Can someone help us with this Spectrum Analyzer.
We have a difficult time understanding what to look for.
I know we are looking for the strongest signal in our specific channel,
and we are trying to avoid a channel that already has alot of signal,
though it is VERY confusing.
Is there something we should be doing?
Everything looks the same to us.
make sure in the config page the web page auto update is set to 5 or 10 seconds. Enable spectrum analyzer. the further the green lines move to the right the higher the signal a -75 is stronger than a -90.
Instead of setting the Configuration page to Auto-Update, you can repeatedly click the Spectrum Analyzer page’s Enable button. The Spectrum Analyzer collects data continuously either way; the Auto-Update and re-Enable options simply display the latest data on the page.
The green bars show the current signal strength, the yellow the peaks. Red is a serious problem: you may not be able to get a reliable Canopy connection at any frequency setting because the signal strength is high enough to potentially cause the unit’s RF front-end to become de-sensed.
You’ll get the best picture of your RF environment by running the Spectrum Analyzer – from both SMs and APs – when none of your own equipment is transmitting. The APs must be switched to SM Mode on the Configuration page before the Spectrum Analyzer is an option in the list of Expanded Stats. Putting the APs in SM Mode will also disable their transmitters so they don’t confuse your Spectrum Analyzer results on other units.
It’s important to eliminate your own transmissions from your results. The “bubbles” or “hills” in an SM’s Spectrum Analysis – hills that you associate with your own transmitting APs – might be masking a smaller hill of interference.
The bottom line: The green “hill” the SM sees for its AP must always be at least 3 db higher than the yellow peaks of any underlying signal.
Thanks for your help!
so, basically, on the SM Side.
#1) have NO AP Transmitting.
#2) run the Spec. An. and look at the green line (and note the yellow marker)
#3) turn on the AP and see how much DB gain there is (lower the number)
We are looking for atleast 3DB to get a good connection.
Then, repeat from the AP Side, though make sure that the SM’s are also turned down… Make sense?
When you run the Spectrum Analyzer on each of the APs, first switch all the APs to SM Mode. You’ll learn the most by also running the Spectrum Analyzer on the SMs while the APs are in SM Mode.
There’s nothing to “turn down” in the SMs. Enabling the Spectrum Analyzer will turn off the SM’s transmitter. If all the APs are in SM Mode, then none of the other SMs will be transmitting either, they’ll be “SCANNING” and searching for an active AP. The SM doesn’t transmit until it’s “REGISTERING”.
Doing a thorough job of Spectrum Analysis is, obviously, very disruptive to your subscribers.
The absolute minimum of 3db is based on the Canopy’s signal-to-noise-ratio specification. This applies to the AP signal seen by the SM, as well as the SM signal seen by the AP. Any interference within 10db, however, could easily fluctuate enough during a day or season or year to cause problems. If this does occur, you’ll likely see the problem on the AP or SM as a high Jitter value just before the session fails.
pearls like-- red means your receivers are likely to e desensed would be very nice in the knowledge base /manuals I’ve been doing this for almost two years with canopy and a 30+ year rf background and didn’t know that was a marker for problems thanks