Mike, How high are you up on that tower? I've seen you talk about the light a few times, what are using to trigger it? This is a rotating beacon, right?
I might file this away in my future bag of tricks, I think it's an excellent idea for some locations and could save us some time on a site survey if we already know it's all good. Thanks. Bob- By the way, looked at your site a few months back to check out that WI-FI trailer of yours. Man, that is one pimped out WI-FI Mo-Fo! Very nice and professional looking job. My hat is off to you for some good ideas. -----Original Message----- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Mike Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 10:24 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] New install driving me crazy.... Reading with interest this thread and especially Marlon's take. I have seen power lines in the Fresnel zone play havoc with a signal. Especially when the wind blows. I have found the same thing regarding placement of the radio. Many times a few feet one way or another just works. I liken it to the black magic of radio propagation. The -60 signal in question CAN be too hot like Marlon intimated. His analysis of the multi-path is probably right on. I don't know what your atmospherics are right now, but this is always the dreaded time of year for me. It has been raining for the past several days. It's colder than usual, and there has been some ducting going on. The leaves are dead on the trees and soaking up that moisture. Installs where I am using knife edge diffraction as a propagation medium aren't as hot as they were a couple weeks ago. The hill I am shooting over has tall grass that is all wet now. The row of trees a mile away I'm shooting over are full of moisture and not diffracting the signal like it was this summer. OK, for some of the voodoo science all this entails, here are some basic observations I've made regarding some of these problem installs. Trees or power lines in the near field that move and are in the Fresnel zone can kill throughput. The signal may look hot, but they can drop packets like mad. Using knife edge diffraction, G seems to work better than B; horizontal better than vertical. Sometimes off pointing an antenna slightly can attenuate a secondary multi-path signal. Always leave a service loop coiled behind an install. CAT5 stretchers are very expensive. It's much easier to make one shorter if needed. I endeavor to make the signal reciprocal, or within 3dB at each end. An alligator station will do nothing except add RF pollution. When doing an install, if possible, I carry a spare long CAT5 cable and a throw away laptop. I try to find the sweet spot before I tack anything down. Like I said, many times this whole thing smacks of black magic. I had a woman call me once from *WAY* too far away. I said, OK, I am going to turn on the light on the tower, tell me if you see it. "I see it," she said. Incredulous, and slightly bored, I told her I was going to turn it off and tell me when it goes off. I waited several seconds and turned off the light. "Ok, it's off she said." Now I was sitting up and taking notes. I asked her to tell me when it goes back on. She told me. I thought it was absolutely incredible that she could see my tower from where she was. She wanted to move into this old farmhouse, and wasn't going to do it unless she could get Internet access. Guess what? She's one of my most vocal and supportive customers and is almost 12 miles away. Mike At 08:44 AM 10/16/2009, Marlon wrote: >Is that a bigger or smaller antenna size than what you have now? > >If you moved up by 10' and increased your signal levels, what 1000% or so, >I'd REALLY say that this is looking like a multipath issue. > >Often with multipath I've seen the signals hold well but performance suck. >It'll sometimes kill the signal though. > >I had one install that has some power lines in the way. Fought intermittent >outages etc. for over a year. His signal was OK, but not great. Finally >something changes a bit and his signal dropped too low. > >Hmmm, bad radio. So I pulled his radio out and put in a brand new one, >still crappy signal. > >Double hmmmmm > >I put the old radio back in, left it off the mount and moved it around to >see what would happen. (I always leave 6 to 10' of cable on the mount just >for things like this.) > >Triple hmmmmm > >Move the radio to the west 6' and DOWN 2' and he's got great signal, faster >speeds than ever and is happy as a clam. Now one of my biggest PITA >customers just never calls anymore. It was a very amazing transformation to >his service. > >Again, there were some powerlines *close* to the path but not in it. Things >actually looked pretty good to me. But not to the radio. > >Your symptoms look like multipath to me. We don't see it's effect very >often, the systems handle it quite well today. But when it hits it can hit >hard. > >laters, >marlon > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Mark McElvy" <mmce...@accubak.com> >To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> >Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 4:50 AM >Subject: Re: [WISPA] New install driving me crazy.... > > > > Well before moving to the current setup, I originally had a CPQ-19, 10 > > ft lower. It had a -80 with the same result and I was seeing a lot of > > retries. > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On > > Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer > > Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 9:30 PM > > To: WISPA General List > > Subject: Re: [WISPA] New install driving me crazy.... > > > > Change from b to g or g to be mode. > > > > Turn your power WAY down. That's way too hot of a signal. > > > > Any metal, trees, houses, power lines etc. anywhere near the signal > > path? > > > > This looks a LOT like multipath. > > marlon > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Mark McElvy" <mmce...@accubak.com> > > To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> > > Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 2:30 PM > > Subject: [WISPA] New install driving me crazy.... > > > > > >> Installing a new customer, Tranzeo CPQ-19 to a MT AP, -60 signal > > up/dn, > >> -102 noise. About half the time I don't get name resolution and can't > >> browse pages. This happens with two different radios. It is kind of > >> acting like I am loosing routing or something. I also notice I will > > get > >> very high ping times sporadically along with drop pings. Best of my > >> knowledge no one else having issue on this AP, about a dozen users. > >> > >> > >> > >> Mark McElvy > >> AccuBak Data Systems, Inc. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > -------- > >> WISPA Wants You! Join today! > >> http://signup.wispa.org/ > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > -------- > >> > >> WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > >> > >> Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > >> http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > >> > >> Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > -------- > > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > > http://signup.wispa.org/ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > -------- > > > > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > > http://signup.wispa.org/ > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > > > > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ > > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- >WISPA Wants You! 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