SkyMax Case Study
Subject Application: Street Division/Traffic Controls
- As of October 31 2011 both samples of our 18-9280-A SkyMax antenna have been installed and traffic signal technicians had completed the testing.
- The technician painted the antennas to match the color of the cabinet to make it less noticeable and confirmed that the paint will not affect its performance.
- The software used allows all tests to be conducted from one end that is called the master end. The other end is denoted as the remote end. In the test the power levels used were 1000mw transmit & receive (factory default setting).
- The tests indicated that the receiver is being saturated at about -39 RSSI and the signal is too high. The power was turned down to 500 mw to achieve a -55 RSSI. The recommended sweet spot by the manufacture is – 50 to – 70 RSSI. Our antenna worked very well with a surplus of extra signal at a distance of 405 feet.
- As a result our customer was able to use ½ the power previously required while achieving signal saturation at the required distance.
- In addition to the technical performance of our antenna we also were able to save this customer a lot of money on installation since they no longer require a Yagi antenna for this application.
- The normal installation would require 4 men and two aerial lift trucks. They would pull LMR400 coax through existing underground conduits to a traffic signal pole. These conduits are full of existing wire and sometimes debris. Then the coax is pulled up the pole to a mast arm. The aerial lift truck is then parked in a lane of traffic that has been closed to traffic. The Yagi antenna is then installed and the coax is connected.
- This process normally takes 8-10 hours and sometimes when the conduits are bad it can take 16-20 hours. With our SkyMax antenna 1 man should be able to install the antennas on top of the control boxes in 1 hour. If our customer is able to use our antennas for short-range communications their installation time would be greatly reduced.