B5-Lite Antenna Spacing

Products B5
#1

I have one set of B5-Lite installed and working. I would like to install a redundant set. How close can I put the new antenna to the currently installed antenna without them interfering with each other (i.e. how close can the 2 physical antennas be, side by side, to each other). Do I need to place them so that they don’t both point straight across the gap they’re spanning in order to reduce interference (i.e. parallel vs non parallel radio beams between the 2 sets)? I assume each pair should have its own SSID and be on different, non overlapping, frequencies.

I apologize if this is in the help files, but I’ve tried searching and can’t find it.

#2

I would space them as far apart as you can. They don’t have GPS or much side shielding, not really designed or built for this kind of link.

If you can “cross the streams” that will help a bit to minimize self interference, so don’t shoot them parallel have the links cross.

Yes, you will definitely want dissimilar SSIDs and you will want to have each link on separate channels as far apart as you can manage.

One thing you could do is have some sort of shielding between each set of antennas, a bit of steel should work fine that prevents each radio at the same location from physically seeing each other, preferably blocking all the directions besides the front of the radios (to keep out reflected signals as well.)

TBH though, the B5 and B5c are designed for this exact purpose, and there is lots of info on the Mimosa Documentation pages about designing links like this.

#3

Thanks William. That will help.