Here's something we are trying. Pro's / Con's? We are in the middle of testing, but thought I'd put this out there to see what everyone's opinion might be. Anyone else trying this? So far, it's working. The other test is we are reusing our old 900 antennas on SM's, but that is still a work in progress, as it does not seem to be favorable in anything other than a LOS shot. We are still looking into different configurations on that setup though.
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I assume it's vertical on the left and horizontal on the right? That's something we've thought about trying as well. Let us know how it goes. If we were doing a full replacement of a sigle site immediately, I would try it, but so far we're doing slow rolling upgrades. We haven't tried leaving any existing single pol antennas in plave - the price point of the new one's isn't too bad for us.
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Yes, you're correct, vertical on left, horizontal on right, old AP in middle a little lower. This wasn't as much a cost issue as a lack of necessity for capacity issue. This tower sits in an extremely rural area, and the client base will be minimal, but they are in demand for faster service, so we didn't think a full 4 sector array made sense, as much as trying to use omnis. It's a rare setup for us, as we typically go with 4 sector arrays. Testing is still in progress, but so far it appears to work just fine. Signals definitely seem better with the Cambium SM Antenna, as opposed to two old 900 antennas.
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What are you using for the V antenna there, we have several H 9.2dBi Cyclone (Amphenol I believe) Omnis but I'm not familure with what good V solutions are out there. I was looking at possibly a V 10dB Amphenol and while I don't mind the $1,400 price tag I don't like to spend that much if it isn't worth it.
It looks like Apha wireless makes a dual slant +/-45⁰ 900Mhz (698-960) Omni but it's only 6.5dBi and the 900Mhz is no where near the center of that wide frequency range so I'm not really sure I want to drop $1,000+ on it.
Here are the two antennas we are using. So far this setup seems to be working out ok for us.
Vertical - Pac Wireless OD9-11
Horizontal - MTI Wireless 900MHz Outdoor Omni-Directional H-POL 11.5dBi MT-243003/NH
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I have been chatting with a few antenna manufacturers, and it looks like there are a few that will release 180 degree sectors. Of course it makes frequency re-use a challenge, but I completely understand that there are areas where 4 sectors won't pay for themselves. Maybe getting down to two gets you closer? I can't wait to try one, and see if it preserves any of the NLOS performance we all know, love and many depend on at 900 MHz.
I know this an older post. I have a few questions concerning your setup:
You say you are able to use your PTMP100 yagis with the new 450i sms using your AP setup?
What kind of speeds are you seeing at the SM?
Did you have any better luck with it in NLOS situations?
Any other notes you can provide on your progress would be appreciated. I want to try something similar...
Speeds are comparible to with Cambium Sector and Antenna's on SM side. As far as performance, we do see a bit of an issue with using our old yagi's on anything that's remotely nLOS or NLOS, so we are using the Cambium yagi. There is a significant noise issue with the other yagis. Otherwise, this setup works just fine for us.
Hmm..Strange. I was told in another post that this wouldn't work...But hey, I am all for recycling all these M2 Yagis I have sitting around here.
Anybody make an adapter to tie two of them together (one H, one V, with the proper spacing, of course) and connect them to the 450i SM?
Hi,
This is a really nice setup you have. Congratulations on this and thinking creatively. I have a couple question. In this setup (at the AP basestation side) and using Cambium's Yagi antenna at the SM side, how did you find the nLOS and NLOS performance and reliability?
Were you able to compare this setup and with the Cambium dual-polarity sector antenna? That is, nLOS and NLOS performance?
were did you get that omni antenna?
@tanner wrote:were did you get that omni antenna?
Vertical - Pac Wireless OD9-11
Horizontal - MTI Wireless 900MHz Outdoor Omni-Directional H-POL 11.5dBi MT-243003/NH
Both of these are available from various distributors. I believe Winncom carries both of them, def the MTI products.
Thank you, I appreciate it. They actually compare very closely. We have another site with the sectors, and signals are pretty close. The main thing we see is maybe a little bit more noise sensitivity, but for the most part signal strengths are equal, -/+ 3 db.
To be a little more clear, they don't work GREAT. They work, but mainly in a LOS scenario, and very little noise. And ideally, you want separation as opposed to mounting them together, as they mainly give themselves noise. That's the beauty of the Cambium Yagi, it's tuned to work on both planes, where as two individuals are not. Our approach has been if the customer is close with LOS and you try two yagis and they work without high noise, install them, otherwise, we stock the Cambium yagi just in case.