900 Mhz gear

[SpecialK]

Lonnie,


I know you don't like to speculate on products you don't have yet.
But are you any closer to a 900 Mhz solution?

Some have tested the new version of the zcom card.

I have several projects where I need 900 for some sub-divisions with very wooded lots. I would like to put up some micro pops using 900.
I would like to use you stuff and have been patiently waiting but competition is forcing me to make moves quicker than I like.

[lonnie]

We have chosen the new GZ901 from zcom, and are awaiting quotes for price and availability. The latest release of the card does not have the 2.4 GHz problems and has all the benefits of their earlier cards.

It's too bad Ubiquiti made a shift from the SR9 method because then the choice would have been obvious, for their radios.

[go.fast]

It's too bad Ubiquiti made a shift from the SR9 method because then the choice would have been obvious, for their radios.

Can you elaborate?

[skyclimber]

We had noise issues with the SR9. Now we are very impressed with the Ubiquiti XR9. We have near 100 clients using 900Mhz and 500 new to come in this band. Time Division could be a good add-on in 900Mhz Band. We were not able to afford waiting for another card. But, I'm sure Lonnie have is reasons to select ZCOM.

[Stratolinks]

Well, after looking at the spec sheet for the 900MHz card from Zcom (http://www.zcomax.com/embedded.htm)'s web site, I can think of one big reason for waiting.

They seem to imply that the GZ-901 has a 900 MHZ OFDM/DSSS Radio, not a 2.4GHz radio with a converter. If this is so, that should mean NO additional 2.4GHz noise from using one of these cards.

I would also expect that, if this is the case, there will need to be support in Star-OS to have direct selection of the 900MHz range frequencies.

Canada allows for 902-928MHz, that would mean there would be 5 5MHz wide channels available, or 2 10MHz wide, or only one 20 MHz wide. That sure won't allow very many customers on one radio if you want to have at least 2 sectors on a site. But then again this would be used in conjunction with 2.4 for the ones who have adequate line of sight.

[go.fast]

WOW, the price looks like a real winner, 88.00 each :

http://www.wlanparts.com/product/GZ-901/WIRELESS_MINIPCI_CARD_905925MHz_300mW_from_ZCom.ht ml

Wonder if they are available now?

[SpecialK]

Ya, I looked at wlanparts already but I was not sure if the older ones that people had problems with had the same model number?
Or did they give the new version a new model number?

[lonnie]

That is the key. You have to get NEW parts or they are bad for 2.4 GHz.

[lonnie]

By making the XR9 incompatible it meant a brand new system was required and your SR9 radios are simply orphaned. We had some GZ901 that we were evaluating but holding off because they did not work with the SR9, so once that was no longer an issue, it opened the door to a change.

Can you elaborate?

[Stratolinks]

But often change is good!!! It usually means progress.


But I think the $1000.00 questions are these:

Does the card work in the current release of Star-OS?

Will the card work in the next release of the OS?

Will the Valemount store be selling them? Both with the WAR1 (if it fits on it), as well as with other boards, as well as separately.


Then the $100,000 question...

Is this something that we wildly estimate will be available within say 1 month, maybe 2 months, or maybe even 3 months, or maybe it is more like 6 months? "Inquiring Minds Want To Know"

No, really, I know you don't set time lines, software takes what it takes. But there is always vague statements like "Barring any major issues coming up, we hope to be able to ship this new product within 6 months."

I would think that for most of us, a very vague idea of when this may become available would be helpful in the planning of some expansion.

[go.fast]

What would be nice is a wp188 bundle with a 900 card. Same ones you offer now with the 2 gig and 5 gig antennas or with out, except with one 900 card.

Assuming these cards don't have some major early release flaw, like falling down if there is other 900 stuff near by.

[tog]

The GZ-901 works fine in the current version of StarV3. Also here's a bonus for you since information on this radio is impossible to find:
http://staros.tog.net/wiki/Hardware_FAQ#What_is_the_channel.2Ftranslation_tab le_for_the_Z-Com_GZ-901_900MHz_Atheros_card.3F

[DrLove73]

I think question was: "Does Star-OS supports NEW GZ-901 (without converter) out of the box, or there needs to be new firmware release?"

[tog]

I do not know of a new GZ-901 and an old GZ-901. The GZ-901s I bought about 6 weeks ago worked fine with StarV3 1.3.x.

