Rfantennadesign.com /Eje Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
-----Original Message----- From: "MDK" <rea...@muddyfrogwater.us> Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:15:32 To: WISPA General List<wireless@wispa.org> Subject: Re: [WISPA] 24dB 2.4 gig grid antennas I believe Advanced Antenna bought out the old Equinox company, and now it appears they, too, have gone belly-up - or at least the old website is now gone (www.advancedantennainc.com). Perhaps now there's yet another operating under the old brand, or maybe they changed websites and I can't find the new one. Over the years I've used a number of their antennas, and they were by far, the most troublesome I have used. They were even heavier than the pacwireless, and used the same flimsy bracket, with the dipole attached to the BRACKET not the dish, and the L shaped bracket would bend in the wind, leaving the dish and dipole out of alignment. We actually engineered a cable retention system we used on both theirs and PW's large grids to keep them pointed properly in high winds. They finally upgraded to a much heavier gauge bracket, but the design flaw remained. Then sometime later, I bought a boxful of 2.4 samples (from low to high gain), and found they simply weren't worth messing with. 2 out of 5 had bad dipoles - one failed on install, the other failed a few months later. The price was very cheap, however. And, they did appear to have roughly the gain they claimed. I took the dipoles apart and found that the construction was beyond bad. They were just crude and poorly constructed and poorly designed in every way eXCEPT the dipole printed on a PCB, which was very nicely done. THAT was my experience with the Equinox branded antennas. Later, I got quotes from Advanced Antenna, and bought bunch of the j-arm universal mounts, which were great. Upon calling back, I got my call answered by the same guy who used to be at Equinox... They raised the prices of their antennas above pacwireless, so I never bought a thing from them except j arm mounts. Some of the equinox guys left and started their own company, and I recall they had a new name and new location, but I never bought anything from them, since my biggest use of antennas is 5 ghz and theirs cost more than Pacwireless. I no longer recall the name they operated under. Lately, I've used a bunch of Arcwireless panels with the enclosure on the back, and the performance from those has been better than any grids I've used. Not to mention that compex finally got their certifications done a few years ago and that was the antenna of choice :) The 23 db panel gave us better RSSI than a 25 db PW grid for a given distance. The 2.4 panel performance is also very good. We lately used mostly ubiquiti bullets (not hp) for cpe and have gone back to the PW grids, because the standalone panel antenna mounts for Arcwireless totally suck. They're weak, clumsy, and even look strange. THere are two versions of PacWireless 5 ghz grids, there's a wideband and a narrow band. The wideband has an attached pigtail, and is cheaper by a few bucks. We've had a number of them that didn't work right, found some had the beam off to the side, or other quirks, like wildly varying RSSI for small frequency changes. The narrow band ones have no pigtail, but have worked better and more reliably, but we find them VERY hard to waterproof. We've found that some of the pigtails built onto the grids have leaked water right past the shrink wrap. A couple of temporary installs we used just filled themselves with water, which apparently had to come through the sheath of the cable, or through the shrink wrap itself. Still, we keep using them by default, because we haven't found any good alternative. If one of them behaves funny, we just toss it in the van and use it in some location that's real short distance and the gain or odd beam isn't an issue. Still, the water issue was a problem that I am extremely concerned about, though the failure rate has been small and only affects a few recent installs. I got some ignition spec dielectric grease and filled the connector with it and it's been fine ever since... the temp install has now made it through several more driving rainstorms with no issue, when it failed on the FIRST big rain this summer. -------------------------------------------------- From: "3-dB Networks" <wi...@3-db.net> Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 9:16 PM To: "'WISPA General List'" <wireless@wispa.org> Subject: Re: [WISPA] 24dB 2.4 gig grid antennas > Try Advanced Antenna... I've sold a few and have not heard any > complaints... > have not seen them myself though. > > Daniel White > 3-dB Networks > http://www.3dbnetworks.com > > > -----Original Message----- > From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On > Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer > Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 10:14 PM > To: WISPA General List > Subject: [WISPA] 24dB 2.4 gig grid antennas > > Hi All, > > What are you using for grid antennas? I really don't like the Pac > Wireless > ones. But I need something new because the Andrew (can't remember the new > name) ones are being discontinued. > > Suggestions? > marlon > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ---- > 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! 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/
