Cisco 1142 Azimuth and Elevation in NCS

[ROBERT BROOKS]

Hello,

I have recently been adding a number of installed APs to heatmaps in NCS and am very confused as to the correct Azimuth and Elevation settings.

In particular - if the AP is mounted on a wall rather than a ceiling what should the settings be ( and does it matter - perhaps - as NCS is now dynamic by default rather than the old WCS being predictive perhaps it does ).

Does anybody have a handy cheat guide for this covering the following common installation locations.

All referenced when looking at the map view in NCS, front of AP is the side with the Cisco logo and the status LED:-

1. AP ceiling mounted ( Backplate pointing out of map towards your eyes - front of AP pointing down to floor )

2. AP wall mounted ( front of AP pointing upwards towards the top bezel of the screen )

3. AP wall mounted ( front of AP pointing right towards the right bezel of the screen )

4. AP wall mounted ( front of AP pointing down towards bottom bezel of screen )

5. AP wall mounted ( front of AP pointing left towards left bezel of screen )

Any help would be graciously received.

Regards,

Robert

[Justin Kurynny]

Robert,

You can adjust for elevation, but I don't know if you can do it for azimuth. Internal antenna APs don't allow you to make the adjustment, but what is really needed here is not an azimuth adjustment but a rotated y-axis adjustment, i.e., you turn the AP up on its side (elevation change from 0 to 90 degrees) and then you rotate it to face different parts of the room. The rotation on the y-axis will most definitely change the radiation pattern of the AP.

I say all that with the caveat that unless you are trying for a very specific coverage pattern of a torus-on-edge (a doughnut standing up), such as in a stairwell, then you really shouldn't be wall-mounting the APs unless the APs are hanging from a bracket in such a way that keeps the AP's backplate parallel to the floor. If you wall-mount an 1142 expecting even horizontal coverage, you're going to be disappointed in the results.

Here's one bracket design that allows you to keep the AP horizontal while still mounting to the wall:

http://www.oberonwireless.com/WebDocs/Model1029-00_Spec_Sheet.pdf

Justin

[panayiotiscy]

Hello all,

i am running on the same issue as initially described by Robert.

i need to position the access points on the map (ncs PI 2.0) but i am unsure on how to properly configure them. In detail, our access points have been placed (wrongly of course) on the wall. So, we have a lot of 2602 that are mounted on the wall and i would like to configure the correct angle. 

Can someone explain if i have to configure the elevation degrees for this case?

In addition, is there any need to properly position the access point in the Map as per the exact direction that the access point is facing?

Thank you

[Amjad Abdullah]

Rob,

I don't have NCS but I may be able to assist on this.

Elevation means the angele slope of your antenna.

if your antenna is not perpendicular to the gorund level and it is for some reason makes an angle different than 90 digrees with the ground, you should mention it.

Azimuth is a feature only you have to care about with directional antennas. If you are using a directional antenna you need to metnion to what direction it is fixed. Otherwise the WCS may show you different coverage information on the map.

for omni-directional antennas this does not really matter because the antenna is broadcasting everywehre around almost equally.

I hope this helps.

Amjad

[Justin Kurynny]

Amjad,

What I think Robert is saying is that he has an 1142 (internal, non-adjustable antennas), but in some scenarios the AP would be wall mounted (standing up on-edge) with the "front" (dome) of the AP pointing in different directions. Since azimuth of the AP's antennas (with respect to the ground plane) will change once you spin the AP 90 vertical degrees out of its intended orientation, I think he wants to know how to reflect this in NCS.

Justin

[Amjad Abdullah]

Justin:
yes. you are right. it seems I missed readin the topic up.

And I think you metnioned very good reply so I have nothing to do here.

[Justin Kurynny]

Amjad,

No problem. I thought maybe I too was misreading and was wondering if you'd understood differently. Thanks for your input--it is definitely correct and useful information.

Justin