testing though. I'll order the trial kit of the 900mhz AP. I'll contact owners of the other towers in town and try working a deal to place my AP on one and do some testing from them.
In the scheme of things, you won't see much difference between 120' and 180'. Assume the trees are 60-80' high, and average single story house is 20'. You can't get the tower high enough to get LOS at 5 miles. More AP's set up in a grid pattern might be my deployment strategy.
So you think I should go with the 900 connectorized instead of the integrated? What is the advantage of one over the other?
I was suggesting that you look at alternatives before making an equipment purchase. If I were in the woods, I would look at using multiple connectorized AP's with Horizontally polarized Omni antennas, and place them on water towers in a grid pattern rather than a single cluster of 6 Integrated AP's. This way you will have a "canopy" of coverage over the trees increasing your ability to get a link.
Also is it out of reach to serve users in tree filled areas even with the 900's? How is important is height and what height would you recommend to serve tree filled areas? What about 180 foot? If I can though I would like to stay under 200 feet is this feasable?
Your best chance will be with 900MHz, however you are not going to be able penetrate more than 2 miles straight through the trees. With LOS, you will be able to get that out to about 10 miles (maybe even more).
I would go to the City and County and offer them reduced bandwidth costs in exchange for tower rights. I would also talk to them about their 4.9GHz deployment plan and see if you can work with them to help them deploy it. You could tie it all together, offer to manage it, help them with their Homeland requirements, etc. They will tell you there is no money, but that's not exactly true. Every City and County has requirements for Homeland, and is budgeting now for that. Someone is going to get that money, may as well be you.
Contracts with exclusive water tower access for 3 years would be in order - that would box out anyone else and give you a chance to get deployed. Anyone else coming in later would be required to co-ordinate with you. Anything that would adversely affect your network would affect the City and/or County and that would not be tolerated.
Cool I will do more investigating. Thanks
I currently have a 900 ap on a 110ft watertower in northern michigan. it is connectorized with a 120 degree high gain tiltek sector antenna. I reach about 7 miles through 3 miles at least of deciduous trees. line of sight across water I reach 10 miles. Through pine trees I have a subscriber who should have perfect signal at 2 mi but I can’t get anything. I am in an area where the noise floor is basically non-existent (<-90) and the nearest rf generating tower is 7 miles away.
Moral of the story: Do lots of testing and don’t count on 10 miles through pines. I have found in some instances that one pine can completely block the signal.
I have found in some instances that one pine can completely block the signal.
Been there, done that. Thank goodness for customers that love chainsaws. haha "Just tell me where ya wanna point that thing!" :lol:
Aaron