I’ve been scouring docs and cannot find authoritative information on what the expected radiation pattern is from the hAP AC Lite. Mostly I care about the preferred mounting orientation as I have a use case that involves a hAP AC Lite providing connectivity to systems in a ~40’ range, and would like to select the optimal mounting orientation to provide signal to devices in this range.
For comparison, the documentation for most access points out there includes the direction (if applicable) that antennas in the case are biased, and any electrical steering or conical section that the device is intended to service. I’m well aware the hAP AC Lite is not a high-power commercial access point, but it is an ideal device in this use case integrating a dual-band radio and programmable VLAN aware switch. Things work as-is, but I’d still like to know what the optimal setup is.
In the internal photo: https://fccid.io/TV7RB952-5AC2ND/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-3088357
the two antennas are the two dark blocks in bottom left corner, they should be omnidirectional thus emissions should have the shape of a doughnut in the same plane as the board, so the device should be put flat.
I don’t think so. The “higher” block (the one on picture closer to the center vertically) is actually USB port.
Wireless chip is the one with large “Q” on it and all the RF seems to be routed to the lower right corner … which includes the “debugging” RF ports. There are some PCB features on both lower right edges of PCB (both bottom and right edge) which are IMO likely PCB antennas.
With declared antenna gain (1.5dBi for 2.4GHz and 2dBi for 5GHz) I’d expect them to be pretty much omnidirectional … except for the direction along the main antenna axis … which for both is on the PCB plane. Which means that MIMO might work a bit worse when client is in the same plane and along one of device edges.
Here is a maybe better description: https://www.arednmesh.org/comment/10459#comment-10459
One connector is definitely in the left hand corner, but you are right, the other two are on the opposite side of the PCB.
In any case the thingy seems intended to stay flat, not vertical, at least in the intentions of Mikrotik, the RF tests photos all show it laying flat on a table but since the antenna gain is so low, very likely the doughnut is very “fat”, so it might not make that much of a difference.
Another look at specs of hAP ac lite reminded me that 2.4GHz has 2 chains (for 2x2 MIMO) and 5GHz only has one chain. Also the 5GHz radio is implemented by using additional chip (QCA9880). Which likely means that the ports (and PCB antennas) on the lower right corner of PCB are for 2.4GHz while 5GHz antenna is indeed the bridck on lower left part of the board … and radio chip is the small bug near to the third test port, seen on the second photograph and shielded by a metal cage on the top most photograph (the one which features the ruler).
Which means that the one direction with slightly worse signal strength for both bands is the one along the shorter case dimension (if laying down) and the “secondary bad” direction is the one along the longer case dimension (the smallest case dimension in this paragraph is taken as “height” of device).
IMO this means that the safest device orientation is actually “upright”, standing on the long/narrow side of case (which makes the “bad” direction to point in vertical direction). But that’s hard to achieve as one of “long narrow” sides hosts ethernet ports …
Another (also pretty feasible) possibility is shown on the product photograph of hAP ac lite’s twin sister: hAP ac lite tower … the bracket for vertical position is attached to the “short narrow” side of case, which makes the front/back direction (if the port side is back direction and LED side is front direction) the one to avoid (it’s slightly worse for both bands).
But, in any case, the antenna gain is so low (barely above 1dBi) that this most likely means a very omni-directional antenna pattern … and that very likely one would not observe any significant difference in singal strength in different directions. Obstacles (including mounting surface) would make larger impact on signal strength in any specific direction.
Here is a (better) photo of the AC Lite TC.
The board seems identical, and definitely in one corner (now top left on this photo) there are two PCB antennas on two contiguous sides, so at 90°: https://nanoteh.md/en/quickview/9858 https://6e616e6f7465680a.ultracdn.net/radix/img/items/20210219/11/602f8bfac5441-202102191159.jpeg
they must be the two 2.4 GHz ones.
Since the TC is intended to stay vertical and the antennas are the same, it should mean, that there is not (much) difference in the way you put it, and re-thinking about it, the normal AC lite has screw receptacles on the back, implying that it can be mounted against a wall (and in that case the ethernet ports are not an issue)
Thanks all for the insights on the antennas and suspected orientation. I’m working pretty much exclusively in the 2.4Ghz band until such time as someone comes out with an embedded 5Ghz radio at a reasonable price point.
I’ll stick to a vertical orientation with cables coming out of the bottom, which is reasonably easy to do in my environment, and is something that I can make more approachable to non-technical folks doing the actual physical installs.
be aware of tx power of the single chain 5ghz included radioon hAP AC Lite, and set your expectations acordingly
today in year 2024 hAP AC Lite is several years old, last time i used hAP AC Lite at some project was around year 2018-2019 (five to six years ago) and found the 5ghz radio very limited, also the single core CPU,
also consider the fact of having only 100mbps ethernet interfaces, also the fact of having only 64mb of ram, also the fact of having only 16mb of storage memory
Because of all mentioned, For a today purchase i think is wiser to consider a newer device like the hAP ax²