I've put together my first Nstreme-dual using a pair of 133 boards and 4 R52-350 cards. I'm running 5Ghz turbo 5210/5800 and I have -68TX/RX and it says 18MbRX 24TX but running a bandwidth test from one radio to the other I only get 3.5MbTX 4.1Mb RX TCP and this is a 12 hour average. I expected much better than this. Any ideas of what I can do to optimize this link, I was hoping to see at least close to that 18-24Mb.

You need at least the RB333 to handle a dual nstreme link. The CPU power of the 133 is not to good.

I've put together my first Nstreme-dual using a pair of 133 boards and 4 R52-350 cards. I'm running 5Ghz turbo 5210/5800 and I have -68TX/RX and it says 18MbRX 24TX but running a bandwidth test from one radio to the other I only get 3.5MbTX 4.1Mb RX TCP and this is a 12 hour average. I expected much better than this. Any ideas of what I can do to optimize this link, I was hoping to see at least close to that 18-24Mb.

What is the distance.
The most common problem with dual nstreme is self interference of the cards.
You need to isolate each of them.
I use proxim 5211 cards which are the best isolated cards I've ever seen.
Disable most of the features. ftp/telnet/ssh/web proxy etc.
disable everything you don't need.
Approximately you may get 12/16Mbps /which is the best result I've ever managed to see with rb133/133C.
Otherwise you can try to switch to rb333/532A or PC /DELL Optiplex GX115 is good enough to handle 80Mbps FD bridged traffic./

WARNING!
Do not try bonding. Your rb will not handle it.

Everything I don't need is disabled and the cards are about 6 inches apart with no antenna so there is some self-intereference, I'm just testing before I mount them. If I run the test from an MT connected to one of the 133's across the link I get 15/20 so I guess i was just overrunning the CPU on the 133. 333's can only be bought two at a time at the moment and one of my two died after about 5 minutes (hope it was just a fluke) so I'm waiting on the replacement. The 133's only need to do about 9-10Mb and the far end is only about 4 miles away, I'm more concerned with the full-duplex on that link. The 333's are going to do the link that needs to be about 20Mb but it's only going to be a few 100 yards.

Much appreciated guys.

Everything I don't need is disabled and the cards are about 6 inches apart with no antenna so there is some self-intereference, I'm just testing before I mount them. If I run the test from an MT connected to one of the 133's across the link I get 15/20 so I guess i was just overrunning the CPU on the 133. 333's can only be bought two at a time at the moment and one of my two died after about 5 minutes (hope it was just a fluke) so I'm waiting on the replacement. The 133's only need to do about 9-10Mb and the far end is only about 4 miles away, I'm more concerned with the full-duplex on that link. The 333's are going to do the link that needs to be about 20Mb but it's only going to be a few 100 yards.

Much appreciated guys.

What bandwidth do you expect?
If are willing to gain bandwidth try Intel inside
As I wrote before DELL computers seem to work just fine.
SSF DELLs are ideal for you./GX115,GX150,GX280/
20d/30w/40h /in sm/ is enough to enclose the equipment.
Don't forget to use metal case not plastic unless you want to see your board burned

What bandwidth do you expect?
If are willing to gain bandwidth try Intel inside
As I wrote before DELL computers seem to work just fine.
SSF DELLs are ideal for you./GX115,GX150,GX280/
20d/30w/40h /in sm/ is enough to enclose the equipment.
Don't forget to use metal case not plastic unless you want to see your board burned

Intel boards are out at the moment, cost is an issue as well as space and as long as the 133 will do about 10Mb it will run just fine for the link it's going to be.

