Hi Support,
The BR1 Max Pro 5G support WiFi Standard : range between 250 ~ 300 ft?
Regards and Thanks,
Bit.
Out in the open? No walls or obstruction? What band? What power level?
I have a BR1 Max Pro mounted with a 42G antenna (6’ coax) about 8 feet above the deck and 12-13 feet above the water. I can stay connected with my iPhone walking maybe 300 feet away down the dock. After that, it gets intermittent - and if anything metallic gets in the way, not that far.
Hartley
Which kind of 42G do you have? S-x-1, S-x-6, S-x-16?
How long are the cables from Router to Antenna? The antenna is about 8 ft above the deck, how long to your RIG?
If the original cable was extended, what type of cable was used? LowLess?
How much loss in dB/m at what frequency has the extention?
What band do u use? 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz?
Let’s do an example calculation:
This table from data sheet shows the Power-loss per meter with the original CFD-200 Cable:
0.33 dB/m @ 900 MHz
0.49 dB/m @ 2000 MHz
0.55 dB/m @ 2500 MHz
0.87 dB/m @ 5800 MHz
Q:
How much loss is there at 2500 MHz and 5800 MHz if the cable is 8 feet or 16 feet long? What transmission/reception power arrives at the antenna or receiver?
A:
Let’s calculate this step by step.
First, we convert feet → meters:
- 8 ft = 2.438 m
- 16 ft = 4.877 m
The losses are given in dB per meter, so:
[
Loss = (dB/m) \times Length
]
1. Loss at 2500 MHz
Given: 0.55 dB/m
8 ft (2.438 m)
[
0.55 \times 2.438 = 1.34, dB
]
Loss ≈ 1.34 dB
16 ft (4.877 m)
[
0.55 \times 4.877 = 2.68 dB
]
Loss ≈ 2.68 dB
2. Loss at 5800 MHz
Given: 0.87 dB/m
8 ft (2.438 m)
[
0.87 \times 2.438 = 2.12 dB
]
Loss ≈ 2.12 dB
16 ft (4.877 m)
[
0.87 \times 4.877 = 4.24 dB
]
Loss ≈ 4.24 dB
3. What is the power output?
The power after cable loss:
[
P_{out} = P_{in} \times 10^{-L/10}
]
(L = loss in dB)
I’ll give you the percentage of residual power.
| Frequency | Length | Loss | Power at antenna |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2500 MHz | 8 ft | 1.34 dB | 73 % |
| 2500 MHz | 16 ft | 2.68 dB | 54 % |
| 5800 MHz | 8 ft | 2.12 dB | 61 % |
| 5800 MHz | 16 ft | 4.24 dB | 38% |
Example:
If the transmitter delivers 1 W (30 dBm):
| Frequency | Length | Power at antenna |
| -------- | ----- | ------- -------------- |
| 2500 MHz | 8 ft | 0.73 W (28.7 dBm) |
| 2500 MHz | 16 ft | 0.54 W (27.3 dBm) |
| 5800 MHz | 8 ft | 0.61 W (27.9 dBm) |
| 5800 MHz | 16 ft | 0.38 W (25.8 dBm) |
Quick summary
- 2500 MHz: 1.3 dB (8 ft) / 2.7 dB (16 ft)
- 5800 MHz: 2.1 dB (8 ft) / 4.2 dB (16 ft)
- At 5.8 GHz, the cable loses almost twice as much power as at 2.5 GHz.
If u’ve extendet the antenna-cable with a non LossLess cable, the loss will even be higher and the relate power output will be lower.
I don’t know the maximum transmission power of the Pro 5G, so I can’t say anything about the possible range with short or long antenna cables.
The most suitable option here seems to be a Peplink Antenna Max – not exactly cheap, but it requires short cables between the router and the antenna, as the router is installed in the antenna housing and only a LAN cable with PoE needs to be routed downwards.
Holger, you might have actually read what I posted - I have the 42G with 6’ cables. The Router is mounted only a couple feet below the antenna in a waterproof enclosure, so there is no additional cable loss.
In my experience, path losses at 2 & 5 GHz for consumer-grade appliances such as cellphones is far more dependent on intervening objects than straight-up square-law attenuation. Also, the signal environment makes a huge difference - how many other competing signals are there?
Range of a wifi system in practical terms is not easy to calculate.
1 Like
ok, sorry. didn’t saw the ’ so I thougt yo have 6 Cables, not 6 (feet or inch? don’t know how to translate in german) cables …
Holger,
My apologies - the ’ mark for “feet” isn’t always clear, especially to folks used to metric notation 
. You do much better in English than I would auf Deutsch!
You are correct, of course - the Antenna Max package would be the most efficient, as the cable length is minimized - I did it my way because the Max wasn’t out yet and building one myself was not within my skill set.
But the difference to actual system performance might not be as much as we would like, as other details of the environment will have a large effect. I’ve connected to my vessel from over a 1/4 mile (500m) away – but in an over-water environment with a line-of-sight path, so not readily repeatable!
Hartley