It seems that I have one omni antenna 15dBi broken in a very strange way. Few days ago we moved it for a meter or so to another pole which is a meter higher also. We wanted to make better signal because of metal construction under it and had opinion that this new position will uncover some areas and make better signal in other areas of coverage. The idea looked so good.
This point is 86m above ground, thermo-electrical plant. And we probably rotated antenna horizontally also, because we didn’t put it orriented the same way. Who cares about orrienting omni antennas? But, now we seems to have one uncovered or badly covered area over a part of this town.
This is very windy place, so I wouldn’t be suprised if something is broken inside the antenna, but I would expect just lower signal, not blackout areas. Now we have situation that signal is better than before in some areas and worse than before in some other areas which have even better LOS to this position. This antenna has 6 degrees vertical angle and it’s OK if I have bad signal close to the position of antenna, but it even has bad signal quite away from it and in some other areas better signal than before at the same distance. Basically, my antenna is not 360 degrees omni anymore. Is this possible?
I will put another omni antenna today and check out what is going on. When we moved problematical antenna, we inspected it and didn’t find any cracks or signs of physical damage. Everyday is for something new to learn, especially when you do wireless networking
Some antennabuilder once told me that everything over 10-11 dBi Vertical polarized 2.4 Omnis gives gaps (holes) in the beam so if you look at the radiation patterns from above it would look a lot like a star. You have propaply turned it a little bit one way or the other and are now covering some areas better and some worse because of this. This is why we have changed to horizontal polarized 2.4 antennas…
