I have a chance to put new node or nodes on a local 200 foot tower to encourage local activity. Currently there is a bullet on 2.4 with an omni antenna. Tower work is being done which would allow new an additional nodes, possible 5 ghz to be installed. Currently no local activity but some interest. What hardware would be a good choice to install? Barney K3LA
Ubiqiti has a good choice of sector antennas, and their Rocket r5 ac lite is the radio of choice for them.
Home folks will have a variety of choices for AREDN gear at their QTH, depending on distance from the tower. Try to encourage purchase of 802.11ac devices. They're a newer generation of hardware, and will be available longer as manufacturers phase out the older 802.11n gear.
Hope this helps.
73
Orv W6BI
to an antenna with 2 connectors, one vertically polarized and one horizontally.
There are Ubiquiti sector and omni antennas with 2 polarizations that can be used with the Rocket.
The older Bullet was a single polarization radio and used a single polarization antenna.
Please do not add a bullet or any single polarization device to a network.
Networks using omni-directional antennas do not scale well.
Please endeavor to avoid omni-directional antennas.
As Orv suggested,
1 to 3 Rocket 5ac devices coupled to 120 degrees sector antennas
each covering the areas of 'some interest' or 'the metropolitan area' or 'population center'.
I hope this helps, Chuck
Hi, Barney:
More likely to have a network with hidden nodes.
The higher above ground, the more likely to be an exposed node.
73, Chuck
The tower you say is 200 feet. The sectors do not need to be at the tippy top. Better to put at a level where you can access them for service and aiming. It's all relative to the surrounding topography so the true answer is ... it depends. Do some computer modeling using tools like heywhatsthat to see signal paths from proposed elevations on the tower. Most likely lower on your lower will be ok, to a point. Avoid trees however, they kill the signal. If you do have access to the very top levels of the tower that is where you would put a powerful narrow beam to connect long distance to another tall building or tower 20m away.
Ed