So... I have a customer, been on for a couple of years now. The CPE on their home quit working. I go to check it out, log into the CPE from their computer, everything looks good, except that a scan for AP's shows only the linksys router they have in the house. This is a MT411 with an R52 card in it, with a 14dB panel enclosure. I assume the radio card quit receiving or a bad pigtail, so I go retrieve the unit from the mount, which is about 15 feet AGL (mounted on the facia at the peak of the gabled end of the house). I have my bucket truck parked just below where the unit was mounted, so I am standing just about straight under where the CPE had been when I take it apart to check it out.
First thing I notice when disassembling the unit is that the SMA connector was pretty loose, so just for kicks, I tighten it down and boot it up. I have my laptop right there at the back of the truck, so I am powering it off of the truck and can log into it standing right there. I can see the tower my AP's are on, just one lonely tree between me and it, about a half mile away and it doesn't have any leaves on it anymore (the tower is about 3 miles away). I can sometimes pick up the tower directly from my laptop, so this link is a piece of cake, right? So after tightening the SMA connector, and booting up the unit, I pick it up and point it in the general direction of the tower. It links up. -84 to -86 RSSI. So, even though I didn't really think the SMA connector being loose had been the problem, it must have been. So I re-mount the unit up where it had been. Log into it, and... nothing. Scans for AP's show nothing except the linksys. While I am up there, I can see about 80% of the water tower the AP's are on, that one lonely, straggly, leafless little tree is technically denying me LOS, but, this link worked all through the summer just fine, when that one tree had leaves on it. But, no AP's showing in the scan. Maybe I knocked something loose, or there is a problem with the power supply coming from the injector inside the house. So I grab my cable from the truck, and plug it in (powering the unit off the truck now) and try again. Still nothing. So I go back up, get the #...@! thing, and bring it back down to take it apart again. While coming back down, about halfway down I can see the laptop on the back of the truck, and winbox says that the radio (which isn't even pointing at the tower now) is associated to the tower. Go back up, and find that if I hold the radio at the exact elevation I had it mounted at, a scan won't even SEE the AP, much less associate to it. If I raise it about 18 inches, I get an -84, same thing with lowering it 18 inches. I get -84 to -86. Moving side to side, same thing. At the elevation the mount is at, nothing. higher or lower, no problem. BTW, there are actually 3 120 degree sectors on the tower, and under normal circumstances, I can pick up all three of them. Standing on the ground, I get two of them. Where the radio had been mounted, nothing. This isn't a LOS issue, so I start looking for interference. MT reports a noise floor of about -98, but I ask the customer if they have any wireless stuff they might have added recently. Nothing. There is a tractor and stock trailer parked across the yard, below LOS when the radio is up on the mount, and impeding LOS if I am standing on the ground. The stock trailer has a sheet-metal roof. Could that be reflecting signal somewhere? Customer says the stock trailer has been there all summer though. I think I remember it being there too. After spending an hour and a half pulling my hair out, it is starting to get dark, so I decide to temporarily set the radio on a tripod on the ground so they can have internet overnight and I'll come back tomorrow and try to figure this out. Interestingly enough, the best signal I can get with the radio on the tripod is when I move it to a point where the tractor and stock trailer are completely blocking LOS. I get -83 there. -85 when I move it to a point where I can actually see the tower. Anybody have a link to RF glasses? John -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
