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Take a peek at the Nanostations - they are about the size of a "Tall boy" beer can, they strap to a vertical pipe and is basically just a M2HP integrated with a 8db directional patch antenna.
I know of one installation where they have a Ubiquiti M2HP bullet on an omni antenna up on top of the tower and several of these nanostations under it, strapped a couple of feet down on the same pole, pointing in different directions to make the directional links that the omni just doesn't quite reach with a signal strength better than a 70...
You don't HAVE to have a 24db BBQ grill dish up there on the tower adding to your wind load - but the extra gain helps on those long haul links! The Nanostations traverse miles without a problem. Just not as many miles as a BBQ grill dish! (8db vs. 24db!)
You can have several different nodes, all pointed in different directions, all mounted to the same pole and working happily next to one another. You just tie them together with a managed switch like Ubiquiti's ToughSwitch line of 5 and 8 port POE switches to feed them power and interconnect all the nodes on one compact switch.
In my experience, so far, links that fall above -70 to -75 become downright marginal when you start pumping a lot of data. -65 or better is good, anything less than -50 will be pretty good and solid. I have noticed NO rain fade but FOG becomes a problem some mornings...
Good luck and post your progress for the rest of to learn a thing or two!
Bill - N5MBM www.n5mbm.net http://n5mbm.endoftheinternet.org:8084/cgi-bin/mesh |
