I need help in choosing the best SXT for my setup. I need to replace a fiber backhaul between my office and my mail tower. Distance is 2.25 miles. I am looking at the specs foe the 5 ghz SXT and can’t decide which to get. The lite5 has the 600 mhz processer and 64mb ram the 5HPnD has a 400 mhz processor and 32 mb ram but has a higher power radio. Both have level 3 license which I might have to upgrade to Level 4 since I usually don’t do bridge.
I want to try the SXT due to smaill size but might have to go with the sextant. I am trying to cut the wind load to keep it from swaying. on my end of the link i have a 80 foot tower and a 20 foot pole. on teh other end on top of a 20 story building I have 20 foot tower and pole. not worried about sway their just on my side.
I think SXT’s will be ok providing in a low noise area, however personally i would go for sextant, better to have more power available if the enviroment becomes noisy. Also some users have had water ingress issues with SXT and maybe at that height you dont want to be replacing it in the future. Personally I have never experienced water ingres on SXT’s but as others have As a precaution I dont use them where it would be difficult to replace
Due to direct NLOS between S and D points we making two clear LOS wireless links via AP-retranslator.
A > <---------> 4.2km> --------> > S P > ↔ 180m> → > D
Two half-links are asymmetrical in distance, but quite in the same direction from AP (may be 7-10 degrees sector).
Now we are using 3 Ubiquity NanoStation2 (sectors, 802.11bg), giving us 5-8-10Mbit/s – limited by their poor CPU, anthennas, and affected by noise/interference.
Sometimes later we’ve made another retranslator-based bridged link, but with 30-40 degrees sector between half-links.
So we’ve chose pair of Ubiquiti NanoStation M5 (flat sectors) for AP and 350m Station, but NanoBridge M5 (solid parabolic dish) for 3.4km Station.
Yes, 5GHz now, not 2.4GHz. All radio transmit power and AP direction tuned to get the same Signal Level of either Stations to AP.
Using 40MHz band MIMO2x2 240-270Mbit/s carrier we’ve got 55-65Mbit/s Full Duplex by devices’ internal test. Not bad, want to reproduce.
Now we plan to upgrade first link’s NanoStation2’s to 5GHz band and 802.11n MIMO2x2.
But want to use Mikrotik SXT/SEXTANT now, not Ubiquiti, because of narrow AP beam (no need in 60-90 degrees sector), and quite cheaper equipment.
Please, help me to choose the right devices, keeping in mind:
One half-link is about 10x closer than another (180m and 4.2km) – may be use SXT, SXT and SEXTANT?
Mikrotik RouterOS License Level(3 or 4) needed to act as AP WDS between two Stations? That’s not PtP as well, but Level 4 is not embedded everywhere…
What wireless protocol should we use here – plain 802.11n, Nstreme or NV2?
All router features are not mission critical, just fast ethernet bridge. But link stability, wireless fine tuning, good diagnostic tools are welcome.
Thanks in advance.
P.S. Corrected distances using GPS and Google Earth. Things’ve got even more complex, guys.