On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 11:59 AM, Tom Hayward <esarfl@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 11:25 AM, Bill Vodall <wa7nwp@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm in need of some gain antennas for my (HamWAN inspired) High speed 5.8 GHz backbone experiment. While I'm sure there's one in my future; the 30 db, $100 BBQ dish recommended is too big, too much gain and too many dollars. So - that brought me to the 20 dBi, $50 panels at Fab-Corp:
How did you come to the 20 dBi figure?
Seems like a reasonable price-size-performance ballpark.
Have you considered using the 30 dBi antennas and minimum power necessary?
Way too big physically - I'd like something that's portable and fits in a Home Depot orange tool box.
What is your beamwidth requirement?
Over there - that-a-way.... My first thoughts are to stage experiments at Valley Camp. One node at the Kitchen, one at the lodge and the third at the house or bat barn.. That should make for point it and go alignment with the panel devices.
If small form factor is your primary requirement, I'd be inclined to get something from the SXT series: http://routerboard.com/RBSXT5HPnD
Those look excellent and I want a couple. I need six devices total for this experiment so there's lots of room to try different devices. The lack of RAM, only 32 MB in the SXT, wouldn't allow running MESH and Linux guest OS's but I have the 132 MB Groove to play with for that.
Tom KD7LXL
Thanks for the link Tom - good info as always. Bill