Upgrading an AP - Questions

Network Design
1

Hello I hope this is the proper forum. I am an installer and I also assist in building new Access Points. We need to upgrade one of our access points and I have a couple questions and/or requests for recommendations for best practice.

We are currently serving 38 customers off of a Mimosa A5c radio via a N5-360 antenna. We would like to add another A5c. We need to cover a 280° area from the access point. We have a variety of RF elements horns (a couple 30s, a 60, and a 90) We also have 4 N5-45x2 Sector antennas. We also have 4 A5x radios we could potentially use instead of the A5c. Our customers all use C5X radios.

My question is this: Is it ok to use two horns on one radio pointed in different directions? And can they be of different beam widths?

What would you all recommend considering the equipment I listed?
Thank you.

2

Hi Matt,

Yes, it is ok to use horns facing different directions and they can be different beamwidths. Mimosa has tons of customers that utilize horns.

Please keep in mind that the wider the horn, the wider the beam pattern but you have less energy. This reduces the distance you can connect clients. If all of these clients are near the AP, then it would be fine. I know RF Elements has a design tool that you can use to kind of map out how far a good connection would be. https://rfelements.com/calc

I’ll let some service providers comment if they wish.

1 Like