said by Semaphore:On the tower side, with very few exceptions out of 41, we've built our own.
Now this has me interested. Everywhere i go i study the towers around me. In this country there seems to be about 7 different types of towers that have been erected by the cell companies.
I came across a real interesting tower only last Friday. I was at an airport waiting for a parcel to come in on a local flight (it was a Ruckus radio running very very late for delivery thanks to our local distributor) and while waiting found a tower that looked to be local built but real solid. Its a nice design and i wish i could take photos of it but its at a police station. You don't take photos at police stations around here
I am very interested in fabricating my own towers. But i want something substantial and with a good ladder system. Thinking to build out of angle iron. Expensive but stiffness provided. I've been Googling for plans - nothing so far. I love those Carbon fiber towers, but as John says and i agree, there may be doubts on how stiff they are. Its more practical to build our own if we can find a good design. I guess the other way is just to look at a cell tower - these guys have it figured out.
said by Semaphore:On 24G from the shots I've seen on the AF24 units
If we could get a reliable 3Km i'd be happy with that. I was already thinking 2Km but hoping it turned out to be 2 MILES (wishful thinking)....... I think if you can turn down the modcod and not drive it too hard and accept half of the published throughput then it might approach reality. I am not sure - i am just an armchair critic at this point. I've read just about everything i can find on these AF24's. I think they may be onto something with these.
I'm a bit of a skeptic though. I've seen too many failed promises in the RF/IT world. I've always been intrigued by how the real world financials usually shoot down my tech fantasies.
I think i am going to give this a go. You know it cant hurt to have a 24GHz pair running, even if we do go RedLine (but you know, Trango's data sheets just talk to me - what to do?) If we have a licensed link up (if we go that way, but it sure feels comfortable to know that a little slice of the airwaves around here would be mine - it may only be physiological, but when starting out on a new venture any little thing i can find to help me feel solid/strong as i face issue after issue getting it going is good) we could always use the extra BW of the AF24 for something. So many ideas on that. It will be an interesting learning curve. If it works out well we either end up with an extra link up or its so good we dont even bother to go for higher end gear. The aiming sounds intimidating though. Still, aiming is something we do a lot of around here.
Now ....its Ubnt..... is there any stock of the AF24's to be had?
That is one of the major cons to Ubnt. Stock.
...is basically C Band Tx. Its very good and solid in rain. I see a max of a 2dB hit in heaviest rain conditions. I would feel comfortable with 5.8. No worries at all if we have the LOS needed.
Now would be a great time to get some AF24's up for testing - its our rainy season now