Out of pure excitement on the Friday afternoon my AF5's arrived, I figured, "Shoot, what other place to test these radios than directly to my house from the office!". Unfortunately, the path, although only 2.3 miles as the crow flies, is covered with trees. I have been using a pair of Rocket M2's and dishes to get a link in the high -50's and prayed these AF5's would even just link up! Well, to my surprise, they did at -71 to -73dBm through trees!
Originally, I had linked it up at 5.838 on 10Mhz Half Duplex just to get it to link up. I ended up getting it to hang stable with minimal flapping at 94Mbps full duplex on a 20Mhz channel (or half duplex 40Mhz). To try to get it above some of the limbs at the end of my cul de sac, I raised the antenna another few feet on a 10' pole attached via gable mount and guide wires. This gained me another couple dBm with an increase in capacity to over 100Mbps full duplex on a 20Mhz channel!
Overall, first impressions... This unit is amazing! It has been so darn stable that I'm going to be bummed to remove it to reinstall my Rocket M2's!!! Construction is solid, mounting design was well thought through, and the radios just flat out work! I am looking forward to upcoming firmware changes that allow selectable channel widths for TX/RX and am looking forward to getting these units deployed in our network!
Below is the office end of the link. Airgrid was used for spectral analysis and is no longer there.
Here is my end on a shorter pole
House end Main page, not ideal but VERY solid even with these numbers!
Below is the path between the office and my house. Keep in mind, palm trees are a big deal here, as are coastal redwoods and oak trees
This is the path I was talking about. I am hitting just on the right hand side of the coastal redwood at the end of the street to the left of the palm trees. Behind that about 3/4 of a mile or so are junipers that are roughly 50-60' tall.
Althought I do not recommend deploying these under these circumstances, me sharing this with all of you just proves how robust these units really are and shows how amazing they will be once deployed correctly with best practices in mind!
Hope you enjoy!
Tony
Out of pure excitement on the Friday afternoon my AF5's arrived, I figured, "Shoot, what other place to test these radios than directly to my house from the office!". Unfortunately, the path, although only 2.3 miles as the crow flies, is covered with trees. I have been using a pair of Rocket M2's and dishes to get a link in the high -50's and prayed these AF5's would even just link up! Well, to my surprise, they did at -71 to -73dBm through trees!
Originally, I had linked it up at 5.838 on 10Mhz Half Duplex just to get it to link up. I ended up getting it to hang stable with minimal flapping at 94Mbps full duplex on a 20Mhz channel (or half duplex 40Mhz). To try to get it above some of the limbs at the end of my cul de sac, I raised the antenna another few feet on a 10' pole attached via gable mount and guide wires. This gained me another couple dBm with an increase in capacity to over 100Mbps full duplex on a 20Mhz channel!
Overall, first impressions... This unit is amazing! It has been so darn stable that I'm going to be bummed to remove it to reinstall my Rocket M2's!!! Construction is solid, mounting design was well thought through, and the radios just flat out work! I am looking forward to upcoming firmware changes that allow selectable channel widths for TX/RX and am looking forward to getting these units deployed in our network!
Below is the office end of the link. Airgrid was used for spectral analysis and is no longer there.
Here is my end on a shorter pole
House end Main page, not ideal but VERY solid even with these numbers!
Below is the path between the office and my house. Keep in mind, palm trees are a big deal here, as are coastal redwoods and oak trees
This is the path I was talking about. I am hitting just on the right hand side of the coastal redwood at the end of the street to the left of the palm trees. Behind that about 3/4 of a mile or so are junipers that are roughly 50-60' tall.
Althought I do not recommend deploying these under these circumstances, me sharing this with all of you just proves how robust these units really are and shows how amazing they will be once deployed correctly with best practices in mind!
Hope you enjoy!
Tony
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