As a long time user of the XR5 card for my back haul links and access points, I must confess that the expense for these cards is no longer justified with the introduction of the R52HN. With a long link that has often experienced fade on humid, cool mornings, we decided to use the R52HN card with a dual polarity antenna to create diversity and improve reliability. Today we replaced a Ubiquity XR5 one one end of the link with the MT card and before we replaced the other end, I decided to link it up on one antenna. What I saw shocked and surprised me. With only one R52HN card, the link improved from -75 to -59 and the signal to noise on the same channel went from 23 dBm to 50 dBm without even using the second antenna! With nearly the same output power and the MMCX connector, these cards are a great value.
In retrospect I have a stack of about 20 bad XR5 cards we have removed from service as defective and no R52 cards in the junk pile (regular, N, HN or H) at all even though we have used the MT card for as long as they have been available on CPE’s. At the risk of this sounding like a MT commercial I have to say I am sold on the cards and will likely not buy another UBNT card unless it is an XR9 or XR3.
Tomorrow we finish the link and I will post the results here.