Wireless Access

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Access network design for branch, remote, outdoor, and campus locations with HPE Aruba Networking access points and mobility controllers.
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Antenna cable advice

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  • 1.  Antenna cable advice

    Posted May 16, 2013 10:49 AM

    We're having a new building constructed and are planning the wireless installation (extending our existing Aruba solution) as part of the plan.

     

    To serve outdoor areas we were going to attach AP175s and ANT-17s to the exterior of the building, however the architects want to try to hide the APs behind the building facade to help preserve their design aesthetics (they wanted to hide the antennas too, but we managed the convince them that putting an antenna behind a metal facade was not ideal !!!).  The pigtails on the ANT-17s will not be long enough to reach the areas in which the APs would be located so we'd need to extend them, perhaps as far as five metres.

     

    Has anyone had experience of doing this and is able to offer advice on cable lengths/types and the effects of attenuation, or can point in the direction of any documentation that we might consult.

     

    Regards,

     

    Martin Burton

    Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridgeshire, UK

     



  • 2.  RE: Antenna cable advice
    Best Answer

    Posted May 16, 2013 11:10 AM

    It's common to place the AP inside the building and only use the antennas outside. I guess five meters is also totally doable. Before you purchase the antenna cable check the datasheet of that cable to see the attenuation, connector types etc.

     

    I am not sure that ANT-17 is the best for AP-175 since this antenna is a dual band one whereas the AP-175 has separate connectors for the 2.4 and 5GHz band (it has 4 N-type female connectors, the antenna has got 3 RP-SMA) . You may reconsider this also.

     

    You may also read this outdoor VRD it has a lot of information about these.



  • 3.  RE: Antenna cable advice

    Posted May 16, 2013 11:22 AM

     

    Oops, my mistake on the antennas, I got the model numbers  mixed up.  For the AP175s we're using a pair of D607s.

     

    The ANT-17s are in use on our AP134s.

     

     

     



  • 4.  RE: Antenna cable advice

    Posted May 17, 2013 12:16 AM

    mvb,

     

    Please send me an email to chuck@arubanetworks.com.   I have some further information and a case study with photos on how to do this that you may be interested in.

     



  • 5.  RE: Antenna cable advice

    Posted May 16, 2013 11:27 AM

    Thanks for the link to the VRD.  It had precisely the information that I was looking for, straight from the horses mouth :)

     

    Currently, the Aruba price list has RF cables of four lengths (1 m, 2 m, 3 m, and 4 m). Cable loss
should be accounted for at 7 dBm in 2.4 GHz and 10 dBm in 5GHz for every 100 ft of cable length.