RE: [smartBridges] Omni antenna coverage

[Robin McCaig]

Its all about downtilt, either mechanical or electrical, and antenna height.  In your case if you want better coverage near the tower base, get a omni with more electrical downtilt.  YDI has a calculator on their website that tells you what the inner circle and outter circle radius of an omni will be.   Robin From: Rob Cleminson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 4:13 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [smartBridges] Omni antenna coverage I too am running with a 12dbi Omni at about 150’  - customers at about 2-4km get a good signal but the closer you get the worse the signal gets – I am about to swap out and try a 9dbi Omni to see if the RF pattern improves for the clients that are closer. Failing this I will chuck the omni’s and use sectored antenna’s   Rob     -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ian Ellison Sent: 31 October 2003 14:57 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [smartBridges] Omni antenna coverage   I am currently running airPointPro Outdoor units with Comet GP24-3 Omni's, which is a 12 db antenna.  I am servicing customers as far as 5 miles away with sufficient results.  However, the equipment is about 150' above ground level which im sure helps.  Good luck. Ian Derek Breiland wrote: Up to this point I have been running off of one tower with 3 sectors.  I am looking at putting an addtional AP up about 6 miles from this tower to penetrate into a community of homes that will otherwise be difficult to cover due to the number of obstructions not to mention their elevation on the map leaves a little to be desired.  It will also enable me to install a less expensive CPE at the customer site if I can bring the AP closer to the customer making the service a bit of an easier sell.   I want to utilize an omni antenna in this area.  I have not yet decided what to backhaul with yet but I am considering an APPO to the new XO2 at the remote.  I can use one radio on the XO2 for the backhaul on one channel and the other radio for the access to the customers.  I am not a big fan of repeaters unless absolutley necessary.  It seems that most complaints on this site have the word "repeater" in the paragraph so I will try and stay away from it.   My question is to anyone currently working with onmi antennes on an AP.  What ranges can I expect for the various dB omni antennas?  9dB seems small to me, 12dB is maybe the ticket, 15db - way overkill?  I do not want the pattern to get too large to cause problems with my main tower.  I am looking at trying to get out no more than 3 miles for the AP.  The AP and omni will be mounted on a 40'-50' existing tower.  Also has anyone had better results with one manufacturer over the other with the same dB antenna?   Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.  I will be doing more and more of this so I would like to get it right the first time based on others experiences in already doing it.