We installed an ePMP integrated radio. We ran a link test and we are getting 100% quality in the uplink but in capacity, we are at 20%. We are at -75 dbm and 2.65 Km from the AP. We can see the AP pretty clearly with the naked eye. In the bottom of the fressenel zone, there are a tops of trees there, but they are pretty sparse and not really dense, but I am not sure if that could be causing our issues. We raised the integrated radio from 4 feet above the roofline to 10 feet above the roof line, and our overall performance never really changed. We are about to swap it out with a more powerful force110 but we wanted to know if there might be other things we can try to get the integrated radio to work better before switching it out. Any help or possible solutions would be much appreciated. Thanks
What band are you using 2.4, 5.1, 5.4, 5.8? Have you run ACS or an SA to get a better idea of what your spectrum looks like? Lastly, if you're trying to use a smaller foot print radio and/or something a little less expensive you could use the new Force 180 integrated radio... it's higher gain and about the same foot print as the old integrated radio.
We are running in 5740 Mhz with a 20Mhz wide channel. Not sure what an ACS is, I assume SA is Spectrum Analyzer? We went with the Integrated radio simply because we had that on in our stock at the time the customer called. We can switch CPE devices, but it takes us nearly a week to get things from Cambium since we are on the west coast and our local suppliers seem to be back ordered quite frequently. I didn't think it was an interference issue or noisy spectrum, but it could be possible. I have a customer about the same distance away who is getting great speeds at roughly -72 dbm. But -3dbm can make a huge difference.
ACS stands for automatic channel selection and it's in the Tools section of the radio UI. It's a good quick and dirty way to get an idea of what the spectrum looks like and what the ideal channel(s) might be. You might just want to run that once just to get an idea, then notate what channels looks good (you can download the results, but I'd personally just take a screenshot), and then turn it off, and manually set the recommend channel(s). In the 5740 band you should be able to run higher power in a PtP... so make sure your power is turned up and make sure that on the AP/master side that Subscriber Module Target Receive Level is set to -60dBm. Lastly, make sure your'e running the 2.5.1 firmware revision on both sides. Hopefully these tips will help improve your connection.
1.6 miles and a -75 with both sides being integrated radios are right on, I think. My math says -73.
You should definitely do one Force110 but for a ptp link I'd do Force110 on both sides. You would go up to the mid -50s.
I'd suggest running the spectrum analyzer and letting it run for 5-10 minutes (on each side) and choose the channel based on that. ACS can do it for you, too.