[lonnie]

We support every Atheros card I have seen and heard of.

The SR9, XR9, and GZ901 are all supported as 2.4 GHz cards so you have to use their included frequency converter table and choose your 2.4 Ghz channel.

Unless we drop support for Atheros you can count on the next version having support for the Atheros cards you are used to using.

If I answer the $100,000 question, do you actually pay me $100,000 or are you just teasing me? ANSWER: They were available last week. Just make sure you ask for (and receive) HW version 0.9

[Stratolinks]

We support every Atheros card I have seen and heard of.

The SR9, XR9, and GZ901 are all supported as 2.4 GHz cards so you have to use their included frequency converter table and choose your 2.4 Ghz channel.

Unless we drop support for Atheros you can count on the next version having support for the Atheros cards you are used to using.

If I answer the $100,000 question, do you actually pay me $100,000 or are you just teasing me? ANSWER: They were available last week. Just make sure you ask for (and receive) HW version 0.9

That is good news that the card is already supported. I was just unsure, since it is supposedly a native 900MHz whether there would be conversion from the selected frequency, or if if you would have to enter the actual 900MHz band frequency.

As for the $100,000 question, nobody wants the answer now since we now know that the cards already work in the current version anyway.

But, we can take up a collection for the $100,000, it shouldn't take long. You will notice I didn't specify what currency that was in. :D

[lonnie]

Playing around with the currency on me will get the dialogs converted to Thai. I guess we never specified what language they would be in.

[go.fast]

Just make sure you ask for (and receive) HW version 0.9

Are you saying the HW version 0.9 is ready to be used and available right now?

Or should we be waiting for more real world testing before we make a purchase?

To understand the importance of my question, I have some subscribers to install and I need 900 cards. I am currently out of stock and need to buy more 900 stuff.
I don't want to throw any more money away at 900 cards that need to get changed, but I also am not wanting to beta test any of my subscribers.

But time is working against me.

[Stratolinks]

Playing around with the currency on me will get the dialogs converted to Thai. I guess we never specified what language they would be in.

Ooh that would make things interesting now wouldn't it.:D

[DrLove73]

I think testing is over, but for the current firmware....

[DrLove73]

Ooh that would make things interesting now wouldn't it.:D

Well, for me, there would not be much of the problem. I already troubleshooted several PC's on foreign languages and did just fine since i can pull images/locations from memory. Not always perfect, but... it would make excellent "memory game". :D

[pwmaclean]

So, I'm not sure if I read one of the early posts right, does the zcom card work with the SR9's or the XR9's, or neither?

[tog]

Neither as far as we know. Its channels do not line up with the XR9 or the SR9.

[pwmaclean]

Ummm aaa gonnnnna snap, freakin loose it!!!!!!!

Ok, so zcom eh? huh. I actually speculated that lonnie was using zcom as a negotiating tool for some issues with ubnt, so now I've got maybe 1/4, 40 or so sub's changed from sr9 to xr9, left the rest at sr9, and now zcom...haha, temperature rising...ooooooooohhhhh.......((steam..coming..out ....of.......ears......!!!!))

[tog]

Meh, I just haven't deployed any 900 yet.

It's not like you have to run around swapping things out that are working fine right now, just put up a new GZ-901 AP and start associating customers to it. Or just buy more SR9s or XR9s for CPE as needed.

[DrLove73]

As I understood lonnie, NEW zcom IS compatible with SR9, so hold your horses, and do not pull your hair out until he has time to answer you precisely.

[pwmaclean]

It's not me that I'm worried about, this is an installer and maintenance nightmare...

[DLNoah]

DrLove > The Zcom GZ901 technical specifications available at wlanparts.com (http://www.wlanparts.com/product/GZ-901/GZ901__WIRELESS_MINIPCI_CARD_905925MHz_300mW_from_ ZCom.html) explicitly state that the 901 is not compatible with SR-9 or XR-9. They are compatible with older Zcom 900 gear.

I took lonnie's statement to be that because the XR-9 was incompatible with the SR-9 (and thus would require a complete network rebuild for people who currently were using the SR-9 to start using the XR-9), lonnie took the opportunity to investigate other possible solutions. As a result of that testing, they are prepared to recommend the Zcom GZ901 instead of the XR-9. By contrast, it seems to me that had the XR-9 been interoperable with the SR-9s then lonnie most likely would have recommended the XR-9.

