I have used Ubiquiti Bullets over the past years and learned to hate them. My experience, though it may be different than that of others is that Bullets only last for so long until the "brick!" Further, user assistance is poor.
So a couple of years ago I ventured into Mikrotik's Groove 52HPN router. It became a challenge to get it to function so I put it aside until a couple of weeks ago. Another pain in you know where
I never got it to work, I had too many fights with WinNet which sometimes would not allow access to the Groove. But my many attempts made me familiar with the beast leading me to believe that it is best used in a permanent installation such as a bridge. Here is the problem...at least for me. Every time one wants to change the WIFI source, a site survey is required as one would expect. That in itself should not be an exercise in frustration but frustration occurs every time the WinNet tool has to open the device. And you must open the Groove or you cannot do the survey. If I were able to reliably get the Groove to work, it would have been connected to the same 15db omni-directional antenna that once shared service with my old Bullets.
Last night I put in place a new plan of attack to solve this *&^%$ problem! I ordered a Linksys AC1200 RE6500 range extender. My plan is to attach the 6500 to my 15db antenna using an adapter cable to marry the antenna's Type N connector to the 6500's SMA connector. I will not have any performance results until I get delivery of the 6500.
While at it, there is an uncertainty here that I have not had time to research although I intend to move forward in any case. That uncertainty relates to how an extender can receive a signal and at the same time amplify and re-transmit it. My guess is that one of the two antennae is used to receive while the other is to broadcast. I don't think this is going to be a problem.
Site surveys of course are needed with the 6500 but they should be much easier to do. My plan is to have an eithernet cable running between the extender and a laptop to access the site survey function and rely on whatever antenna that does the broadcasting to provide onboard WIFI.
The beauty of being able to do site surveys is it will allow me to access particular channels rather than the strongest channel from any site. Too many frustrating times have we had strong WIFI signals at our marina but have no access to the the internet. I am hoping being able to select channels along with bands will overcome this obstacle. More later---
