I’m setting up a 900 network off of a 5.8 bh and am trying to decide between the xr9 and sr9. Because the two are not interchangeable it seems the choice needs to be made now.
xr9 with 600mw and filtered vs sr9 unfiltered and 700mw. Price is about the same it seems.
Can anyone give me their experiences or pros/cons to the two cards? I have yet to try out either one.
My tests don’t show much difference between the two. XR9 might edge out the SR9, but a filter is needed on either if you are above the tree level.
I am running XR9 in my network.
Can you clarify why you would need a filter above tree level?
Out of band interference just creams the SR9 and XR9 cards. Bandpass filter takes care of that. If you are below the tree level, the level of interference is much lower, so a filter may not be required.
I figured that was what you meant. We have sites with canopy gear (3 channels) where only 2 or 1 channel usable due to out of band interference. We have haven’t put the time or money into cleaning up with filters to try and expand.
Good to know about the sr9 and xr9 though. Can you recommend a filter?
We’ve had bad luck with both sr9 and xr9 being on the same tower as other 900 gear.
Alvarion BA-II 900 hopping; some interference somewhat affected performance of sr9, didn’t try xr9
Alvarion VL900; seriously affected both sr9 and xr9 such that they were very unreliable.
I imagine canopy would be a worse neighbor to the sr9/xr9.
Thanks jp. Canopy won’t be anywhere near this deployment radios. (Otherside of a mountain and the spectrum is clear) But good to know as I’ve thought of substituting in some mikrotik into another facility of ours that is 100% canopy.
My understanding is that the sr9 is an ofdm card. I have used canopy fsk systems but they haven’t done as well in forested areas as ofdm in my opinion. Can anyone tell me what technology the xr9 might be using. I know it’s proprietary but any insight is helpful. I’m just trying to do all the homework I can before hitting the order button.
Both use OFDM. SR9 is a 2.4GHz card with a frequency converter and the XR9 is suppose to be the same inverted.
SR9 907 = 2437 and 922 = 2422.
XR9 907 = 2427 and 922 = 2442.
Both work very well through thick trees. Streakwave has a filter for about $50 I’ve been told is very similar in performance to the UBNT models.
The XR9 uses the Atheros AR5414 chipset, has an MMCX connector and costs less. The SR9 uses the older AR5213 chipset, has a U.Fl connector and costs more (unless you buy then used on Ebay where they are usually cheap).
We don’t stock the SR9 because of those reasons and the AR5213 limitation where 5MHz and 10MHz channels work in transmit only. They listen on the entire 20MHz channel.
Reduced channel widths are quite important in 900MHz where there is limited available spectrum.
Tom
Thanks Tom. Listens on 20mhz… How does this affect other channels performance etc as there would be overlap on the listening side right?
Sounds like a pro toward the xr9.
Really? Wow… If so I feel as if i’ve been duped. I assumed they transmitted/received on the bandwidth spacing specified (explicitly). In any event I’ve been meaning to change out the sr9’s in my network (very costly). Although they seem to work surprisingly well. I guess i’m a fan of “if it aint broke dont fix it”.
We have had much success with XR9 cards. I don’t put them on par with Canopy, but they have their place. I have one link that is a point to point link. It is less than a mile through quite a bit of trees. I would say 4 tree lines easy. I am only 9DB over the noise but can pass 2 megs tcp across the link.
I have 6 SRs and 15 XRs that I’ll happily sell you that were excess from a project we did. Shoot me a note - matt at flyfast.net