Will three separate omni antenna allow MIMO usage?

[kristopher_gnag]

I have some AP245X and would like to verify if using three separate omni-directional antenna will allow the use of MIMO or if I need to use one antenna with three connectors instead.

The antenna we're using now are three of these, one on each of the three 2.4GHz antenna posts.

https://www.amazon.com/HUACAM-2-4GHz-Antenna-Pigtail-Wireless/dp/B072TZYH8S/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1527622937&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=%E2%80%A2%09HUACAM+HCM26+2x+6dBi+2.4GHz+5GHz+Dual+Band+RP+SMA+Male+WiFi+Antenna%2B2+x+35CM+U.FL+%2F+IPEX+to+RP-SMA+Female+RF+Pigtail+Jumper+Cable+for+PCI+WiFi+Card+Wi

Will those allow for MIMO or do I have to use one of these instead where all the antennae are housed in the same unit?

http://www.l-com.com/wireless-antenna-24-5-ghz-6-dbi-dual-band-dual-polarized-mimo-omni-antenna

[samantha_lynn · Accepted solution]

Hello, you are correct, the antennas themselves wouldn't matter. So any antenna can be used for this purpose.

[kristopher_gnag]

Thanks for the reply, David. The first link is actually two products being sold together. First is the external antenna while the second is the pigtail jumper for a wireless NIC. While I haven't removed the external casing, these antenna are the same design seen for wifi on Cradlepoint routers as well as pictures you can find of the 245x from Aerohive resellers.

Yet another question brought to mind which I'll have to ask the antenna manufacturer, but I assume (maybe incorrectly) that if an antenna is capable of doing 4x4 it is also capable of doing 3x3.

Unfortunately the datasheet provided by Aerohive is not helpful to me when trying to answer my question about MIMO and antenna setup. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the concept of MIMO, but I haven't been able to find an answer to whether or not using separate antenna that don't say they support MIMO will still allow me to use MIMO. I'm starting to think it must as part of what makes MIMO work is having multiple antenna and thus multi-path and multi-spatial signals to utilize. The antenna themselves don't do any of the processing, they just radiate and receive the RF signal, so it's my thinking that any antenna can be used, even three separate directional antenna, but it would be nice to have verification of this before making a large purchase.

[dsouri]

Hello,

It appears the first link is specificly for a Wireless NiC interface.

The second link was showing 1x2, 2x2 and 4x4 MIMO, but not 3x3:3

These are the Antenna Specs for the AP245X located in the Datasheet

Antennas

• 3x RP-SMA connector 2.4 GHz

• 3x RP-SMA connector 5 GHz

And the Radio Specifications—

802.11a

• 5.150–5.850 GHz Operating Frequency

• Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) Modulation

• Rates (Mbps): 54, 48, 36, 24, 18, 12, 9, 6 w/ auto fallback

802.11b

• 2.4–2.5GHz Operating Frequency

• Direct-Sequence Spread-Spectrum (DSSS) Modulation

• Rates (Mbps): 11, 5.5, 2, 1 w/auto fallback

802.11g

• 2.4–2.5 GHz Operating Frequency • Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) Modulation • 20 dBm (100 mW) Transmit Power • Rates (Mbps): 54, 48, 36, 24, 18, 12, 9, 6 w/ auto fallback

802.11n

• 2.4–2.5 GHz & 5.150–5.850 GHz Operating Frequency

• 802.11n Modulation

• Rates (Mbps): MCS0–MCS23 (6.5Mbps - 450Mbps)

• 3x3:3 Stream Multiple-In, Multiple-Out (MIMO) Radio

• HT20 High-Throughput (HT) Support (for both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz)

• HT40 High-Throughput (HT) Support for 5 GHz

• A-MPDU and A-MSDU Frame Aggregation

802.11ac

• 5.150–5.850 GHz Operating Frequency

• 802.11ac Modulation (256-QAM)

Rates (Mbps): MCS0–MCS9 (6.5Mbps - 1300Mbps), NSS = 1-3.

• 3x3:3 Stream Multiple-In, Multiple-Out (MIMO) Radio

• VHT20/VHT40/VHT80 support

The datasheet located here: https://www.aerohive.com/wp-content/uploads/Aerohive_Datasheet_AP245X.pdf

I hope this helps,

David Souri

HiveCommunity Moderator