[pwmaclean]

That's what I gathered as well, I am quite pleased to see the pricing of the zcom radios, hope they perform as well as the xr9's...

[DrLove73]

Ah. Well, I was not investigating into it since 900MHz is off limits here.

[tog]

DrLove > The Zcom GZ901 technical specifications available at wlanparts.com (http://www.wlanparts.com/product/GZ-901/GZ901__WIRELESS_MINIPCI_CARD_905925MHz_300mW_from_ ZCom.html) explicitly state that the 901 is not compatible with SR-9, XR-9, or older Zcom 900 devices.

I don't see where it says incompatible with older Zcom 900 devices, only that it's incomptible with XR9/SR9?

[DLNoah]

Whoops. That would be me misreading the sentence.

[pwmaclean]

Regardless, that sucks balls...

[skyclimber]

900mhz is a thin band . If nothing work together it will be very difficult to efficiency share the spectrum with other WISP.

How will the GZ-901 deal with other 900Mhz systems ? Ex.: Will it be killed by 900Mhz canopy? Or will it outperform that gear ? We did testing with Xr9 and it seems promising.

[tog]

From what I've seen of the other 900 gear, the XR9 and GZ-901 stuff if it's working correctly should outperform the other proprietary 900 gear like canopy, trango and alvarion.

I wouldn't count too heavily on it working real well in the face of 900MHz interference which includes other proprietary gear. As long as it's not screaming in your ear really loud, you should still get links and some throughput, just probably not full throughput. The same could be said of any other system.

[go.fast]

I keep seeing high noise levels in 900MHz when I shouldn't be.
What keeps happening is the noise level gets in to the mid 80's and messes up the connection.
Normally I would expect that if noise is a problem it's interference from some other source. What I've had to do to overcome the noise if replace the 900MHz rootenna with a big yagi.

Yesterday I was deep in the woods. Where there is no cell phones or much of anything there. The place is nestled in a ravine with hills and mountains all around it.

My noise reading is fluctuating between 86 and 89.
Cards are XR9's.

http://www.oregonfast.net/gofast/900noise/900MHz.NOISE.JPG

[tog]

Wish I could say something intelligent but I never tried any XR9s. I failed trials with SR9s and then went straight to trying out some GZ-901s.

It's possible you have out of band interference, like something putting out large amounts of power in the 800MHz band.

[rafamous]

Don't know if it matters or not but Lonnie said in another post to use long preamble.

Can anyone verify?

[lonnie]

Long preamble was for the SR9 because they have a slow RF output amplifier. Actually newer SR9 even work fine with short preamble. That would not be a source of noise but could drop throughput or prevent an association.

Don't know if it matters or not but Lonnie said in another post to use long preamble.

Can anyone verify?

[rafamous]

Thanks for the update Lonnie.

[pwmaclean]

900 yagi's have proven far better than 900 roo's for me. I can almost always get better signal and performance with a 9dbi yagi over a 12dbi roo.

Lonnie, are you saying only the sr9's need long preamble? Set to short for the xr9's and gz901's?

Tog, what's your word on the gz901 cards?

[lonnie]

The early SR9 radios required long preamble, but I believe I said the newer ones work with short. Short preamble is preferable since it wastes less time, leaving more time for data.

We prefer the yagis as well. Not as simple to install but they are better.

900 yagi's have proven far better than 900 roo's for me. I can almost always get better signal and performance with a 9dbi yagi over a 12dbi roo.

Lonnie, are you saying only the sr9's need long preamble? Set to short for the xr9's and gz901's?

Tog, what's your word on the gz901 cards?

[tog]

Word is I don't know yet...

[luke541]

I’m using the XR9’s with Short Preamble and have never had a problem yet. I have had pretty good success with the XR9 so far and find they really are quite stable. I‘m also using some of the XR9’s on a tower with a paging system. I tried a Trango backhaul on this tower a while back as a demo and the paging system killed it. The XR9's ears seem unaffected compared to the Trango link that failed due to the noise from the paging system.