In the past 4 or 5 months, from a complete newbie, I mean COMPLETE>! I have now 3 towers up with 5 antennas and 50 clients all on SR9's, without a drop of advertising.. I start to advertise in the mail this week. (wish me luck) Anyways, (just alittle proud of myself and thx MT and Ubiquiti Ohh and the guy here that helped me with my very first questions on how to setup a hotspot, damn forget his name, guy from Africa I think Thx MAN>!! ) K, my point is,, I use Dell GX 150's at my towers. they are 933 mhz with 256 ram and 20 gig hard drives. I fried one MB a couple months ago because I was careless and had a PC in the truck, so, with customers blacked out, I took apart PC in truck and replaced the fried GX150. so now that tower has a 2.4 ghz in it with 256 ram. Its over kill but I had no choice at the time... Back to my point again.. I find the best bet like I did is just goto your local used computer store. I buy my GX150's or equivalent for 50$ CDN. Comes with specs mentioned above. Then I goto home depot and pick up a metal electrical box, silicone the seems, punch out a couple of the holes, one for exhaust and cables to antenna, one to connect to the ethernet port just in case and one for air inlet with small fan from old video cards I had lying around. Cut an asprin bottle in half to put of the hole and fan on the side to protect from water and your set. Total cost for AP?, under 100$ CDN excluding antennas and radio(s) ifcourse and LMR, but not 2 bad if I may say so myself. I have 5 radios amongst the three AP's. 2 XR9's and 3 SR9's, 1 PAC H-Pol 90 Sector, PAC flat panel H-Pol, 2, 3.5 feet 900mhz yagi's H-Pol and a 5 foot 900mhz Omni obviously in V-Pol. Im pretty satisfied with my network so far, and I have to say that I learn everyday, in the field and on the forums here.... GREAT STUFF!! Im lovin it.!

Im actually working on a 35KM link to a repeater tower which then links 23KM to Fiber.. Hope to actually test this this week..

How are the XR9s working out for you?

How are the XR9s working out for you?

IN general they are fine for my situation. My clients in the region I setup are never really more then a good mile to a mile and a half from any of my AP antennas, but im in a very mountainous area, thats why I have 3 towers with 5 antennas around 3 or 4 lakes which are close to eachother. My clients properties are almost completly and always surrounded by serious 50 -70 foot tress. My clients signals range from -65 to -79. At install, I make sure they have atleast higher than -80 to ensure they dont get cutoff during bad weather. I only offer 2 packages for the moment, wireless standard @ 500Kbps and wireless Plus @ 1.5Mbps so the signals work for me in terms of offered speed. I have an issue in one area which is around a quarter of a mile from a major tower, this every so often causes some serious noise. Those few radios near that tower have to be set at 18 tx power in order to drive over the noise and stay connected, at default although a cleaner signal, does not stay connect to AP and then noise floor shoots back and forth from like -58 to -78 to -86 and arund there back and forth. Thats some serious noise. @ 18 tx power in this case, I seem to be able to atleast stay connected to AP but when the tower is under heavy traffic the signal to noise drops down to sometimes -1 to 5 or 7, at that point, not much data is being received or transmitted to the AP, after a few mins, sometimes maybe even 15-30 mins, the towers traffic decreases and all levels go back up to almost normal.. Apart from that issue and one damn clients SR9 going deaf 2 times, all is well.. I have to say though, the SR9 are sensitive with noise and sometimes need some tweaking to order to get decent signal to noise ratios. Sometimes you have to drop the TX power down to 16 or 15 get a lower signal like higher -80's but then your not contributing as much to the rest of the noise around the CPE so your signal to noise ratio goes up which means better throughput. Takes alot of timkering around to really get a handle of the SR9 and optimal settings which are VERY dependent on each location.

Thank you for your response. I just received 2 XR9s that I will install this weekend in my test tower and my truck. I need to be able to service a 3 mile radius from the tower. Not many hills (other than the one Im putting the tower, but lots of tree coverage. Hopefully they will work. I need them to work.

I too just got 2 XR9's in the mail about 15 minutes ago. I plan to start testing asap to see if I should replace my existing SR9 network with these. I only have about 15-20 customers on SR9s right now, and I'm hoping the XR9 is worth a switch. I'll report back on how my testing goes!

Joe

I installed and did some testing with my XR9s today. Kind of disappointed. Replaced the pigtails, and the 3 foot antenna cable. No improvement over the SR9s. Actually my noise floors shot up to -85ish (from -100ish) and I got no better connections. Im going to try a different sector antenna (ouch) and a change of polarity. If that fails, I'll be doing the ebay thing to recoup some of the money.

I haven't done much testing, but I too noticed that my noise floors seem worse in identical configs between the 2. Noise floor on the SR9 was -98ish and on the XR9 (100 feet lower on the tower) was actually worse at -95ish.

I haven't noticed much improvement at low signals either, but to be fair, I haven't tested much yet. Either way, I haven't had the big improvement that this "miracle card" is marketed as.

For anyone interested, I have posted some of my testing in this topic: http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php ... 922#p90922