Loading ...If you don’t come away with anything else in this article remember this. Omnis are bad.
You have 3 major type of antennas you will deal with.
The first is the Omni directional. This receives and transmits a full 360 degrees. In otherwords a single antenna can cover a full 360 degree radius. An Omni is not good for long distance links or high noise areas. Because it transmits the full 360 degrees it also picks up noise and interference from 360 degrees. An omni is best suited for a hotspot these days.
The second is the sector. These come in several beamwidths. They are typically 60 degress all the way up to 180 degrees. These are best for point to multi links. This way you can “sectorize” the 360 degrees of coverage into smaller sections. By doing this you increase signal, increase capacity on your Access Points, and decrease the noise each sector hears. For example, if you have 3 120 degree sectors (3×120=360) each sector will only hear 120 degrees of area.
The third is the point to point antenna. I am grouping parabolics, grids, and anything under 60 degrees of beamwidth into this category. You will find these antennas as part of backhaul links for the most part. They have low beamwidths and higher gains.
Our next antenna installment will be the type of polarization on these antennas.
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