I actually just recently put up several FD links using the X4000’s with the PAC Wireless Dual Polarity Dish’s. On each of these I took out two radio’s and added an XR9 and a Yagi with the intention of a failover method if the FD link encountered a problem. On a few of these links to my surprise I found that using 5Ghz for the TX, and 900Mhz for the RX performed better than using 5Ghz alone.

It would be nice to be able to better identify these FD links within the general display window though. Its actually a little confusing the way it shows the TX idle for about a month and the RX side always workin hard.

Overall I’m happy with the XR9’s performance with StarOS, though I do not deploy 900Mhz gear for clients so I don’t have a lot of opinions in the p2mp setups. And of course i'm really happy with the Full Duplex feature. Awsome additon. :)

[go.fast]

They were available last week. Just make sure you ask for (and receive) HW version 0.9

Anyone buy these yet?
Where did you get them and for how much?
Also, most importantly, are they out performing XR9's?

[ninedd]

They were available last week. Just make sure you ask for (and receive) HW version 0.9
Well, then don't buy them from WLanParts then! I specifically asked for 0.9 and got 0.6 instead. I asked them not to ship them if they didn't have 0.9 or later, but got 0.6 anyway.

So, Lonnie - what can I expect as the difference? Do you know what .6 vs .9 will do for me?

[go.fast]

I just called wlan parts this morning. I talked to Frank. he said he had the latest. The latest is what they got in about 30 days or so ago.
I specifically asked him if he had the latest revision. he said he didn't understand what I was asking concerning the latest revision.

Soooo, I was a tad bit annoyed. So I found the thread where Lonnie said, make sure it's the latest revision: HW version 0.9

Frank was supposed to email me back, but no dice.
So maybe Wlan parts doesn't have the latest stuff.

Anyone know who does have stock on the latest HW version 0.9 ?

[ninedd]

Yes, that's what he told me as well. I asked to make sure they were version .9 and I was told that they had the latest version - which turned out to be version 0.6 that I received. I've emailed them back, and Frank says those are the latest versions they have.

[lonnie]

Anything below 0.9 will interfere with and be interfered by 2.4 GHz systems. BIG time from what we have seen.

[go.fast]

So who has stock on 901's Hardware version 0.9 (or better?) ?

I'm kinda stuck not being able to install more 900 subs, or I have to buy more xr-9's, which I'm not really wanting to do.

[Stratolinks]

Anything below 0.9 will interfere with and be interfered by 2.4 GHz systems. BIG time from what we have seen.

So my question is: Can the 0.6 ver card that I just received 4 of for testing be used on the remote client end (on a WAR1) where 2.4GHz noise shouldn't be an issue, or does it transmit noise out the antenna port in 2.4GHz too? Although even then it shouldn't be a problem since we would be putting a 900MHz client because we can't get enough 2.4 from the AP to them through the trees anyway. Thus the reason that I am installing 900 in the first place will also stop most of the 2.4 noise from getting back to the AP anyway, maybe...

Or should I return the 0.6 cards and wait for the 0.9 cards?

Will you be selling them in your online store soon?

[lonnie]

It creates and is affected by 2.4 GHz noise. I thought I had spelled that out pretty plainly. The versions before 0.9 are NOT recommended.

[ninedd]

Frank just told me that according to ZCom...
"I've just been told that .9 is not yet released."

[lonnie]

Then I suggest you wait. Maybe that is why they are taking their time to start working with us.

Frank just told me that according to ZCom...
"I've just been told that .9 is not yet released."

[ninedd]

Does Microcom know what HW Version they have? http://www.microcom.us/wmr300.html They are also only $89!

[pwmaclean]

Just an fyi, we're going to stay with the xr9's. They outperform the sr9's and have been reliable over the last 6-8 months. we're getting them for $115 and to save $25 per cpe on questionable cards to change everything over just isn't worth it. we'll see in a year or so.

[DrLove73]

If ZCom does not work with Valemount, Microcom can not have 0.9 HW revision.
"Frank" works in Microcom.

[skyclimber]

We will also stay with XR9 we have 50 StarOs cpe 900Mhz working without an issue. They outperforms all gear we tried since now. Maybe the price will be more affordable soon.

