Hey folks... quick question, we're upgrading a link from an 820s (narrow) to an 820c. We're going to be using the 820c's in H+V config. To reduce downtime on the link, is it possible for the 820s and 820c to talk, assuming they're using the same polarity and channel and channel width? So we could swap out one side... and then the other... then when both 820c's are up we can activate the other polarity, and change the bandwidth script to be the correct, larger channel width?
Awesome idea to minimize downtime. Yes, 820C can talk to 820S. In fact this is required for AFR (Advanced Frequency Reuse) where you have one tower that needs to connect two points that are less than 90 degrees apart from each other, but the same channel needs to be reused on both links due to spectral congestion. Just be sure to configure the correct radio in the 820C - radio 1 is the lower antenna port on the 820C and is Horizontally polarized through the OMT while radio 2 is the upper antenna port, which is treated as V-pol.
Are you going to reuse the same dishes or will there be new dishes?
@Cambium Justin wrote:Are you going to reuse the same dishes or will there be new dishes?
We're going to re-use the same Andrews dishes. We ordered these parts with the 820c:
PTP 820C OMT KIT 18GHz QTY 2
PTP 820 RFU-C 18GHz OMT Interface-Andrew QTY 2
Anything else we need to convert these antennas? We're really hoping to keep them up on the tower and not have to re-align them.
Just an update... this configuration does not work... 820s narrow to 820c on one polarity. What happens is one side can communicate but the other cannot. So you get a TX lock and full bandwidth, but no RX lock and 0 bandwidth. Many hours were spent messing with config settings with no positive outcome.
You will need to swap out both 820 radios at the same time in order to communicate properly.
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