Wireless bridge design for 3 buildings

[gvb]

Hey all, I need some assistance picking hardware for the following:

Site A is the main office. Site B is about 500 yards away, direct line of sight, and will only connect to Site A. Site C is about 100 yards away, direct line of sight, and will only connect to Site A. All buildings are single story, and I have full access to rooftops to mount anything.

I was thinking (3) Aironet 1300's, but I've only ever deployed access points for end users, not for point to point bridging.

Which antenna's do I want to use? Two antennas at Site A, or is there a multipoint antenna that I can use? Any issue with placing the AP's inside the buildings and running cable out to the antennas? Aironet 1300's support this type of config?

Thanks!

[gamccall]

You can use 1300s and mount them outside; or, depending on the actual layout, it may be more convenient to mount 1240s inside the building and drill a hole for the antenna cable. Or some of each if that works best.

You'll set up an omnidrectional antenna (probably ANT2506) at the root site, Building A. The remote sites will have a directional antenna pointing back towards the root: a patch antenna like ANT2485P-R or the short Yagi, ANT2410Y-R.

You cannot connect 2 antennas to the root bridge and point them in different directions: the second connector is only for diversity, and if you use it it must have the same antenna type and coverage area as the primary antenna. This is only used to overcome multipath issues.

[gvb]

So I want:

(3) AIR-BR1310G-A-K9-R - Cisco Aironet 1300 Series Outdoor Access Point or Bridge with RP-TNC type connector.

(3) AIR-ACCRMK1300= - Roof Mount Kit.

(1) AIR-ANT2506 - Cisco Aironet 2.4-GHz, 5.2-dBi omnidirectional mast-mount antenna.

(2) AIR-ANT2410Y-R - Cisco Aironet 2.4-GHz , 10-dBi Yagi antenna.

And just to clarify, the connections look like this:

Wall Power -> Power Module -> Power Injector -> Dual Coax to Ground Block -> Dual Coax to AP -> AP to antenna.

AP mounts directly on mast with antenna?

Looks like the roof mount kit includes everything I would need, as long as the power injector is within 50 feet of the ground block, and the ground block is within 20 feet of the AP.

Does this all sound correct?

I appreciate the help!

[gvb]

Also, is there any reason I couldn't use the 1300's with internal antenna for Site B and C?

[gamccall · Accepted solution]

That all looks right.

You can certainly use the integrated patch model at the remote sites if you prefer. (I just noticed that they're the same price as the connectorized ones, so that saves you the whole price of the external antenna.)

[mrolison]

I would suggest that you add 3 lightning arrestors so that your APs don't get fried!