Hi all,
As stated in the subject line, thanks!
It would depend on link distance, desired performance, noise floor, etc. Any connectorized dual polarity dish will work.
Unfortunately the 300 CSM has a pole mount only, so it won't directly attach to any dish without some creativity. We have attached them to rocket dishes with zip ties in the past, as well as replacing the pole mount with the rocket mount adapter for epmp 1000 radios from RF Elements.
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We use the RF-Elements Horns or Ultra-Dishes most places. They have almost no side/back lobes and they have Twist port adapters for the 3000L/CSM radios that fits on either the Horn or the Ultra-Dish.
Twist port for ePMP 1000/CSM/3000L TPA-EPMP
The Ultra-Dish only comes in 4 packs as far as I know and there is a 24dBi and 27dBi version
For shorter links you can go with a 18dBi Horn
If you use rocket dishes you can use an “EasyBracket for ePMP” to mount the 3000L/CSM on a rocketdish
https://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=EB-ePmP&eq=&Tp=&o1=0
You have to drill a hole in the EasyBracket and use the screw that comes with the CMS (the one with a single tooth lock washer, the one with a regular washer and split lock washer will stick out to far and keep the bracket from locking in place in the rocketdish)
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Would need to know more about the link in general. Distance, obstructions, height ASL of each location where the antenna is to be mounted, RF frequency band and required speeds/signal levels. Once you know these you can create a link budget and choose the required gain plus add some overhead for radio fade and bad weather. You can do this simply by using the formula: budget = (RX sensitivity + antenna gain + far side antenna gain + far side TX power) - free space loss. Example (for Canada) using 5820Mhz on a PTP: TX = 30dBm (1W conducted), 30dB dishes, and a wanted RX -70; you have 160dB of budget, if freespace loss is only 120dB (assumes distance of 6miles, CLOS) then you have 40dB of margin and should see RX powers closer to -50 year round (10dB radio fade and 10dB weather margin), but that would be considered too hot of RX so you lower your TX power to get a nice -65 (use auto power control and lower the AP side power to be 1dB more than the average of the SM tx power so that the SM RX power is similar.
Or use Link Planner, it does all this for you and has a good database and algorythm to calculate freespace losses. If it doesnt have the antenna you need then add it using the spec sheets. This will give you a reasonable link plan and budget plus a fairly correct predicted link speeds.
If you need an affordable option for +30dB, try Altelix. Though they are shrinking their antenna business, they still have stock. We have several of the AD5G30M2 (and one AD5G34M2-Pro), great real performance and a tight beam! They can mount near any radio and come with some common mounting brackets including the epmp1000 which the CSM is compatilble with. I have two of these placed 0.5 inch away from touching facing the same general direction, about 20deg difference (hair-pin link to get to another location that couldnt see each other directly, yes I could have built another tower but the municipality is trying to reduce the number of towers at all costs to the point of denying ). Though the two radios can see each other a bit (-87 to -91, time of day depending) they do not show up on e-detect. The far end SM's do show up though but the correct SM is -56/-58 and the incorrect one is -81/-86. both of these links are about 8 miles with near line of sight.
The only downside is that these are 32" dishes, but they work great!
Using a force300-16 with SA on, I could not see the dish until I was right behind it and about 1ft away, this was probably leakage off the cables though. I have an epmp1000-AP with an omni mounted 30ft above and back about 10ft (roof mounted tower) that can not see these dishes at all even though the force 300 can link to the the omni from anywhere below it.
Word of caution though: a 2" pole will hold these, but the tortional loads that these can exert I highly suggest a 3" pole or a back brace. We get very high winds here (20 to 60KMH is considered normal, gusts to 120KMH) and have had to realign these a couple of times until we upgraded the mounting pole.
