Detecting antenna defects

[Tsasbrink]

Hi,

Is there any way to remotly detect a defective antenna system on a cisco 1300 series access-point ?

We use single external antenna's.

TIA,

Tom

[scottmac]

A good starting point would be an SWR meter capable of handling 2.4GHz.

Check the SWR spec for the antenna and compare it to the reading of the meter (usually it goes inline and th ereading is taken during operation).

If I can find one I like online, I'll re-post with the link.

Good Luck

Scott

[Tsasbrink]

Thanx for your contibution.

I had similar thoughts but it does not meet the remote requirement.

I was just wondering if there is any way to detect or conclude antaenna failure without ever seeing or visiting the location.

[scottmac]

You might be able to interpret from the RSSI indication of the receiving side.

You'd need to actually get readings from both sides and compare to decide if the problem was the receiving or transmit side.

I think RSSI is available to SNMP, so something like MRTG could be used to track performance and set thresholds.

For the first answer, I interpreted remote as "I don't want to go up on the roof and look" versus "I don't want to go to the site (and getup on the roof) and look" - Sorry.

Good Luck

Scott

[Tsasbrink]

Don't be sorry, i did not give you the whole picture.

The department i work for does remote network management and we have other departments for site service but that will be directly billed to our customers.

So our customer asks for a possible solution to this case witch i thougt to be very difficult.

Witch it actualy is as we do not have any rights on the clients.