What does everyone use for 900? Has anyone test both and seen a huge difference?
The 900 connectorized has more flexibility as it can be used with a yagi anntenna to gains of up to 18dbi, and also the card on the connectorized is stronger, 400mw. I haven’t had very good luck with the integrated pannels.
You’re talking about AP’s as well AC_Babitzke?
Wouldn’t you need more than 6 connectorized AP’s to cover a full 360 degree circle then? It’s my understanding that while yagi’s pull MUCH better signal strength, they also have less of a coverage area. The panels have 60 degree or whatever I thought yagi’s were significantly less.
Pacific Wireless now has a 120 deg HPOL antenna for the 900mzh AP, we are about to put up a 360 HPOL antenna from PW for a very small cell and are looking at the 120 for another location.
360HPOL
http://pacwireless.com/products/ODH9-9.shtml
120HPOL
http://pacwireless.com/products/SAH9.shtml
Might not be a bad idea. The little I know about RF has been from this Canopy learning experience. I have an RF guru that works with me, however.
That looks like it might work pretty well for what we were considering doing… we were thinking about opening just a small area with 1 or 2 aps…but if we used an Omni that would be even better.
Anyone have any real-world experience with those antennas? Are there stronger Omnis that don’t suck / pick up too much interference?
The Omni is 9db, and we’ll soon know how well it works (or doesn’t) next week. I’ll try and report back here our findings. It has a fairly narrow beamwidth (vertical) so in our situation it may be an issue (at the top of a small “mountain”). Ideally for our installation a few degrees of electrical downtilt would be ideal.
If the 360 doesn’t work as well as we hope, then we’ll get two 120’s instead since we are really after about 220 to 260 deg of coverage, at least we’ll have the ability to put a little downtilt on those.
The MTI Edge Wireless antennas are excellent. I have not used the sectors, only the panels but the workmanship, fit, and finish is outstanding. You know a quality product when you hold it in your hand.
If the grid antennas are any indication of Pac Wirelesses sectors I would be cautious using them.
We use integrated 900’s and so far they seem to work well. I am sure that if we were using connectorized radios with sectorized antennas we would see better performance but this has been working for us.
Going connectorized vs integrated IMO depends on a number of factors:
-> Do you have enough customer base and pent up demand to justify 3x or 6x AP’s?
-> What are you selling and for how much - business, residential, both (determines ROI)
-> What is going to be your max distance to cover
-> What does the RF spectrum look like
-> What does the terrain look like (Desert, Forest, Mountains, Flatland)
Thinking about the combination of the above factors will determine the best way to start.
Starting with 1 connectorized and a single omni is the most cost-effective and offers an upgrade path. If you get slammed and get 80 customers in a few months it will be easy to pull the omni and add 2 more APs and 3x 120 sectors.
On the SM side I prefer the connectorized to the integrated because I can use various antennas depending on the requirements. Typically the 13dB yagis are fine, but in rare cases where someone is way out on the fringe I can bump up to an 18dB yagi. Or if they are very close I can use a smaller yagi or panel antenna.
Jerry Richardson wrote: The MTI Edge Wireless antennas are excellent. I have not used the sectors, only the panels but the workmanship, fit, and finish is outstanding. You know a quality product when you hold it in your hand.
If the grid antennas are any indication of Pac Wirelesses sectors I would be cautious using them.
Mechanically the PW omni is very nice and I have no complaints with the construction. More importantly though will be the RF performance of the unit, if it passes muster then I'm a happy camper. If it falls on its face then I'll be looking at alternatives.