[Stratolinks]

We have not put our any 900 MHz equipment yet so I had hoped to do some testing and start off using the Zcom cards, and ONLY use the Zcom cards. I bought some SR9 cards back in fall of 2006 for some testing and I hated the way the "worked" so I never deployed them and here they sit. I have been busy enough doing 2.4 APs with 2x that I haven't really bothered with the 900 MHz stuff, but we are going to be putting some new sites up and a couple of them would really benefit from the 900 MHz for a number of close clients behind trees.

Just an fyi, we're going to stay with the xr9's. They outperform the sr9's and have been reliable over the last 6-8 months. we're getting them for $115 and to save $25 per cpe on questionable cards to change everything over just isn't worth it. we'll see in a year or so.

[bobbyc]

Lonnie/Anyone,

Start leaking what you know about the zcomax cards vs XR9 vs SR9. Tell us some goodies.

Bob C

[lonnie]

At this time we have nothing we can write about. The new firmware has been held up. We feel it is superior to the SR and XR series but product in hand trumps product "coming real soon now".

[DrLove73]

...in addition, XR series is much better than SR one...

[markscs]

We're very close to really needing to deploy 900mhz. At this point it's going to happen within a month for at least one small village, and if there is no GZ901 for staros officially and StarOS CPE we're going to have to go with the XR9.

That being said, those using any of the 900mhz cards, does it stand up to the Canopy horizontal 900 stuff?

[tog]

If it were me and I had to deploy within 30 days, I'd use the XR9.

I do not have to deploy any 900 for any particular pressing reason so I am waiting for the Z-com radios.

If by "stand up to" you mean operate in the same area as a 900MHz canopy system, I'm sure the canopy system would be pretty detrimental to your performance if you were unable to avoid using the same frequency range that the canopy stuff is on.

[ninedd]

That being said, those using any of the 900mhz cards, does it stand up to the Canopy horizontal 900 stuff?I agree with Tog. If you need to get going right away, then the XR9 is the safest choice. We're having to do the same thing - we have a lake community that we're connecting this summer and we'll have to go with XR9 for the installs out there, probably 120 installs or so. :)

I do also have two ZCom cards here, but they're Ver .6 so I haven't really tried them. Perhaps they are OK, but if you're like me and don't have experimentation time, then the XR9 is a good, mature card.

As far as stand up to Canopy, the Canopy's stuff is designed to be the ''last man standing''. They don't have a CSMA Backoff Mechanism, plus they have a Syncing Mechanism so that they can avoid self-interference. These two things mean that their gear is designed to dominate the airways, not to necessarily get along with anyone else. :( Oh, plus Canopy's channels are 8Mhz wide, so just three Canopy channels being used will blanket the band.

That being said, we have Canopy 900, 2.4 and 5Ghz equipment here, and if we avoid the same channels (particularly with x2 cloaking) then we don't really have much of an issue. We haven't setup any 900 particularly close to a Canopy 900 though, so I don't truly know how nasty their 900 stuff is. :)

[markscs]

We're not going to use our 900 very close to any existing Canopy stuff, at least in this one particular situation, the Canopy gear is about 15km away and there is some good insulation in terms of terrain. They are using 6 sectors at the site 15km away (so probably gobbling up the whole band).. We're hoping to use x2 cloaking on vertical 90 sector downtilted to cover the town (about 1000 people, from a grain leg on the edge of the town).. the canopy stuff is all horizontal), and as far as I know the town has no other 900 activity. I'll get a h-panel too and experiment and see what combo works best. Just using it to provide 100% coverage to areas I can't get with 2.4ghz due to trees.

Would like to wait for the Zcom, and may use it for other sites but this particular one is going to need to go up within 6 weeks so I'll likely go XR9.

[go.fast]

So who has stock on 901's Hardware version 0.9 (or better?) ?



Any information on these cards yet?
Are the newest revisions available for purchase?

[skyclimber]

We have to purchase 900Mhz cpe for 200 customers next week. How and when can we expect ZCOM 0.9 revision ?

Lonnie, we have many WAR1+XR9 customers. Is ZCOM 0.9 revision worth waiting for it?

many thanks,

Louis

[lonnie]

zcom is real slow in getting the new firmware. No point waiting.

[DrLove73]

Considering that 1.3.20b works much better with XR9's, those should be the safest bet.

[go.fast]

Did Zcom give up?

