Well, most of our issues seemed to just be flakey hardware... the first link we put up was the very first batch (they were actually pre-orders... made in California). One of them kept randomly rebooting, and we went through trying everything we could come up with (cables, power supplies, etc.) and eventually swapped sides to see if the problem followed the radio, which it did - at which point we told them we wanted a new one, and they were pretty quick about replacing it (and the RMA process was pretty painless). Once we got that problem dealt with, that same link just refused to run at full modulation (I don't remember exactly what it was doing, but it was only able to handle around 500mbps of real traffic). I eventually decided we should have a spare radio on the shelf anyway (since we had two links up at that point) so I bought a new one and swapped out the last made in California radio, and that link has actually been pretty stable now that it has the new made in China radios on it... and for the most part it does run at, or close to, full modulation (it does still drop down sometimes, for no reason that's apparent to me, but it stays high enough that I don't really care).
Now, our other link... why it won't run at full modulation is beyond me - the signal is where it should be, and there's no reason I can see for it (see attached screenshot)... and yes, it will randomly drop to lower modulations with no change in signal level, or any other obvious reason... it almost seems like it's picking up interference from 5ghz radios (whether or not that actually is happening, or is even possible I have no idea). It does consistently stay at high enough modulation to handle as much throughput as it needs to, so I haven't really put a lot of effort into trying to get it working better, but it just doesn't behave like I'd expect a licensed link to. I will say, I'm not complaining - the B11 is a good radio for what it is, there isn't another 11ghz radio that can handle a full gig (yes, only one direction at a time, but that's all I care about anyway) for anywhere near the price, and their support has been pretty good, in my experience. Also, a lot of my impressions came from dealing with odd problems on early hardware, which is understandable, but I just don't see the B11 as being in the same class as a normal licensed radio. On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 1:45 PM, Steve Jones <[email protected]> wrote: > Mathew, can you go into more detail? Given the garbage their online web > portal is and the laughable excuses for no CLI, I expect problems to be met > with less than stellar support. So the more history of user experience i > have the quicker I can get to RMA or full return if these give us grief > > > On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 1:33 PM, Mathew Howard <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> I think the point is, on a B11 link (well, both of ours, anyway), the >> modulation will be all over the place at any given time for no apparent >> reason. Every other licensed radio I've ever used will sit at full >> modulation (or whatever it's supposed to be at) unless there's something >> wrong with it, or there's a major storm going through that causes enough >> fade for the signal level to drop. B11's tend to act much more like I would >> expect an unlicensed link to act. >> >> >> >> On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 12:30 PM, Rory Conaway <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> So does that mean that the SAF radios and 80GHz radios that only do >>> 256QAM or 64QAM aren’t doing full modulation? >>> >>> You use what works and is in your budget. >>> >>> >>> >>> Rory >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* Af [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Chuck McCown >>> *Sent:* Thursday, August 17, 2017 9:43 AM >>> *To:* [email protected] >>> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Figuring out what our FCC application says >>> >>> >>> >>> I guess you could say it is not at full modulation if it is not using >>> the full channel width, but yeah, even if it is FSK is is still fully >>> modulating. >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* Bill Prince >>> >>> *Sent:* Thursday, August 17, 2017 10:33 AM >>> >>> *To:* [email protected] >>> >>> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Figuring out what our FCC application says >>> >>> >>> >>> All of our newer radios do 1024 QAM, and a couple do 2048 QAM. They're >>> always running at full modulation (unless something is wrong). >>> >>> bp >>> >>> <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com> >>> >>> >>> >>> On 8/17/2017 9:19 AM, Rory Conaway wrote: >>> >>> What do you define as full modulation? These are 256QAM radios and they >>> modulate at 256QAM? >>> >>> >>> >> >> >
