The whole idea of a passive repeater intrigues me. Two times in many years I have done just that with limited success.
The first was a metal building I built for Daystar Communications in SW Florida. It was our NOC and housed our customer support team as well as the techs. Cell phone coverage was the pits. What I did was point a Yagi at a known cell tower a few miles away. The feed line penetrated the building and fed a half wave dipole. One of the benefits of that particular time in my life is I had access to a very nice network analyzer. The dipole was cut very precisely, and the feedline, LMR 600 if I remember correctly, was cut to a multiple of ¼ wave and acted as an impedance repeater. In that way any matching errors to the feedline were negated. It gave cell phones in the building a couple bars and made usage possible. The second one was for a customer here in Iowa. They live down in a bowl and couldnt see my tower 2 miles away. They have a campground. Cell phones dont work well at all in the bowl. There is a pasture which has a hill that rises up from the bowl. From that hill you can see my tower. They planted a telephone pole and ran electricity to it. We put a panel pointed at my tower and a second one lower as a repeater which termed the entire property into a hot spot. It works well. We took 2 long commercial 800 MHz Yagis and connected them together with a short feedline measured, with the velocity factor to be a multiple of ¼ wave again. One Yagi points at a cell tower, the other points at the campground. It gives cell phones a couple bars where they didnt work most of the time before. If you used a couple high gain, efficient dishes and separated them with minimum feedline or hardline, it should work in a similar way. I would be curious to see the results as I havent done it with frequencies over 800 MHz. I wouldnt look for any magic results but reasonable results if your engineering is sound. Friendly Regards, Mike Mike Gilchrist Disruptive Technologist Advanced Wireless Express P.O. Box 255 Toledo, IA 52342 Mike's <http://www.tamatoledonews.com/page/category.detail/nav/5001/Local-Columns.h tml> Weekly Column 239.770.6203 m...@aweiowa.com _____ From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Jack Unger Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 5:21 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Repeater For this to work, one end needs to be very short. In a typical mountain-top repeat situation, the combined free-space path loss from BOTH paths is more than enough to prevent the link from working. Greg Ihnen wrote: Actually I've done this on ships where the deck department needed to communicate with the engine room and personnel down in compartments where winches for line handling were located. We're talking very short distances (less than the length of the ship - around a 1000 ft) and short cable runs. But it did let enough RF leak into the below deck areas to facilitate communications. Greg On Jun 7, 2010, at 4:34 PM, Bob Moldashel wrote: Garbage...... Let's say optimum consideration here... Present RSL -68 db ....Subtract cable loss -2 dB = -70 Add +24 db for the Grid = -46 Free Space Loss at 1/10th of a mile is -84 db Soooooo... If you take the -46 dB level out and add the FSL of -84 dB that will give you a -130 dB. I don't think that will work...... Get a repeater or get a stronger receive signal at your receive antenna. Like -20dB -B- Steve Barnes wrote: Ok I have never even thought about doing this. Does it actually work? This sounds WAY to simple. A 29Db Grid on a Grain Leg pointed at the AP that has a -68 signal plugged into a 24 DB Grid Pointed to the house 1/4 mile away. What kind of signal would you have on the back side at the house? Steve Barnes RC-WiFi Wireless Internet Service -----Original Message----- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Rubens Kuhl Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 4:20 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Repeater One option to consider is a passive repeater. Wire a coax cable between the two dishes and you are done... no electronics to fail, no power to supply on a remote location. (haven't tested this trick with dual polarity, though) Rubens On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Steve Barnes <mailto:st...@pcswin.com> <st...@pcswin.com> wrote: I have avoided repeaters like the plague but I have a situation where I have one and I am looking for a better option. When I started my wisp I was 100% Tranzeo. At this one location I setup a CPE connected to a TR-6000 that has 2 Ethernet ports that pass through POE. I ran 1 Ethernet up the tower with a POE at the bottom, and a crossover in between. I would like a similar layout for other locations. Issue I see is that not many other units, UBNT or MT have a 2nd Ethernet that pass through POE? How does everyone you get around this? Trying to stay cheaper than a RB433, 2 radios, and 2- antennas, box, pigtails, 2 LMR cables. Steve Barnes RC-WiFi Wireless Internet Service ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- 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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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/ -- Jack Unger - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. Network Design - Technical Training - Technical Writing Serving the Broadband Wireless, Networking and Telecom Communities since 1993 www.ask-wi.com 818-227-4220 jun...@ask-wi.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! 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