[riverdeltawireless]

we have had very good luck with ubiquiti
the soon to be releast PS9 wooo hooo way to go UBIQUITI

[lonnie]

No they did not give up, I met with them in Taipei and they have an interest but they also have other partners and channels they are trying to protect.

Did Zcom give up?

[go.fast]

Is there anyplace that has the new GZ 901 rev 9 or better and is there any word on the performance compared to xr9?

I sure would like to do some comparisons, I have not been so pleased with xr9, not sure if it's the product or the enviornment.

[soulmata]

Really? That is interesting. A lot of people on this forum seem to be displeased with the SR9 or XR9 series.

On the other hand, though I only have a handful of deployments (4 APs and roughly 25 clients), I have been beyond impressed with what our 900MHz equipment has been able to accomplish.

Two weeks ago we picked up a longtime satellite customer who had been literally begging us for a solution. Due to a forested hill he had absolutely no chance for the past few years. Did an XR9 point to point and got him up with a nice 2 meg connection. Roughly 3 miles through some pretty nasty foliage. He paid up front for all the hardware.

[rafamous]

we have had very good luck with ubiquiti
the soon to be releast PS9 wooo hooo way to go UBIQUITI

I can't find anything on the PS9. What's the scoop?

[riverdeltawireless]

we are beta testing it for ubiquiti
as for use in the 900mhz line this is our first
as of right now it is in a trailer parks 1/2 mile shot all trees no line of site at all starOs and a wp188 and a xr9 with the beta ps9
works very very well
i was told these unit could be shipping in about 60 day thats all i know

[rafamous]

I installed an XR9 today and as soon their phone rang the signal went dead. As soon as they hung up it came back to life. I let them know and they where cool with it.

I have had great results in very wooded areas but not so good in town.

[go.fast]

I'm just looking to standardize on the best product for the future.
Sr9's are out, XR9's are better, not sure where GZ901's fit, but would sure like to find out.
An issue I have is trying to line up all the frequencies between my Trango 900, sr9's and XR9's.
I was putting xr9's in my 4 port boards, got about 18 - 900 ap's out there and before I get carried away, want to make sure I'm not compromising myself.
And there is some odd issues with xr9's and high noise when there shouldn't be.

[riverdeltawireless]

i am no expert in the 900 stuff but what kinda distance are you doing
this trailer parks we do with about 300 homes in it we can only get about 200 of them with 2.4 its like one side has no tree,s and the other is a jungle. we put up our beta unit the furthest from the tower maybe 1/4 miles and on a house that has the most trees
on top of all that the broadcast antenna is only up the tower about 20 ft
just above the roof tops
and i wil tell you what i am impressed with the service the beta customer is getting i just hope it stays like that so i can hook up the other 75 clients there that want to come online




I'm just looking to standardize on the best product for the future.
Sr9's are out, XR9's are better, not sure where GZ901's fit, but would sure like to find out.
An issue I have is trying to line up all the frequencies between my Trango 900, sr9's and XR9's.
I was putting xr9's in my 4 port boards, got about 18 - 900 ap's out there and before I get carried away, want to make sure I'm not compromising myself.
And there is some odd issues with xr9's and high noise when there shouldn't be.

[lonnie]

Since you have 2.4 access, you could also do a microcell closer to the affected clients, since as you say, they are pretty much on one side. A 20 dB radio and 16 dB sector beamed right the trees would cut through for such a close situation.

I love 900 MHz but I hate it when customers call to complain that they lose their Internet whenever they get a phone call.

[riverdeltawireless]

we tried that but the trees and the brush are to dam thick
we could put a node up front but it would only get maybe 10 homes

let me ask you
it seams you dont like 900 ? if so why is that??




Since you have 2.4 access, you could also do a microcell closer to the affected clients, since as you say, they are pretty much on one side. A 20 dB radio and 16 dB sector beamed right the trees would cut through for such a close situation.

I love 900 MHz but I hate it when customers call to complain that they lose their Internet whenever they get a phone call.

[lonnie]

900 MHz is a last resort. With 4 channels of 5 MHz available you do not have a lot to play with. Pagers and other licensed applications use the 900 MHz bands and they use 100's of watts of power.

900 MHz can do things that 2.4 GHz will not do, but 2.4 GHz is WAY more reliable.

[pwmaclean]

I have found this as well through painful experience over the last 12 months. 2.4 is the best option, 900 is a last resort, and only if they are willing to put up with connection issues at times...

