How to align your SIAE Microelettronica Radios for optimal performance

October 30, 2023
Technical Tips & Guides
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SIAE Microelettronica is one of the best Point-to-Point backhaul wireless solutions on the market and offers MEF 2.0 compliance for high uptime and a frequency operation range from 7GHz to 42GHz (licensed) and the popular 17GHz ISM band. Higher frequencies tend to have a narrow beamwidth which can make radio alignment over distance quite tricky.

Luckily our Technical Support team has developed a quick-how-to-guide, to make installation and alignment easier using a multimeter.

Here is what you will need:

A Multimeter that can register at least 3 digits and have a VDC setting.
An auxiliary connector cable.

You can measure the RX signal on the local and remote radio through the WebLCT (SIAE’s web-based management interface) or by measuring the RX signal on the multimeter.

Ensure that your multimeter is set to VDC and connect the SI-POINT cable to the auxiliary port on the ODU. The chart below indicates the Receive Signal in dBm vs the Singal Output in (V).

The Voltage is proportional to the received signal strength. The lower the voltage reading, the weaker the RX signal.

To achieve full modulation at the maximum bandwidth, the recommended RX signal needs to be around -40dB ~ -55dB, which means when aligning the radios, you are looking for a voltage reading between 1.17 to 2.34.

In our lab example, we made use of an attenuator to connect the two radios to form a link, and the reading on our multimeter measured 024,8 which would put our RX level between -35 and -40dBm.

For a more accurate estimate of your expected RSSI, we highly recommend reaching out to our technical support team at support@miro.co.za for link planning based on your link conditions. The information on the link planning will include the required RX signal relative to the desired modulation rate, installation bearings such as azimuth and elevation degrees, and much more.