I have a serious issue with Mikrotik wireless and ubiquity. I have a wireless Base station with STX5 radio installed and configured as Access Point (AP) and It's working effectively. But one of my clients just came up with an existing equipment which is ubiquity (Power beam M5-400). When i align the ubiquity to the AP, the signal strength i get is almost 49 but on the AP side i have 80 and 81 and it's not driving traffic. Please advice on what i should do. Thanks

Sounds a bit like a polarization mismatch to me.
Could one of the devices be (mistakenly?) configured for rx-a/tx-b or comparable?
-Chris

Hello,

I don't think that it is a polarity mismatch, the Power Beam M5 400 is a dual polarity unit, and I've tested them at 20 degrees off center, and have never seen such a mismatch between signal strengths on AP and CPE. In my experience you would not see such a difference between signal strength on the CPE and and signal strength on the AP with a polarity mismatch, but rather, both signal strengths would suffer.

I think that this is an issue with orientation and/or distance and/or angle. If the receive signal strength on the CPE is good, that means that the AP is oriented correctly towards the CPE, and at a good distance for the size of the antenna of the CPE. If the receive signal strength in the AP is bad, that means that the CPE is not oriented properly towards to AP, or that the AP's antenna is too small to capture enough signal at that distance for the angle at which the signal is arriving at the antenna. It would of course be useful to know the CCQ as well, and the distances and angles.

Who oriented the client device? What are the distances and angles and ccqs? Remember that receive signal has a LOT to do with effective surface area of antenna, whereas transmission has more to do with EIRP. Also, it would be useful to know the Noise Floor of both units.

Kind regards,

I never configured anything different than some basic wireless and network parameters. I have the pics of the ubiquity wireless interface here.

Sounds a bit like a polarization mismatch to me.
Could one of the devices be (mistakenly?) configured for rx-a/tx-b or comparable?
-Chris

cdiedrich was referring to the mtik ... Uniquiti doesn't use one chain to rx and the other to tx, the way I inderstand it is that ubnt uses both chains simultaneously for both rx and tx and thus decreases error rates. So if the Mtik is setup to utilize the two polarity chains in a different way, then that may be causing a problem.

Now, looking more closely at the specs, the ubnt is a dual polarity unit with a 23 dbi antenna, whereas the STX5 is a dual polarity unit with a 16dbi antena and a radial patten of more than 40 degrees... I'd look at orientation of the CPE and noise at the AP.

Stoser, Thanks for your input, I have always done my calculations at the level of planning. I always use goggle maps and also check Line of site (LOS) if possible to be sure i'm on the right path before any installation and alignment is done. Actually the suprising part is that i got a CCQ of 95.8% and RX/TX was 49/51 and I got better ping response from the AP but yet on the Mikrotik AP, the signal at which the station is registered was 82%. I also noticed that the bandwidth i was getting was RX/TX = 13/2mbps. Which is not the link and sometimes the uplink drops to 0.

Hello,

I don't think that it is a polarity mismatch, the Power Beam M5 400 is a dual polarity unit, and I've tested them at 20 degrees off center, and have never seen such a mismatch between signal strengths on AP and CPE. In my experience you would not see such a difference between signal strength on the CPE and and signal strength on the AP with a polarity mismatch, but rather, both signal strengths would suffer.

I think that this is an issue with orientation and/or distance and/or angle. If the receive signal strength on the CPE is good, that means that the AP is oriented correctly towards the CPE, and at a good distance for the size of the antenna of the CPE. If the receive signal strength in the AP is bad, that means that the CPE is not oriented properly towards to AP, or that the AP's antenna is too small to capture enough signal at that distance for the angle at which the signal is arriving at the antenna. It would of course be useful to know the CCQ as well, and the distances and angles.

Who oriented the client device? What are the distances and angles and ccqs? Remember that receive signal has a LOT to do with effective surface area of antenna, whereas transmission has more to do with EIRP.

Kind regards,

ekpesinyang:

Post screenshot of

1) MAIN page of UBNT
2) Wireless/registration/signal tab on Mtik from winbox for CPE in question...