[soulmata]

I love 900 MHz but I hate it when customers call to complain that they lose their Internet whenever they get a phone call.


We've had a few of those. After a brief explanation of interference, we let them know it's their choice as to how to resolve it.

Interestingly enough, most of them buy corded phones or switch to VoIP!

[c.davis]

Beware of some 5.8GHz phones as well, especially the earlier models, as they seem to have a 900MHz channel as well. We've come across those more than once.

[valenti]

I have found this as well through painful experience over the last 12 months. 2.4 is the best option, 900 is a last resort, and only if they are willing to put up with connection issues at times...

Yes, 900 is a PITA here too. About once a month I have to run new surveys and see what has changed and try to shift channels. Lately one channel works great for a few customers, but horrible for others. Try a different channel and a different set of customers are impacted.

I compete with a Canopy tower about a mile away from my first site. I definitely play second fiddle to that. If he shifts channels, I have to scramble and try to find something that works. (thanks to Trango for the software switchable H vs V antenna, that helps but I'm losing that feature as I move to less expensive radios)

I thought the canopy guys were immune to these problems, but I had a call last week wondering if I had changed channels. Eventually they found the problem, it was a new Canopy AP someone was testing (some distance away) without using GPS sync. Apparently an out of sync canopy AP can mess up sync'ed APs for miles around.

Seven months until the whitespaces open up! I wonder if there will be hardware on day one.

[pwmaclean]

Seven months until the whitespaces open up! I wonder if there will be hardware on day one.

Does anyone know if there will be any equipment to service the odd 512mhz-698mhz range that the canucks have opened up? Why did we pick a different range than the us? why do we always have to be different? why is the sky blue?

[rafamous]

Does anyone know if there will be any equipment to service the odd 512mhz-698mhz range that the canucks have opened up? Why did we pick a different range than the us? why do we always have to be different? why is the sky blue?

Sunlight is made up of all the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The gas molecules in the atmosphere interact with the sunlight before the light reaches our eyes.
The gas molecules in the atmosphere scatter the higher-energy (high frequency) blue portion of the sunlight more than they scatter the lower-energy red portion of the sunlight (this is called Rayleigh scattering, named for the physicist Lord John Rayleigh). The Sun appears reddish-yellow and the sky surrounding the Sun is colored by the scattered blue waves.

When the Sun is lower in the horizon (near sunrise or sunset), the sunlight must travel through a greater thickness of atmosphere than it does when it is overhead, and even more light is scattered (not just blue, but also green, yellow, and orange) before the light reaches your eyes. This makes the sun look much redder.

:rolleyes:

[DrLove73]

Hehehe, nice one.

[tog]

Oh sure, choose the easy question to answer.

[go.fast]

It creates and is affected by 2.4 GHz noise. I thought I had spelled that out pretty plainly. The versions before 0.9 are NOT recommended.


Anyone know what ever happened to these cards?

Is there a new version available, yet?

[DrLove73]

There is new 2.4 1W card cheaper then 900MHz supposedly working NLOS links.

Since Lonnie haven't posted anything, it must mean that ZCom never came through with the promise.

[go.fast]

Yeah, but it's not 900MHz.

[tog]

That was the last update I heard, something along the lines of Zcom never came through. It seems the Zcom 900 MHz radios have been placed on the back burner.

[DrLove73]

Yeah, but it's not 900MHz.

Read this (http://forums.star-os.com/showpost.php?p=57924&postcount=81) again. It is why I posted my response.

[go.fast]

Read this (http://forums.star-os.com/showpost.php?p=57924&postcount=81) again. It is why I posted my response.

Yeah, I'm aware of that statement. But if I need 900MHz, then I need 900MHz.

[pwmaclean]

go.900.mhz.fast
go.with.xr9's.

they've been good for us

[tog]

WTF? The Zcom GZ-901 just showed up at Microcom in the form of a "Wiligear WMR-300"

I just saw it, so I don't know if it's the newer version with that whole "inteferes with nearby 2.4GHz devices" thing fixed.

[SpecialK]

Wlanparts.com has had the wiligear 900 card for a while now.
I think it is the same card with the problems because it has been there for a while now.

Let me add that if you click to enlarge the image you can almost make out the hardware version on the sticker which looks .8 and if I'm not mistaken Lonnie said it had to be version .9 or better.