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@Douglas Generous wrote:Would need to know more about the link in general. Distance, obstructions, height ASL of each location where the antenna is to be mounted, RF frequency band and required speeds/signal levels. Once you know these you can create a link budget and choose the required gain plus add some overhead for radio fade and bad weather. You can do this simply by using the formula: budget = (RX sensitivity + antenna gain + far side antenna gain + far side TX power) - free space loss. Example (for Canada) using 5820Mhz on a PTP: TX = 30dBm (1W conducted), 30dB dishes, and a wanted RX -70; you have 160dB of budget, if freespace loss is only 120dB (assumes distance of 6miles, CLOS) then you have 40dB of margin and should see RX powers closer to -50 year round (10dB radio fade and 10dB weather margin), but that would be considered too hot of RX so you lower your TX power to get a nice -65 (use auto power control and lower the AP side power to be 1dB more than the average of the SM tx power so that the SM RX power is similar.
Or use Link Planner, it does all this for you and has a good database and algorythm to calculate freespace losses. If it doesnt have the antenna you need then add it using the spec sheets. This will give you a reasonable link plan and budget plus a fairly correct predicted link speeds.
If you need an affordable option for +30dB, try Altelix. Though they are shrinking their antenna business, they still have stock. We have several of the AD5G30M2 (and one AD5G34M2-Pro), great real performance and a tight beam! They can mount near any radio and come with some common mounting brackets including the epmp1000 which the CSM is compatilble with. I have two of these placed 0.5 inch away from touching facing the same general direction, about 20deg difference (hair-pin link to get to another location that couldnt see each other directly, yes I could have built another tower but the municipality is trying to reduce the number of towers at all costs to the point of denying ). Though the two radios can see each other a bit (-87 to -91, time of day depending) they do not show up on e-detect. The far end SM's do show up though but the correct SM is -56/-58 and the incorrect one is -81/-86. both of these links are about 8 miles with near line of sight.
The only downside is that these are 32" dishes, but they work great!
Using a force300-16 with SA on, I could not see the dish until I was right behind it and about 1ft away, this was probably leakage off the cables though. I have an epmp1000-AP with an omni mounted 30ft above and back about 10ft (roof mounted tower) that can not see these dishes at all even though the force 300 can link to the the omni from anywhere below it.
Word of caution though: a 2" pole will hold these, but the tortional loads that these can exert I highly suggest a 3" pole or a back brace. We get very high winds here (20 to 60KMH is considered normal, gusts to 120KMH) and have had to realign these a couple of times until we upgraded the mounting pole.
Thank you for your response and awesome insight! Yes I have used link planner and it has been very helpful. Thanks again!
@Jacob_Turner @brubble1 @Douglas_Generous… I am limited to a 25db antenna with the force 300csm, Im in Canada, So I might as well use a Force 300-25 in PtP. Could one use a epmp 3000L in ptp mode with a larger db antena?
I am in Saskatchewan,
Sounds like you need to be more familiar with RSS-210, especially annexes 8 and 9.
In a point to point link, depending on which frequency your using, you are limited not by the eirp but by the conducted power. Cambium uses the same ( and incorrect) settings for Canada as the USA where the FCC has different ideas. So yes you can as long as you still adhere to Safety Code 6 requirements. Placing a 36dB dish antenna with 1w conducted right next to a lunch room is probably going to get questions asked.
For reference, I have a 3000L on a 3ft dish pointing to a 300-25 ( wind loading on the slave side dictated this, we GPS sync all of our links) and havent had issues and our compliance is set at 27db tx power with the correct antenna setting and auto power control for the slave side. Then we turned down the 3000L to make the slave see the AP at -60.
Word of advice, document everything with dates and whom. Have a tower/site log for this and make sure you log all tx power settings and what the slave receives the AP as.
What kind of speeds are you getting with the CSM? How does it compare to say the UBNT AF5XHD?
Sorry TDJ211,
For some reason your comment wasn’t shared to me.
the AF5XHD is a more expensive and less regulatory aware radio, meaning YOU must be very aware of the regulations and compliance or face the very expensive options. We have had competitors using UBNT gear not be compliant and we usually get audited at the same time. So far not one fine and only a few very pointed questions that was more ( in my opinion) for proving knowledge for compliance.