Subscriber Discussion

Airmax Rocket For Wireless Bridge?

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Dec 13, 2018

I need some advice on a wireless bridge. I am building a camera system that will have two locations outside of the main building. Those two locations are about 225 feet and 245 feet away. There will be 2-4 cameras in both spots.

Here's a diagram:

As you can see, there are a few houses around, but they are not very close. Behind the targets is cornfield. The nearest building that direction is over half a mile away. There are also a few trees between the main building and the targets.

My plan was to use a Ubiquiti AirMax Rocket M with a Sector antenna on the main building. We could then put NanoStations at the two targets.

However, I've never designed a wireless bridge system before. Is this overkill? Would we be better off with a less powerful station/antenna solution?

SD
Shannon Davis
Dec 13, 2018
IPVMU Certified

Not necessarily overkill but I would have a separate devices at the main building. The sector antenna is great but you can lose some bandwidth doing it that way. With the price of the Ubiquiti this wouldn't add much to the cost of the system.

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JH
Jay Hobdy
Dec 14, 2018
IPVMU Certified

The radios are so cheap like Shannon said, you could just use 2 separate links. How many trees? Just a few branches or we talking about "Cant see anything beyond the trees"? If its the latter go with the 900MHZ radios. We use them and go through some pretty thick stuff. They do have a lower bandwidth capacity and last I saw they only had 2 channels but they should be fine for your use

 

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UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Dec 14, 2018

There are 3 or 4 trees in the line between the base and Target 2. The radio would go on a parking lot pole, which is in line with the row of trees down the center of the parking lot. The path from the base to the radio would take you straight down the row of trees. So 900MHz might be necessary for that one.

The other spot is pretty much clear, IIRC, since it's going at an angle across the parking lot.

DW
David Westberry
Dec 15, 2018
IPVMU Certified

FWIW I have a pair of rocket 900mhz, one with a yagi antenna and the base using an omni antenna working about 400' with no line of site. They have been working great, knock on wood, through a moderate amount of trees for a year.

With what you described your design should be just fine.

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SD
Shannon Davis
Dec 17, 2018
IPVMU Certified

One thing to remember if you do use two sets that are in the same vicinity, especially right next to each other is make sure you set them to different channels. This can cause some issues. We installed a system a few years ago that was completely solar out in the middle of nowhere and we had issues and it came down to the channels of the different sets  were set the same and caused link issues and that fact that our subcontractor didn't bother to use a compass for the solar panels to make sure they were pointed south. The batteries didn't last the length of time the rig was designed for so the power would glitch out occasionally.  It's not like you can't download a compass app in 10 seconds :) 

On this particular installation we tried the wide angle antenna and there was too much of a bandwidth drop so we installed a second unit at the headend. 

 

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JR
John Robinson
Dec 17, 2018

Some of their newer low end radios are cheaper and faster.  I installed a DIY mesh if you will using the Nano Loco AC's.  They're around $50 a pop and rate up to 450mbs throughput, 10km range. They run AirOS 8 and have the built in 2nd management radio for cell phone access/setup.

I was quite pleased.  

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