MikroTik

Just wanted to quick post that I ripped apart a Tranzeo TR900 radio today and put the Zcomax 900 card on a RB532.

The performance was FLAWLESS! I was able to connect to a test Tranzeo access point with no problem. Tranzeo client was able to connect back to the routerboard with no problem.

I've had nothing but problems with SR9's going deaf. We've had to replace NO Tranzeo boxes. Tranzeo's software absolutely sucks though compared to MT.

The Zcomax card also has a SMA connector which makes for a better jumper.

These cards will fit on the RB133, RB532 and WRAP boards.

wlanparts.com sells them.

So here lies a viable solution at least for me. I'm going to stop using SR9's and replace them with these Zcomax cards.

Put them on routerboards and away I go.

hi

After seeing your post I thought I would try one of the Zcomax 900 MHz cards in an RB133c. It seemed to work fine as an AP but I can't seem to get it to see anything as a client. I don't know much about all of this; is there some trick to the setup?

thanks

Just wanted to quick post that I ripped apart a Tranzeo TR900 radio today and put the Zcomax 900 card on a RB532.

The performance was FLAWLESS! I was able to connect to a test Tranzeo access point with no problem. Tranzeo client was able to connect back to the routerboard with no problem.

I've had nothing but problems with SR9's going deaf. We've had to replace NO Tranzeo boxes. Tranzeo's software absolutely sucks though compared to MT.

The Zcomax card also has a SMA connector which makes for a better jumper.

These cards will fit on the RB133, RB532 and WRAP boards.

wlanparts.com sells them.

So here lies a viable solution at least for me. I'm going to stop using SR9's and replace them with these Zcomax cards.

Put them on routerboards and away I go.

what is the connection distance ?

Just wanted to quick post that I ripped apart a Tranzeo TR900 radio today and put the Zcomax 900 card on a RB532.

The performance was FLAWLESS! I was able to connect to a test Tranzeo access point with no problem. Tranzeo client was able to connect back to the routerboard with no problem.

I've had nothing but problems with SR9's going deaf. We've had to replace NO Tranzeo boxes. Tranzeo's software absolutely sucks though compared to MT.

The Zcomax card also has a SMA connector which makes for a better jumper.

These cards will fit on the RB133, RB532 and WRAP boards.

wlanparts.com sells them.

So here lies a viable solution at least for me. I'm going to stop using SR9's and replace them with these Zcomax cards.

Put them on routerboards and away I go.

Jwcn, How does this card compare with the Sr9 and Xr9? im going to be putting up quite a few 900mhz AP's. And if your bosting good things about these cards i may go this way. -Jordan

I've stopped using 802.11 900mhz gear and would suggest no card, SR9,XR9 or Zcomax.

jwcn, what has put you off 900Mhz ?

Maybe Atheros should make a chip specifically for this frequency!

Not 900mhz. 802.11 in general.

Not 900mhz. 802.11 in general.

Why do you not use 802.11? detail please?? why? -Jordan

All the gear I have used is too vulnerable to noise and lacks the robustness of the non-802.11 gear.

I use MT for all my headend routers which work flawlessly.

nstreme would be considered to not be 802.11

Does that have the same problems?

I'm Just getting into trials for 900mhz using XR-9 on RB-333 and RB-400. ROS3.5
So far so good but a lot of trial and error was needed as there doesn't seem to be a best practices doc from ubiquity.
I'm hoping to tap into some real world experience to shorten my curve to getting this into production so any advice would be welcome.

Link budget seems pretty easy to work out so far but calculating for wet weather seems hard to predict. I had done some fair weather surveys and was impressed until I went out in the rain yesterday and saw -67 db test locations only produce -84 db
Can any one point me to a guide/calc that will help work out wet weather link budget?
Example
What is worse?
Fog
Humidity
Rain
Snow.
If I have trees in the path I'm assuming they are going to be harder to get through wet then dry?
Should I be trying to get "turbo" to work ?
It did in tests of 300m but at 3km the radios stop talking.
Power settings
I'm still new to the MK game, I understand all the power settings in terms of country limits etc but should I be setting the power settings maually for the XR9 or does default do that ?
when set at default the tx power is less than the advertised tx for the card .
I see sometimes see 2 tx outputs in the settings panel as an example " 54 mbs 23 (17)"
Because the XR9 is a 2.4 Ghx card in drag are its power settings correct if left at default?

jwcn I see that you have sworn off using 900mhz I'll admit I was not impressed myself at first .
I had continuous disconnects until I set the frequency to 2437 Mhz then I stopped getting disconects and I saw 48mb connection rate with solid throughput and no connection drops for days over a test link of 5 km.
I also have an XR2 on the same RB-333 and found that If I used 2437 for it that card the XR9 became less reliable and the XR9 could see the chanel in the XR2 survey albeit -91 db. ( I'm actually amazed thats all that squeeks out)
Last nights rain brought that down to 9 mbs at best and throughput of 1mbs or less.
So Anetennas are going to have to be upgraded on that link for me.

Cheers !

I still use 900mhz. Actually hundreds of clients running 900mhz. Just not 802.11 based.

I still use 900mhz. Actually hundreds of clients running 900mhz. Just not 802.11 based.

