Bad experience with Pacwireless 5.x grids

[soulmata]

Has anyone else had bad experiences with Pacwireless grids?

Over the past few months, I've been setting up a series of panels for our most important business customer. Our goal is to link 14 of their locations together on a private WAN. We've been using V3 with cloaking on various 5.x frequencies.


At one particular location, we opted for a point to point shot using grids rather than panels because it was out of range of any other location. We use the GD58-26 grid at both the tower and the client end. At first, everything was fantastic - we had a signal level around -68, which was exactly what the math said it should be at that distance.

After a few weeks, suddenly the signal jumped up to around -76. At first, I chocked it up to noise or an antenna being blown in the wind. We checked all that and tried various other frequencies. Long story short, this week the signal failed altogether.

After exhausting all other options, I discovered that the GD58-26 grid up on the tower had completely failed. It was no longer sending signal out at all, wouldn't even work for short range. Replaced it with a much lower gain panel as a temporary solution and the link comes back up. Then I think back to another customer we lost around two months ago - mysteriously, one day, their signal just dropped off and never came back up. They were also using a GD58-26. Two weeks ago, a third customer cancelled due to intermittent service - I look at his equipment, sure enough, he's using a GD58-26. I pull his antenna and take a look - sure enough, it's sending out far less power than it should.

All the equipment is stuff we're using all over the field - Star V3 with CM9s. Some of them SR5s.

Regardless of what the root cause of the problem was, I'm opting to steer clear of Pacwireless grids from now on. I guess "you pay what you get for" really made a difference here.

[go.fast]

I've had issues with the grids @ 5gig in the past and moved to rootennas.
Glad it wsn't just me.

Noticed your in oregon as well. whats your isp?

[tog]

I have some of those same grids up, have had them up for 6 - 12 months without issues so far.

Could it possibly have been a weatherproofing issue at the connector?

I wrap my tape far beyond the actual N-F connector on those particular antennas.

[jeff]

I have some of those same grids up, have had them up for 6 - 12 months without issues so far.

Could it possibly have been a weatherproofing issue at the connector?

I wrap my tape far beyond the actual N-F connector on those particular antennas.

Last time we were talking Ben mentioned that they are changing the feed to have a pigtail. This should make water proofing much easier. For what it is worth we have used dozens of these over a 2 year period without failure. I would suspect installation error. They are a bear to get right. I always water proof with the feed in front of the antenna and then pull the result back through the mount and tighten it down. Trying to do it with the feed fixed in place never seemed to work.

[soulmata]

I have some of those same grids up, have had them up for 6 - 12 months without issues so far.

Could it possibly have been a weatherproofing issue at the connector?

I wrap my tape far beyond the actual N-F connector on those particular antennas.

Definitely not a weatherproofing issue. This happened across 3 antennas, all of which were extremely well sealed - Sillicon fusion as a base which we brought at least 3 inches down from the heatshrink, layered from there with insulating materials. Upon inspection of them after the fact, the connectors look flawless - and couplers in place before are still in place.

Keep in mind, they have the same N-Female head as our hyperlink panels - none of which have failed. It seems unlikely to me that we'd properly seal 200+ 2.4GHz grids, several dozen 2.4 and 5.x panels and a few large parabolics, but fail to seal one particular model antenna properly, three times in a row. *Some* of our GD's are still working - but i'm planning replacements.

[wwalcher]

Weird. I, like Jeff, have deployed quite a few of these grids over the last three years, with no problems whatsoever.

[HoeDing]

Did you purchase these grids at the same time? Maybe you got a friday afternoon batch.

[soulmata]

They were all ordered at the same time, yeah. At least, the four more recent in use were.

[soulmata]

I've had issues with the grids @ 5gig in the past and moved to rootennas.
Glad it wsn't just me.

Noticed your in oregon as well. whats your isp?



We're down in Eugene. We are pretty tiny right now at less than 400 clients, less than 250 deployed CPEs. Growing though!

[go.fast]

Nice, you ave a nice market over there.
But what's your isp's name?

