Hello,

I want to replace all of my Tranzeo 4500 AP's with RB411-AH boards and Engenius NMP8602 PLUS S cards. I tested today and the result was much less power. I tested this on a sector that had 8 subscribers and each showed at least 50-60% lower signals. If this card really puts out 600mW then I must have a setting wrong. I opened the TR-4500 and noticed it has an amp. I cannot tell what the manufacture of the amp is but I know that the board is a Z-Com.

I want to replace them all because of the ability to do site surveys among the other cool features in Mikrotik. BTW: The TR-4500's advertise 27dB EIRP

I tried a few different power settings since the default was 17dB. I tried 23, 27, 30 and didn't notice the power I get with the TR-4500.

Has anyone compared these 2 radios?

Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks.

it does put out the 600mw, I use them, but you have to specify 27 in MT and make sure you have it set to manual Tx power and no country set in the country part, and then set to card rates in the tx power table. if your using it at 17db, it's def not outputing the power. The emp's don't need the UBQ trick.

Thanks. That helped.

What do you mean by "The emp's don't need the UBQ trick."?

I'm bumping this because I've tried several things including bumping the power up to 30 with some of these 600mw receivers and we still do not get the same signal / rates we've seen with others. We took down the tranzeo had screen shots of everyone's signals and then compared after we put the new mikrotik/engenius combo up with the same 120 degree sector and we get on average 10-15dB less.. and everyone gets increased packet loss.

I turned manual on etc just as you said and tried lower and higher power settings without any luck. Tried new pigtails made sure right antenna was selected etc. We just can't get the same type of signals. There has to be a way to boost the power.

Thanks. That helped.

What do you mean by "The emp's don't need the UBQ trick."?

theres a 10db offset in ubnt cards.

the receive amp built into the mini pci cards does not seem to be as strong as external amps but it usely doesn't matter because it usely just increases noise with higher receive signals. You do want to be carefull about which cards you use with certain antennas. If you put the nmp8602 on a pacwireless omni antenna it will more than likely blow the recieve sensitivity out of the card in a short time (storms wind the thought of lightning being near). If you put them on alliminum horizontal omnis them everything seems to be grounded well and it works just fine. I have had mixed results with other sector antennas and haven't had the newer 8603's in place long enough to know how they stand up to static discharge but the xr2's do handle static discharge well. I have replaced all of my tranzeo gear out as well and I thought the same thing in the begining.

the receive amp built into the mini pci cards does not seem to be as strong as external amps but it usely doesn't matter because it usely just increases noise with higher receive signals. You do want to be carefull about which cards you use with certain antennas. If you put the nmp8602 on a pacwireless omni antenna it will more than likely blow the recieve sensitivity out of the card in a short time (storms wind the thought of lightning being near). If you put them on alliminum horizontal omnis them everything seems to be grounded well and it works just fine. I have had mixed results with other sector antennas and haven't had the newer 8603's in place long enough to know how they stand up to static discharge but the xr2's do handle static discharge well. I have replaced all of my tranzeo gear out as well and I thought the same thing in the begining.

Hi illiniwireless

I am curious: which RB are you using with 8603 and do you use external power source for the miniPCI?

thanks!

I mainly use rb411a and i don't use external power supplies for the cards. However I have had 4 of the 8603's blowout during storms now and none of my xr2's blowed out. I have now replaced the 8603s with xr2. End of story

sorry not the end just remembered this I also have 8603s used in 5ghz for backhauls and have had no problems with them even on the same tower withing feet of the aps that had recieve sensitivity blowed out. Must be the converter that protects the card from static discharge on the 5ghz port.

I was wondering ilinwireless, if your towers have taken direct lightning hits?

No my towers did not take direct lightning strikes. The cards blowed out due to static discharge.