Which wins: The two RF Elements carrier class 30° symmetrical horns with short, high-quality outdoor jumper cables or the two Cyber Antennas horns with long, low-quality indoor extension cables?
Mexico City, 50 connected stations on 4x4 ePMP 3000 access point operating at 5305 MHz with a 20 MHz channel width.
HI @Cyber_Antennas ,
but what kind of competition? Price, life cycle, throughput?
According to the area of the horn opening (and it defines the gain and coverage), yours have a higher gain compared to the RF element. The RG 402 cable you installed is not a bad cable.
Regards
Yes, Cyber Antennas do have higher gain, and that is partly related to their larger aperture, which also inversely affects beamwidth. However, if the gain improvement were only due to aperture/gain/beamwidth and not antenna efficiency, I would expect the narrow beamwidth antennas to deliver worse overall performance. The RFE 30° symmetrical horns were installed first, and the 50 subscribers in the coverage area were installed to those antennas. If the Cyber Antennas provide more gain due to their wider aperture, they may benefit clients near the center of the beam but can negatively impact clients toward the edges of the sector because of the narrower beam width, causing increased problems for those clients, which would show up as elevated retransmissions. It is clearly worse to use a 20° sector antenna in a 30° coverage area than to use a 30° sector antenna for that same area. And again, this coverage area already has 50 stations installed to the 30° sector antennas.
The WISP picked this sector because it was the worst performing sector on their network, in terms of retransmissions, with peak retransmissions exceeding 25%.
What is the gain and beamwidth (horizontal and vertical) of the Cyber antennas horn? Based on its shape, I’m guessing it isn’t a symmetrical horn (unlike what it was replacing) and probably has a wider horizontal beamwidth.
The radio is operating on a 20 MHz channel at 5305 MHz.
Yes, the Cyber Antennas are asymmetrical horns. We didn’t measure the elevation beamwidths at 5.3 GHz, but at 5.6 GHz the elevation half-power beamwidths are shown in green and are 11° and 14°.
At 5.3 GHz, the gain for the horizontal polarity is 19.3 dBi and vertical polarity is 18.0 dBi.
These are the radiation patterns for the Cyber Antennas horns at 5.3 GHz with half-power beamwidths of 22° for the horizontal polarity and 30° for the vertical polarity.
By comparison, RF Elements shows the HG3-CC-S30 gain is 18 dBi at 5.3 GHz for both their vertical and horizontal polarities.
Comparison tests like this shouldn’t be necessary, because WISPs should be able to look at the datasheets and determine which antenna will perform best in any given situation. Unfortunately, that’s not possible, because the incumbent WISP horn antenna vendor doesn’t provide detailed and accurate representations of their antennas. Instead of measured values, they use computer-modeled values. Instead of detailed data, they use averaged data. Instead of computer-generated charts, they use hand-drawn charts. This makes product comparisons using datasheets impossible, which is probably the reason they do it.
WISPs will see the sidelobes on our radiation patterns, they will see our measured performance parameters, and they will see the differences between the vertical and horizontal radiation patterns, and assume our antennas aren’t as good. We expect to lose sales by providing detailed datasheets. However, I believe most WISPs are not just ready, but eager for better antenna options. In the long run, providing detailed datasheets will be better for Cyber Antennas and for the industry.
Yesterday the WISP installed high-quality extension cables. This will be fun because we’ll get to compare RF Elements with high-quality cables, Cyber Antennas with poor-quality cables, and Cyber Antennas with high-quality cables. Results coming soon.
The cables installed in this way will be torn by the wind, they should be tied to the structure.
If wisp mounts everything then it is not a relevant reference.
Regards
