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Forum Discussion

alokeprasad's avatar
Dec 07, 2020
Solved

Any guidelines on orientation of the base and satellite RBK50's?

I have the base/router placed in the front of the house.  The satellite will be at the rear of the house.  This is just the way the cable outlet is laid out.   Is there any undertanding on the broa...
  • CrimpOn's avatar
    Dec 07, 2020

    alokeprasad wrote:

    I have the base/router placed in the front of the house.  The satellite will be at the rear of the house.  This is just the way the cable outlet is laid out.

    Is there any undertanding on the broadcast pattern (laterally, and vertically) of the signals from the base and satellites? 

    I'd prefer to send the wifi signals towards the inside of the house and up to the 2nd floor, and not across the street. How to best orient these for that and effective beam-forming to devices inside and up on the 2nd floor?

    These have fixed intennas inside, so presumably, send the signals in some dipole pattern ...


    There are some nice pictures of the antennas in the FCC filing: https://fccid.io/PY316200341/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-RBR50-RBS50-rev-pdf-3926901.iframe 

    You are correct.  There are two sets of 2.4G/5G antennas mounted vertically, which will radiate in a typical dipole "torus" pattern.  And, yes, half of the signal will be broadcast toward the outside.  Nothing can be done to avoid that.  The signal will be weaker directly above (and below) the units.

    Since Orbi supports MIMO, the best orientation would be to have the "flat side" of the Orbi facing inside the house (rather than the end which would put the one set of user antennas directly behind the other one).

    It may take some experimentation to find the optimal location.  Netgear often shows the satellite on the 2nd floor toward the middle of the house.  That is the advantage of using a WiFi "backhaul" connection between the units.  The satellite can be moved (and moved again) until the best location is found.