Is there special requirements for the 802.11n antennas? Single chain is obviously a regular antenna, but does multi chain require special antenna as well or should I be able to latch random (and different) antennas to separate chain and get it working?
you can use two antennas, but use different polarization for each antenna.
OK, but “normally” one should use 802.11n specific antennas?
no, there are no special 802.11n antennas. use any regular antennas. just make sure that the antennas are made for the frequency that you will be using.
Still, to be very sure then I have to ask:
- Must all antennas in different chains be the same dBi valued?
- Is there a need for any special antenna spacing between those antennas?
I tried a 2 km link with 2 chains and different antennas (28 dBi and 23 dBi) in each chain and I got better results usin only 1 chain (130 Mbps) as soon as I enabled second chain at client side the line speed went down to 65 Mbps. I didn’t test with different polarization between different chain antennas, maybe that would have brought me full speed. If these chains do not overlap then “crossing” these antennas should not change much or what is the idea behind having different polarization between chains?
Buy a ubiquiti dual pol sector, they’re priced well and work great, you just need to get some connectors for RP-SMA.
I’m using a couple w/ mikrotiks, and you don’t need to put up two panels.