Cisco Aironet 1300 Bridges
Learned an important lesson today using Cisco Aironet 1300 Wireless bridges.
We have a new facility about ¼ of a mile away from our current main building and we need to tie the two buildings together with this wireless link. We had a wiring crew put in the coax needed for the power and data to the antennas that are mounted way up in the air. Since heights are nothing the boss or I am fond of, we had the wiring crew attach the antennas to the structure. When we were trying to use the connection it was completely unreliable and no where near the 54Mbs connection that these devices are capable of for up to ¾ of a mile away.
Today we brought out a contractor who took one look at the antenna and said it is mounted the wrong direction. Huh? Here is what I learned, the antenna sends out the signal in what looks to be a sine wave. The antennas need to be oriented in the same position so that the sine waves meet up in the same plane. By this I mean that one antenna was mounted in a vertical direction and the second antenna was in a horizontal direction. So this left a very small portion where the wave would meet up. Leaving us with low signal quality and low signal power. By rotating the antenna by 90 degrees the signal strength tripled and the quality doubled. Instantly the connection was able to produce a consistent 54Mbs with zero loss.
Lessoned learned and hopefully so have you now.