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New to Ubiquiti equipment...

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K6OQK
K6OQK's picture
New to Ubiquiti equipment...

Hi All,

I'm new to Ubiquiti equipment.  First off, yes, I am a Ham Radio operator with the call of K6OQK.  I've been reading many of the posts but still have some questions.  I would like to use BM5HP's in a point to point link.  The two sites are 14 miles apart and clear line of sight. I would like to move these units up into the 5900 MHz region as shown on the AREDN charts.  I suspect this will get me away from anticipated interference from users in the non-licensed portion of the 5 GHz spectrum. I plan on using at least 3-foot dishes on both ends of the path.

I've been looking at "bullets" on Amazon.  Are there any precautions that I should be aware of such as ability to flash the units with the AREDN software?  If the units lose power will they come back up with the same settings or will they need to be re-configured?  Are there times when they need to be reset and if so, can that be done via power cycling?  Can the units operated to produce a single, unmodulated carrier for the purpose of testing and frequency measuring?

Thanks,

Burt, K6OQK

KG6JEI
You should be able to follow

You should be able to follow the flash instructions http://www.aredn.org/content/software list of support devices is here (it doesn't shown any issues with bullets) http://www.aredn.org/content/supported-platform-matrix

My suggestion would be to consider a dual polarity dish incase you ever decide to upgrade to a rocket later for its MIMO capability. 

Yes the units maintain their setting across reboots, yes you can use a reboot of it ever locks up for unknown reason. They also feature a reset button on some models of the power injector so they can be factory reset or firmware reinstalled without climbing tower (those of us with a lot of nodes tend to keep one of these on hand so we can test and manage sites)

The software does not support generating an unmodulated carrier. 

K6OQK
K6OQK's picture
Thanks for your reply and

Thanks for your reply and guidance.  It's good to know that the Bullet series should not be a problem.  I'm hoping to use a pair of Bullet radios between my home and Mt. Wilson, a high profile site above Los Angeles.  This site has gobs of RF.

Can you tell me, what is MIMO capability? 

Thanks,

Burt

kg9dw
kg9dw's picture
Go cheaper!

I'm running two sites in the ham only portion of 5GHz with the nanobridge platform. They are about $100 each and I have a 36 snr at 12 miles.

K6OQK
K6OQK's picture
I did what I should have done

I did what I should have done in the first place; that is, google MIMO.  So I guess my question is, what is the difference in throughput using a single linear polarized dish antenna with a Bullet vs using a dual polarized linear antenna with a rocket? Which is the more robust?

Thanks for putting up with all my questions.

Burt, K6OQK

KG6JEI
A dual polarized device is

A dual polarized device is generally going to be more robust it has many options available to it.  It can use both channels to act as diversity receivers/transmitters or it can use them to increase throughput.

The theoretical is a 2x increase by having two chains instead of one because the node than has double the area to put a signal out real world may be more or less as many items go into determining just how fast a link is.

Note: current firmware images are not currently taking full advantage of this speed possibility but is taking advantage of the diversity receive. Code has been put in the development (nightly) repo to address this but current productions images will not see this speed increase at this moment. A future build is expected to address this issue.

K6OQK
K6OQK's picture
Thanks for the detailed reply

Thanks for the detailed reply. Although I've dealt with microwave equipment and microwave signals for years, this area of it is new to me. Your explanation makes sense to me. The diversity aspect of it is appealing as it would probably reduce de-coupling issues I've had on my older signal polarity stuff, although that was on a 25 mile path across the city rather than my present 14 mile path.

I'm debating whether or not to go with the dual polarization dishes such as the 34 dBi 3.7' or some 4' single polarization stuff I have.  It's not so much the ERP that I'm after but more a set of "blinders" on the mountain end to hopefully give me some protection from other signals.  Some of my older equipment had a 1 Watt klystron in the back of the transmitter head.  I'm thinking I could get rid of all the tube stuff, klystron included, put a transition from waveguide to Type-N and stick a bullet on that. The nature of almost 10" of waveguide at 5900 would also act like a filter to greatly attenuate the high fields of the monster VHF DT transmitters at the site.  From some pictures I've seen I suspect that the nature of the dual polarization feed on the 34 dB antenna might effectively do the same with much less grief on my part.

Enough of my rambling. Thank you for your input and guidance.

Burt, K6OQK

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