As in the name, it’s a “wall acces point (wap)”, so it is designed to be used against a surface. While the radiation pattern is roughly spherical, the best antenna gain is to the front.
Ah, so that’s the meaning of initial letter in names of “xAP” devices … so “cAP” means “ceiling AP”. @Normins, do you mind explaining meaning of “h” in “hAP”? And are there any “pAP” (pole AP) devices?
… which doesn’t really belong into xAP family of devices, does it? And generally doesn’t provide wireless coverage at all, does it? In case you missed: this thread was about wAP and @Normis tried to explain that wAP (due to being wall AP) doesn’t really have spherical radiation pattern. And then I extended question to meaning of acronyms of other AP devices.
Well, then you did not understand my intention. It is about this: Normis based his answer (quote: “As in the name, it’s a “wall acces point (wap)”, so it is designed to be used against a surface.”) on the product naming.
And all I said is: “CRS stands for Cloud Router Switch”. An we all know, at least some devices of that series is more a SWITCH and no ROUTERS. Many times discussed in the forum.
So basically: I would not bet my last shirt on: “product name matches product usage category”
I think we can safely describe the pattern as “highly directional” and not “360 degrees.” It appears that, when in oriented in the vertical position, it has a usable maximum beamwidth of ~120 degrees (but probably more like 90*).
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Principle use of NetMetal ax is to attach good antennas to the RP-SMA connectors. The image with antennas attached shows secondary use, from product brochure:
If necessary, you can adapt the NetMetal ax for lower range use with such antennas as our HGO-antenna-OUT screw-on omni antenna unit.
The mentioned antennas are not “tiltable”, so they can’t be arranged at 90° angle. Which means that yes, layout on the picture is almost useless (my estimate is that it works approximately at 1.1x1.1MIMO). But I’m sure one can get similar, but tiltable, antennas on-line … and when arranged at ±45° tilt, they allow for proper 2x2MIMO operation.
The top cover has two passages so you would normally use two external antenna connected with a (short) piece of cable, like:
which seems BTW to me like a much better protection against rain/snow/etc. with the straight antennas and without cover, the connectors are essentially exposed, and cannot say how waterproof/sealed are them, they look like normal connectors with a nut.
When I go to mikrotik.com and click BUY, I get a list of distributors. Is there a MT store?
When I go to the hardware page, and find the Netmetal AX, I see 5 pictures but not what you provided.
It would be nice is there were an easy way to identify and source various options for cables and antennas that are definetly compatible also.
I see the “HGO-antenna-OUT” and the “Flex-guide” cable, but I only suspect (versus know) that these are the associated devices by previous posts. I don’t know if there are any alternatives.
First – there is no such thing as a “type Y” connector (joking!)
Second – these units have two antenna ports and I don’t believe that just any dual-band (2.4/5ghz; or even tri-band 2.4/5/6ghz) will work because of the dual antenna ports.