[pachitoone]

Hi
I had serious troubles with Pac 2.4 grids. I had replaced 8 to 10 antennas. I never found what happens to these antennas. After replacing pigtail, card, and the whole cpe, I opted for replace the antenna of an angry customer. It worked well again. Same problem with another few customers. They had too Pacwireless grids, so I changed it to a new Hyperlink grid and the problem was solved. I checked the antennas but I don't found any damage. I concluded that the problem was a rusty feedhorn. Well, I suposse it.

[valenti]

Weird. I, like Jeff, have deployed quite a few of these grids over the last three years, with no problems whatsoever.

I've been trying to make links with these grids on and off all summer. Still no luck. Does the feedhorn assembly pretty much point at the target with the Pac Wireless 26 and 29dbi grids? (one of the other dishes I used you had to tilt it down much further than I would have thought)

Yesterday I tested a connection at 100' in my backyard, a 15dB panel to a 26dB grid. Seemed to test out fine, I was getting -33 with the power turned down to 2dBm at both ends. I moved the radios to my 5 mile link and I'm not seeing anything. (even after climbing the grain leg again to turn the power back up to def :-) -- forgot about that)

Should be a LOS connection. Going home to double-check Google Earth.

[greg]

I use their 26db grids all over my system for backbone links and they work well. The links are anywhere from a mile to 25 miles for the longest link. They don't hold up to a fall from 50' but other than that, no complaints. All the links are using w2 or w4 with cm9's and as little lmr400 as I can convince the installers. Someone recently said the new models were coming with a pigtail?

[rbolduc]

I use their 26db grids all over my system for backbone links and they work well. The links are anywhere from a mile to 25 miles for the longest link. They don't hold up to a fall from 50' but other than that, no complaints. All the links are using w2 or w4 with cm9's and as little lmr400 as I can convince the installers. Someone recently said the new models were coming with a pigtail?

wow 50' I would expect it to make a good BBQ grill after that ;)
There is a pigtail now.. That was my biggest complaint

Reed

[sligbot]

We've had decent success with the 29dBi version. A 16 mile PTP link with one PacWireless and 1 Superpass 21dBi and we're getting a solid -73. The ones we're using don't come with the pigtail.
--Rich

[valenti]

Thanks for the comments. I went back for another attempt and had a signal for a while. Best I could get was -80, that was with a 29dB and a 26dB. Then I tried to change the freq from the client end and lost the signal. Have to go climb the other end to fix the freq, maybe I can aim that side better too.

I wasn't using cloaking, suppose I can try that and get something reliable. But this is a far cry from the rf calculator's prediction. Noise was -92, worse than I expected.

Oh, to answer my question: the feedhorn arm pretty much points directly at the target with these PacWireless grids.

[handyman]

We have several of the 22, 26, and 29 Pac Wireless grid antennas in service. They are working fine once we got them set up right.

Waterproofing has been a problem. It's so difficult to do that we don't always get it right. Water gets in there and messes up the signal strength or quality.

Also, the ones we get come with assembly instructions for some old 2.4 grid antennas that are quite different. If you orient the wand in the wrong direction, your signal will be weak.

On the 26 dB models, the little foot at the base of the wand must point in the same direction as the numerous wires that make the grid. These are the same wires that run in the direction of the polarization.

I don't recall specifically about the 22 and 29 dB versions but I expect they would be the same.

[tog]

I've used maybe 6 - 8 26dBi Pac Wireless 5GHz grids and so far they've been great for over a year now.

I always keep going with my weatherproofing wrap well beyond the N-F connector on these and I've never had any water problems.

[kbldawg]

Ditto, well except we've only been doing wireless for 2 years, but we have used several (4 or 5) of the Grids and have not had any issues with their performance or reliability.

[Beebe]

I use Pac Wireless grids on most of my backhauls. That's about 10 links or so. I've had about 2 or 3 feedhorns go bad over the years, but that's the only problems I've had. I'm quite pleased with them overall.

[soulmata]

As an update, the 5th antenna from that batch of 5 is still in use and still ok. The other 4 are non-functional. We abandoned trying to RMA them and have just been sticking to different vendors now. Not to mention, the cheap brackets that came with the GD series was really ridiculous.

That said, I've fallen in love with Pacwireless die-cast aluminum enclosures... particularly the bulkier one with the swinging door. It is just awesome.