Technical > Photos of Broadband gear > Microwave repeater/add/drop site

Microwave repeater/add/drop site

Equipment rack - Alcatel IDU, Cisco router and switch

600mm antenna - point-to-point link to DSLAM installation

2400mm antenna - point-to-point backhaul link to hub site

Sexy photos of some gear. I'm working on a 3-hop backbone for one customer using the 9500MXC's... 100Mbps ethernet.

I also have another one in the mix similar to yours, with SONET and Ethernet framing.

And I suspect some WISP guys will find this post so for them:
Those AL/LU radios are the real deal. Most WISP guys wouldn't know what to do if one of those showed up on their doorstep.

Tom, is that razor wire on the tower?

Yep, these radios are the real deal. Only licensed spectrum (i.e. 6-38GHz), none of that 2.4/5.8ghz 802.11 stuff.

And yeah, that is razor wire (though it would only stop someone climbing the outside of the tower, there is a ladder up the middle of it ). The tower itself is within a compound so is as safe as any other.

FWIW I'll be meeting with Alcatel on the comming Monday/Tuesday to have a look at the new 9500MPR's and the 9600LSY's. The MPR stuff looks really cool - completely packet based, rather than the traditional TDM stuff like the 9500MXCs.

reply to TomS_
Wow that's really cool. Haven't seen one that close before. Microwave dishes look like drums. I wonder how tight that hyde is pulled, and can you drum on it with a stick?

Do you know how many watts that puts out?

The drum fabric is usually Hypalon or Teglar and it is typically stretched tight enough that when you thump it, you get a drum sound. It is used to keep animals and environmental elements from getting in/around the inside.

Typically those antenns are anywhere from ~38 to 48 dBi in gain figures.

You could see something like 200 watts or more easily out of the antenna. To put this in perspective, imagine putting your cat in the microwave oven at home.... Thats what it is like, if you get in front of the antenna.
--
"No job is so important, and no service is so urgent that we cannot take the time to perform our work safely."
-- AT&T, Your World, Destroyed.
--Safety One Tower Rescue Certified
--LLigetfa:"Wimax is like teenage sex. Everyone talks about doing it."

I will be doing more work at the hub site mentioned in my first post on Sunday morning. Will grab some more photos from there.

*groans* 4am start to get to the tower by 5:30am and start work at 6am ON A SUNDAY. Good thing its fun ...

I think you need to hang some more stuff on that tower, you got WAY too much empty space left!

If you think this one has empty space, wait till you see the next one.

But you cant just keep loading towers up. They have limits. Go over that limit and next time theres a big wind, your tower folds over, and thats no fun.

Weve got to have the tower I am going to tomorrow strengthened in order to support future growth. Pretty soon we'll need to put another 2 big antennas on it. In its current state its not strong enough to hold an extra two, so were getting quotes from the manufacturer to reinforce it so it can.

Look forward to the photos!

reply to TomS_
I hope your meeting with Alcatel went well on the 9500MPR. You should be impressed with that product.

Yes I am very impressed. They are magic boxes.

Cant wait for the firmware upgrade that releases 256QAM... 300mbps from a single RF channel. And considering you can have a maximum of 6 on an MPR chassis, that means 1.8gbps. Nice!

But it also means a ghastly amount of ODUs at the top of your tower, and that is yuck.

reply to TomS_
So if you look at your top picture, you could replace both INU's with a single MPR node and have both directions at 155Mbps. Makes things simpler manage.

reply to TomS_
Theres a microwave site that I can see from work, but it doesn't have the cover on the front of the antenna's. Do you think it's disabled then?

reply to balkme