[tog]

Goodie, just what we need, widespread distribution of that card with that problem.

[go.fast]

I got an email from zcom last night. The email mentioned that they just completed their pilot run of .09 and had some samples available.

[tog]

Cool, did you tell them you'd take two or three samples to try out?

[go.fast]

I did, but heard nothing back.

[bobbyc]

This new hardware rev 0.9 is long overdue... but XR9's are working great for us right now. They are $130 though. If these zcomax cards work just as good or better at $85 bucks a piece; well you do the math.

Bob C

[go.fast]

I understand the 0.9 is out now.

[bobbyc]

Well shucks. Come on resellers, order them from zcomax!
Bob C

[SpecialK]

anyone found the Zcom 900 cards with the new hardware version?

[kbldawg]

Any update on this guys? Is the .9 version available from distributors?

[bobbyc]

Speaking of 900MHz gear... I had a odd problem this week. One XR9 customer would sit at 0% quality on anything other than 922MHz x2 cloaked. We had to change the channel on the AP this week, so he was out of luck. I went out there friday to diagnose. I started by unhooking our ground wire, no help. I then unplugged his dish network recievers from the coax leading to the dish LNBF, and the problem went away. I then hooked the coax back up, and problem was back. I then unhooked the ground wire from their coax grounding block, and the problem went away... I left the grounding block ungrounded per the local dish tv guy... so they're happy because they can surf the net and watch TV :)
Ironically, dish network is coming out next week to upgrade some of their receivers, so I told the customer to have dish replace the grounding block and rehook the ground wire to it. If the problem comes back, they might have a grounding problem, or a LNBF problem...?

Edit: Maybe they have a ground loop; the coax grounding block is going to it's own ground rod, and from there a ground wire runs up to the satellite dish. Perhaps it's getting grounded thru this, as well as the jacket on the coax from the receiver which is grounded to the electrical ground. Maybe that's causing the LNBF to spew noise near 900MHz?

[go.fast]

By chance, did the noise get real high as well?

[bobbyc]

yep. i logged in from their side (since I couldn't from the tower) and noise was high.

[go.fast]

Maybe that is something else I should look at when I see that problem again.
You just disconnected the ground wire from the dishes ground block and the problem went away?

[bobbyc]

yep. lucky break. Guy insisted he didn't have any wireless gizmos other than his 2.4ghz phones. I just started unplugging stuff thats near our equipment, and the dish was the closest thing.

[lonnie]

Check your local electrical codes, but a second ground rod should be illegal since it is very dangerous and can cause someone to die.

No matter how much ground wire you have to use, always go to the ground point established by the power company. Anything else is a waste of time and actually causes trouble and a lawsuit if you kill someone.

[bobbyc]

Our install is done right. I'm thinking the dish system isn't; and a ground loop is causing the dish lnbf to be noisy. Not my problem though; he'll get a small tech call bill though for my time.

[davidd]

Just to be clear on the ground loop problems.....

If I drive a ground rod below the cpe and ground the case / LMR lightning protector to it, thats OK. And the cat5 shielded cable does NOT have a shielded plug at the CPE but does use a shielded plug inside the house and that cat5 shield IS grounded to the house electrical ground...then that is OK.

As long as the electrical ground and the outdoor cpe case ground do not connect then all is good, right?

That's the way we have been doing it for a while.
Thanks
David

[lonnie]

I would say it sounds OK, but you would have to consult your local Electrical codes to be certain.

The problem is when you are connecting grounds together. Just to be sure during your install, measure the CPE drain wire, that you connect to the house ground, for voltage to your lightning protector ground. If there is a voltage it could mean the house has a grounding problem and it would be very kind to alert the homeowner to that situation.

It will also save your gear since internal ground problems can cause all sort of destroyed electronics gear.

[rafamous]

We will also stay with XR9 we have 50 StarOs cpe 900Mhz working without an issue. They outperforms all gear we tried since now. Maybe the price will be more affordable soon.


Would anyone care to take a guess at the maximum number of clients I could put on 1 XR9 card in a XSCALE War board? I have 15 now and would like to make sure I don't over load it. Each client is running at about a meg and the only thing the AP is doing is passing traffic. No CBQ or Firewall.