I’m looking at putting 2 x 60 Asymmetrical horns on an ePMP3000. Primarily looking to re-use spectrum.
Could anyone give me advice on whether this will work or would I be better using 2 x ePMP3000L with GPS sync?
Are you looking to point both horns in the same direction, or in different directions? At 60* you should be able to take advantage of MU-MIMO on the 3000 if your groupings are good, which should give a throughput benefit when loaded. Plus, the 3000 can take sync over ethernet.
Most of the GPS problems I’ve had with 3k have been with the lites. The newest pucks from Cambium have “mostly” resolved this but not entirely. I’ve been moving away from the lites for this reason.
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This thread has input from people that are doing exactly this and cambium posts / explains what you gain/lose doing this and how to connect the horns.
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I’d saw that thread but I didn’t want to dredge it up again. It doesn’t actually give much information about performance with the split sector or details of how much “gap” to put between asynchronous horns.
Initially different directions. Site currently has 6 UBNT Prisms so it’s going to be a slow migration across to Cambium. Once I have less UBNT clients (or our country gains 6GHz outdoor) I can add in more Cambium APs and tighten up the sectors
What do you mean by “gap” ? The physical space between the horns ? That is obviously almost nothing given that RF-Elements sells a bracket who’s entire purpose is to mount two horns right next to each other and pictures posted by both Cambium themselves and users show the horns mounted almost touching each other.
If by “gap” you mean the space between the antenna patterns then that is also answered as being completely overlapping or offset by whatever the beam width of the antenna is depending on what you want accomplish. If you want to use MU then the minimum is just not overlapping. So 90° horns need to be be pointed 90° away from each other (and 60° horns 60° off each other etc…) if you have a lot of N clients and/or don’t care about MU then you should overlap them completely by aiming them in the exact same direction.
According to you, your intent to to point the two horns in opposite directions so 180°. Since it isn’t even possible to have more than 180° “gap” between them I think maybe I just don’t understand what “gap” you are asking about.
As far as performance goes, again, it depends on what you are trying to accomplish but with the horns pointed opposite directions for MU every AC radio on one horn should be groupable with every single AC radio on the other horn. So if you have 50/50 clients between the two horns then you get all the MU ! But if you have 90 clients on one horn and 10 on the other then no so much MU. Then again that is all also affected by the usage of the clients on the 2 horns. If one horn is pointed at a business area so most customers are businesses that use the service during the day, and the other points at a residential area were most of the usage is in the evening, then again, not much MU for you.
The advantage of a sector/horn solution that is designed for 3000 MUMIMO is that it can create groupings with clients much closer together (I forget what the minimum separation has to be) which allows a bit more flexibility dealing with the usage habits of your clients.
As for 3000L GPS vs 3000 in this scenario… If the 3000L was just a 2xMIMO version of the 4xMIMO 3000 then 2 3000L’s would be a better solution in almost every case. However, the 3000L is much more crippled vs the 3000 than just not being 4xMIMO so it really depends on your exact usage as to which would be the better solution.
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