The Baicells Nova 430h CBRS small cell is the first outdoor radio we certified to be plug-n-play with the FreedomFi 5G Gateways.It’s a great unit to get your feet wet with because the antenna is built right in, so mounting and installation are as easy as outdoor radios get.
The Baicells Nova 430h CBRS small cell is the first outdoor radio we certified to be plug-n-play with the FreedomFi 5G Gateways.It’s a great unit to get your feet wet with because the antenna is built right in, so mounting and installation are as easy as outdoor radios get.
At FreedomFi’s office in Colorado, we have a flat rubber roof. So for us, our best mounting option to remain friends with our landlord is a non-penetrating roof mount. You can find these on many online retailers (including Amazon) in different shapes and sizes. A non-penetrating mount is held in place using cinder blocks. The mass of the blocks, combined with gravity, prevents the wind from blowing your radio and mount around or off your roof. In Boulder, CO we get some gnarly winds, so we put 8 blocks to be sure we have a safe and secure install.
Other mounting options exist if your roof isn’t flat, like a “J-bar” for example which mounts to the fascia or facade (i.e. flat parts near the roof line) of a building. The Nova 430h weighs about 11 lbs, so do a little research and make sure to leave a healthy margin to the weight limit of your mount to allow for wind and snow loading as your climate dictates.
At FreedomFi’s office in Colorado, we have a flat rubber roof. So for us, our best mounting option to remain friends with our landlord is a non-penetrating roof mount. You can find these on many online retailers (including Amazon) in different shapes and sizes. A non-penetrating mount is held in place using cinder blocks. The mass of the blocks, combined with gravity, prevents the wind from blowing your radio and mount around or off your roof. In Boulder, CO we get some gnarly winds, so we put 8 blocks to be sure we have a safe and secure install.
Other mounting options exist if your roof isn’t flat, like a “J-bar” for example which mounts to the fascia or facade (i.e. flat parts near the roof line) of a building.
The Nova 430h weighs about 11 lbs, so do a little research and make sure to leave a healthy margin to the weight limit of your mount to allow for wind and snow loading as your climate dictates.
Next you need power and internet to the radio.Nova 430h supports POE++, so there are many ways to do this. You can put your FreedomFi Gateway inside, and just run an ethernet cable to the radio bringing both power and internet. Or you can run power and internet near by the radio and use a weatherproof enclosure near the radio to house all your gear. On our roof, we have a couple radios, so we went with the latter and shoved a cute little Ubiquiti switch in the box to distribute internet around our roof. This also has the added benefit of allowing our LoRa antenna to use the same mount and be up nice and high.
Alright, TL:DR version: your ideal location to mount and point your radio is where you have line-of-sight to a lot of stationary people. Unlike big macro sites on low frequency bands, for CBRS line-of-sight is key for good earnings and user experience. If you can’t see the people from your radio, chances are the earnings and experience will be poor. Things like trees and buildings will kill your CBRS signal. You may be able to get some signal through, but these objects will definitely hurt your earnings and the experience of users on the network, so pick your mounting sites carefully. At our Boulder, CO office, we are on the high street in town where people shop, eat, and drink. Many restaurants (almost all thanks to COVID) have outdoor seating. With two radios, one pointing east down the street, the other pointing west, we can cover about 8 blocks with 200+Mbps service. This location will see 100’s of people (and their phones) a day and is primed to offload a bunch of data from our carrier partner macro cells. This is good for us (MOOAR MOBILE!), good for the users getting a fast mobile data experience, and good for our carrier partners as it frees up capacity on their macro sites for their users who haven’t joined the peoples network yet. Ok, you’re armed with knowledge, go use it to make your Nova 430h earn more MOBILE. Stay tuned for our next guide with tips on indoor radio site selection and mounting.
