We’re about to replace two ePMP1000 APs that are currently using the SH-TP 5-60 horn antennas from RF Elements with two ePMP3000 APs using the same type of horns. Our understanding is that we’ll need to use two horns facing the same direction (fully overlapping) for each new AP, with chain0/chain1 on one horn and chain2/chain3 on the other horn. This is our first time using this dual horn type of deployment with the 3000s, and wanted to make sure we are doing it correctly. Has anybody else done this type of swap from one horn on an older AP to dual horns on a 3000?
Not necessary, you can arrange them for example back to back to cover 2 sectors (split sector).
The bad thing about this is that it won’t work as 2 separate sectors with N clients (they will share the AP performance), you need AC clients for the split sector to work (it’s like having 2 synced APs). Have already tested it the mentioned.
If you have only N clients then the antennas need to face the same direction. Keep in mind the arrangement of the ports (CH0 and CH2 need to be the same polarization as well as CH1 and CH3)
In our scenario, we have a mix of N and AC clients. We are not really interested in deploying it as “Split sector” with one AP acting as two sectors, we would rather deploy both horns facing the same direction serving as one sector. Technically, we could replace the 2 ePMP1000 APs with one ePMP3000 on split sector, but that would give us much less capacity than using two new APs (and it seems that this wouldn’t be a good idea anyways due to the N clients). As far as the antenna connections go, you’re saying that we’d want to hook up ch0/1 to one horn and ch2/3 to the other, with 0/2 and 1/3 matching polarizations? Thanks for the help!
Not of fan of them personally but have you considered Cambiums 60° horn made for the 3000 ? You don’t lose MU using it like you do (according to Cambium) doing the overlaid dual non-mu horns. Also possilby beam forming/shaping (I can’t keep them straight and looking at docs Cambium can’t either). Looks to be about 1dB less than the RFE 5-60 and you don’t give up some of the 3000 features but I didn’t really take the time to compare all the other specs between the two antennas.
And not trying to talk you out of using dual RFE 5-60 but you are not doing split sector so you won’t (at least according to cambium, I have no personal experience with it) have any MU-MiMo (or maybe just very little?) and you also have a mix of N clients not taking advantage of much of what AC brings to the table… can’t believe I’m suggesting/asking this… Now, I hate 3000L with every fiber of my existence and think they are the absolute worst pieces of junk I ever hung on a tower and then had to take down… that said, others seem to have a different experience with them and in your case , since you aren’t doing MU anyway, I’m curious if you considered them since you could just swap them out with the 1000’s and no other antenna changes or if you, like myself, have used them and have had really bad experience with them ? Or maybe one of the other things you lose with 3000L (edge filters, sync over power etc… ) is the reason ?
At first we swapped out 1000’s with 3000L’s because it was just a fast simple radio swap and there just were not any good/simple antenna/horn options for 3000 (still isn’t) the vast majority of clients were N anyway. After struggling with antenna options for 3000 and 3000L failing in every single instance we tried to use it I we ended up using a lot of 2000 in place of 3000L and 3000 were one of the 3 antenna options will work.