View Full Version : What antennas to use 30 mile Point to Point
rafamous
11-01-2006, 07:10 PM
I am doing a bid on a 30 mile PtP. Their two bids they have so far is $30,000.00 and $10,000.00... Height is not an issue. Towers are in place.
They said they will go with the least expensive bid they receive. I should be able to come in better than $10,000.00 and still come out with a good chunk of change in my pocket.
I'm thinking the setup should be something like:
2 Quads for maximum speed.. they only want 10 meg but I want to wow them because they have several other locations after this one.
2 radio cards (Does someone have a recommendation for this distance?)
2 5ghz antennas (Does someone have a recommendations for this distance and a good company to buy them from?)
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Rich
nickwhite
11-01-2006, 07:52 PM
CM9's should do fine at that distance. You could go with an SR5, I've never used them personally, but have heard bad things compared to the SR2. There's also the WLM54AG - never tried that either.
For antennas, I would use either the 2-foot 29dBi, or the 3-foot 32dBi (http://pacwireless.com/products/soliddish_5ghz.shtml). We're using the 2-foot 29's for a 25 mile link with some old tranzeo gear, and we can get about 6 Mbps through it. Might be better to go with the 3-foot though to get a better signal. For a pair of the 3-footers with radomes, you're only looking at $700 + shipping.
2 Quads for maximum speed.. they only want 10 meg but I want to wow them because they have several other locations after this one.
2 radio cards (Does someone have a recommendation for this distance?)
2 5ghz antennas (Does someone have a recommendations for this distance and a good company to buy them from?)
CM9s in WAR2s and 3-foot 32dBi solid dish Pac Wireless with radomes will do dandy. You want a good signal to get a decently high data rate. For an important link I like to see a good enough signal to get at least 36 - 48mbit in auto and then lock it at 24 or 18.
You could even set up two WAR2s at each tower (one CM9 in each) and use OLSR for failover and still make money.
Pac Wireless also has a very interesting-looking 27dBi dual-polarity solid dish antenna with two N-type connectors on it (one connector is for horizontal, one connector is for vertical) which would go nicely with that neat plan I just made up.
go.fast
11-01-2006, 09:27 PM
Pac Wireless also has a very interesting-looking 27dBi dual-polarity solid dish antenna with two N-type connectors on it (one connector is for horizontal, one connector is for vertical) which would go nicely with that neat plan I just made up.
Has anyone tried setting up a duplex connection using the pac dual antenna?
I'm interested in a duplex connection using two radios at each end using one war for transmit and another for recieve.
Seeing you mentioned this antenna I figured was a good time to ask.
George
lonnie
11-01-2006, 10:32 PM
2 Quads, 4 CM9 radios in each, 32 dB dish from PacWireless. The extra radios will let you wow them by providing local AP at each site for laptop use or maybe connecting to another site by simply adding another antenna and no down time.
Has anyone tried setting up a duplex connection using the pac dual antenna?
I'm interested in a duplex connection using two radios at each end using one war for transmit and another for recieve.
Seeing you mentioned this antenna I figured was a good time to ask.
George
I haven't tried it, but it's possible to do via static routes.
Say you have a WAR2 on each end, two CM9s in each.
END1 - wpci1/wpci2 could be 10.0.0.1/10.0.1.1
END2 - wpci1/wpci2 could be 10.0.0.2/10.0.1.2
Let's say END1 is the "edge" towards The Internet end END2 is a remote site. Let's also say END2 is servicing 192.168.0.0/24 on its ethernet port (no NAT in this example, just using private IPs for demonstration.)
END2 gets 10.0.0.1 as its default gateway.
END1 gets a static route that says 10.0.1.2 is the gateway for 192.168.0.0/24.
End result: Traffic towards 192.168.0.0/24 will flow via wpci2. Traffic originating from 192.168.0.0/24 will flow via wpci1.
rafamous
11-02-2006, 06:28 AM
I think I was wowed by all the input...
I know they want all of their offices connected eventually so I will probably go with the Quad just for flexiblity.
I appreciate the plan TOG..... looks like something that would work.
Thanks guys.. I'll report back how it turns out. I'm expecting the best.
runet
11-06-2006, 04:12 PM
I have a 27 mile link using 3' PacWireless dishes and SR5 radios on WAR266's.
The link is locked at 24mbps. I can reliably get 10mbps although I have pumped about 20mb during sped tests.
Question:
I am interested in doubling up and I am concerned about self interference. Does anyone have experience with dual polarity antennas? How about just 2 antennas with some separation? And lastly, does it make sense to put both radios on the same board for synchronization? .
soulmata
11-08-2006, 01:28 AM
Using the 3' Pacwireless 32dB gain parabolics and a trango atlas bridge, each end only putting out 6dB (far less than the CM9 is capable of), I get a signal level of -64 at 15 miles, enough for 54 meg operation.
Assuming you aim your antennas properly and have no interference, those CM9s with 32 gain parabolics should give you plenty of room to roam with. The tight beamwidth on those (I believe it is 4 degrees) helps out a lot too.
runet
11-08-2006, 09:06 AM
Question:
I am interested in doubling up and I am concerned about self interference. Does anyone have experience with dual polarity antennas? How about just 2 antennas with some separation? And lastly, does it make sense to put both radios on the same board for synchronization? .
Any comments? I am really interested to know how others have delt with the fail over/higher throughput issue.
soulmata
11-08-2006, 12:12 PM
If I had two antennas pointing in the exact same direction on the same tower, I would definitely not use the same frequency. Depending on your antenna type, rejection might be -15 or -40, but depending on your output power you could still cause yourself a significant level of interference. Better way to do that would be to get the highest gain antennas you can with the narrowest beamwidths you can, then pick 2 channels to use rather than 1.
On the dual polarity question I have no idea what to tell you because I've never used them. But for a redundant link, I don't see how they'd help you much, since you'd still be relying on 1 radio.
You'd be relying on one antenna, but my idea was to hook two completely separate radios (radios also being in two separate WAR boards) up to it. It has two N-connectors, one for each polarity.
timotei
09-14-2007, 04:56 AM
You'd be relying on one antenna, but my idea was to hook two completely separate radios (radios also being in two separate WAR boards) up to it. It has two N-connectors, one for each polarity.
Anyone actually tried the 3' dual polarity dish antenna from Pac Wireless?
Anyone actually tried the 3' dual polarity dish antenna from Pac Wireless?
The old one sucked, the new one is awesome.