NetMetal ax has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless, but expensive,
hAP ax³ combined with RP-SMA extension cable(s), I can mount the AP indoors, drill holes through a wall, and expose antennas outdoors.
NetBox 5 ax seems to have the least price and effort costs to setup. But, I’m not sure I want to go with missing 2.4GHz wireless. Though, I’m planning to use it mostly for modern client devices, so probably non-issue?
However, the indoors device mounting + extension cables + antennas outside, seems like an interesting/tempting alternative. Does anybody have an experience with such setups? Does it work reliably? Will it be fine also for 5m extension cables? I strictly need only less than 1m to go through 30cm to 45cm thick outdoor walls, but thinking of some better antenna positioning.
A good, very low attenuation, antenna extension cable could be in the order of magnitude of 0.3/0.4/0.5 db/m (at 2.4 GHz, expect 50% more on 5 GHz).
These - generally speaking - are more stiff, and have issues if bent too “tight”.
Don’t even think of crimping/assembling yourself the cables, buy pre-terminated ones.
This means that the holes in the wall need to be slightly bigger than the connector, so no less than 14 mm, better 16.
Three rules:
the hole MUST be made from the outside slightly raising or from the inside slightly descending ← to avoid possible rain/water leakages
the cable MUST form a small downward bend on the outside ← to allow water dripping down the cable to drop down away from the wall surface
once the cable is installed the hole MUST be sealed/caulked both on the inside and outside ← to avoid insects using it as their home.
(don’t ask how I learned the three rules above )
I am thinking NetBox 5 ax and NetMetal ax might be a better choice anyways, if wAP ax would follow specs of wAP ac:
NetBox 5 ax and NetMetal ax have 23dBm transmit power at MCS9, and HGO-antenna-OUT have 5.5-7.1 dBi gain for the 5 GHz band,
wAP ac has 17dBm transmit power at MCS9, and 2.5 dBi gain for the 5 GHz band.
Also, bigger antenna gain should help in listening/receiving from clients speaking back to the AP.
EIRP of 23+7dBi is 1000mW, which is EU’s outdoor limit. So, NetBox 5 ax and NetMetal ax should perform to the biggest possible potential according to the outdoors regulations.
But,… these two declare 2400Mbit 5 GHz data rate, which, I assume, means two 160 MHz chains (1200Mbit each). How is this even useful in EU? There’s only one outdoor channel, that can do 160MHz in EU, and this suffers to 10 min-TDWR. Also, using this channel would not leave any more space for any 80MHz outdoor channel (or two 40Mhz), because channel 144 is not allowed in ETSI - EU. So, is it an overkill, that can’t be fully utilized anyways?
Or, if I mounted it behind a window. Will it count as indoors device, and I can use lower range of 5GHz frequences? Though, these have the limit of 200mW EIRP. And, I would quickly consume lots of 5GHz space, and cause interference with other AP(s) - area overlap (on non-overlapping channels) is needed for smooth roaming of clients.
Maybe, I would just want wAP with external stick antennas.
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