What are you running? I'm at my wits end with the SR9. I have a site with 3 sectors , 2 APs have about 32 clients and 1 has 11. I run 5Mhz channel width, no nstreme. I am finding that my clients are getting very high pings and many disconnects. Most of my clients are at -60 to -74 signal strengths. I also limit my AG rates to 24Mbps.

Any suggestions... I read a post from someone to force B rates.... but this is not possible at 5Mhz channels... as far as I know.

Not sure this is an appropriate venue for this discussion.

I use a mixture of Motorola Canopy, Trango and Alvarion.

I would say Canopy wins hands down followed by Alvarion and Trango tied. Alvarion is more robust than Trango but Trango provides higher speeds.

Both Canopy and Trango are more user friendly than Alvarion.

I used SR9's, XR9's and Zcomax (Tranzeo) for a while. As soon as a competitor WISP would come into town and fire up Alvarion or Canopy I would lose all my clients.

I just wish that MT or Ubiquity would write some magical driver that would deal with this issue. I have been running ok with Trango gear around me, but I'm stuggling with a Canopy Co-location... about 100ft away from me. I find that the SR9 is very sensitive to any type of interferance... but I'm heavily invested in SR9's, about 160+ in the field...

I lost about 80 of them. Don't think it's a driver issue. You get what you pay for...

MT makes a great product but it is only as good as the wireless cards available...

I can tell you this about 900 MHz Waverider. Weather like rain has little affect under LOS. NLOS situations you should not see 20 db drop, but it would depend on the shrubage.

And now for the cryptonite of 900 MHz...FOG. Fog will kill the signal. The log wave of 900 MHz just cannot penetrate the dense water particles in the air.

We have used Waverider for years with great luck, but are not moving to the MT's for easy of use and uniformity on the network.

Just my 2 cents.

We use Waverider / SR9 / XR9 in a somewhat rural environment with little to no problems.

I would suggest if you use SR9 cards to have a filter in place for the center frequency you are using.

Yes SR9 are really affected by interference, but putting the filter in place should help quite a bit.

I've noticed that if you do not have the proper queues in place on an AP with 32 users, some users will cause the latency to jump up big time, especially with heavy users(aka campers). It also depends on your GOS that you give your users as well. On 5Mhz channels you are talking about 4-5Mbit bandwidth total to all of your customers on that AP. I've had customers with just at 256Kbit connection affect the latency for all users on the AP without the proper queues. What happens usually is they are downloading quite a few different items and the pps is maxed out on their connection(p2p comes to mind).

XR9 seems to hold up better against noise/interference, we have been using xr9 instead of sr9 for all new AP's and setups. We have 4 AP's with XR9 now that run at a -91 noise floor and customers still seem to be running fine. When we first started doing wireless in the 900 Mhz arena, our noise floor would stay at -100 on our first mikrotik AP's. I do realize that noise is going to get worse as time passes by. We also had a sr9 access point with a -100 noise floor that would drop to -94 and cause clients to disconnect. Putting the filter in place helped the AP with the noise.

Mikrotik / XR9 hands down blows Waverider out of the water. As for comparing it to Canopy I do not know, I have never used any Moto equipment. There is another wireless ISP that uses a Motorola Canopy 900 AP, but it is too far away from where our access points(Maybe 5 Miles, but our terrain has rolling hills) are and we try to stay away from the Frequency they use.

Also any type of weather doesn't affect 900 Mhz enough to lose 20 db or so. During rain or even a light fog(We aren't in a fog environment), none of our connections drop because of a rise in RSSI. Now if we are talking about heavy foilage, especially some type of pine tree then yes/maybe. We have connections NLOS with trees in the way that do not drop connection on a heavy rain, and some of these i'm talking about are -80 connections not -70 or better.

Every wireless environment is different. (terrain/noise/weather)

I can promise you that if I brought a Canopy 900mhz AP to your location and fired it up, even on a different end of the spectrum it would completely take out all your customers. That is a gamble I am not willing to take.

There was a post a while back where a WISP had many customers - thinking around 400. Someone dropped Trango on the same tower and that was the end of his customers and nothing he could do fast enough to save them.

I can't put myself in that situation.

I have been having issues with Sprint/Nextel towers.
Everytime I fireup a XR9 AP - they call my office to say I'm operating illegally and then they try to ride the channel I'm on.
Eventially they go away 'cause it kills their service but it really is annoying.
Anyone else having this problem?
Also - the only channel I can get to operate cleanly is 2427.

I have asked Mike at UB for his recommendation for 900 antennas and how he got 50km out of the XR9's - no answer!!!
Anybody have an idea?
I'm looking for point to point.

Thank you,
Rod

Well, 50km is only about 30 miles... If you have tall towers so you can keep a clear fresnel, some 12-15dbi antennas, and clean spectrum, I would think it would that distance would be no problem.

Hey jcremin,
Thanks for the reply.
My towers are all over 100feet.
I'm in a rural area - although there are cell towers occasionally.
I'm using 18dbi yagis and XR9's - still no connections over 5mile.
Any ideas?
Rod

Is this a line of site link or not?

About 85% NLOS thru trees - mainly water oak(black oak) and pine trees thru rolling hills.

The Pines are probably your problem. I have some pretty long links that are fairly non-line of sight through "leafy" trees, and they work well. One or two rows of pine trees can kill the signal in a hurry.