Review on 🔌 Ubiquiti PowerBeam ac Gen2 Bridge: High-Performance airMAX ac Connectivity (PBE-5AC-Gen2-US) by Nathan Byard

Living in semi-rural America, for many years our wireless internet connection to an ISP tower a few miles away was questionable at best and this is the only available ISP tower in range other than satellite. It is assumed that we should have a direct connection with the provider's antenna, but it is not there because our house is territorial in the bowels. I finally got the chance to work from home instead of driving 40-85 miles twice a day, but couldn't do it with a questionable internet connection. Satellite internet has been disrupted by signal delays due to the distance the signal has to travel, and it's expensive even for the minimal monthly data limits. In the end we decided that the best option was to put the antenna on top of a tower on a hill on our property about 600 feet from home. Optical cable was highly recommended by our ISP, but in 18 years I had to repair the well pump power twice in the middle of winter due to damage caused by overzealous burrowing rodents damaging the insulation of the wires. You can locate a damaged underground power cable over 300 meters away, but how do you find a damaged underground optical cable? It took several hours of research on the Internet, YouTube, Ubiquiti and other websites. but in the end I decided to use 2 separate antennas Ubiquiti PowerBeam ac Gen2 High-Performance airMAX ac Bridge (PBE-5AC-Gen2-US). When I bought mine a set of 2 pre-configured PBE-5AC Gen2 US antennas were not offered by Revain, otherwise I would have bought them if the price was reasonable compared to 2 separate unconfigured antennas. I knew these antennas were overkill because they could easily reach over 600 feet, but I needed maximum bandwidth and an upgraded 5AC Gen2 mount that would easily fit a 2-1/2 inch thick wall. rigid galvanized pipe that I use to mount the antenna to my new mast. Due to the graduated teeth on the clamp, the antenna clamps well on several sizes of pipe, smaller and possibly larger than the pipe I'm using. The antenna has a strong, well-made clamp that handles wind speeds, which we experienced at 60mph+. The hardest part for me was figuring out what I actually need on the tower besides the Ubiquiti antenna to make everything work. I eventually decided that I needed a tower router to connect to my internet service provider's antenna, just like I did with my wireless router in my house. I bought 2 CISCO dual gigabit WAN VPN routers - RV042G-K9-NA, also through Revain (one as a backup - we get lightning strikes up the hill sometimes). I chose CISCO because my ISP has had the most success with Cisco routers on the client side. It's also overkill - I don't need a dual WAN router, but I do need maximum bandwidth, so I don't care if it's a dual WAN. I also bought 2 Ubiquiti Networks ETH-SP Poe external surge suppressors and a shielded network cable to protect my antennas from static electricity, as well as "Ubiquiti Networks Tough Cable Connector Ground (TC-GND) - Box Of 20" connectors, so that I can ground wire. Shield to the ground rod I installed on the tower. These connectors already have a pigtail that can be attached to a grounded surface with a screw. When I received the antennas, I followed the instructions in the box, assembled the antennas (which was easy for me to understand) and downloaded the Ubiquiti app for Android onto my Samsung 6.0 phone. I really like the Wi-Fi feature built into the antennas, which turns on within 15 minutes of turning the antenna on and gives you the ability to tune the antennas to the installed antennas right from your phone. For the price, I'm amazed that this feature is built into the antenna. I had no problem accessing the antenna on my roof tower with my cell phone from the living room. My new tower isn't finished yet - concrete still needs to be poured to make the base strong and an additional 20-30 feet added, but that's enough to work from home temporarily. My Ubiquiti bridge is now the fastest part of my network - the status in the Uquiquti phone app shows the bridge link speed between both 1GHz antennas. I haven't had a chance to verify what I think I'm seeing, but I now have the fastest internet connection I've had in the 18 years we've lived here. While the hill might have more to do with my "new and improved" internet speed than my new Obiquiti bridge, I'm pretty sure the bridge isn't slowing it down. For the cost, it's definitely better than messing around with fiberglass. When I started I didn't know anything about network bridge antennas or connections and didn't speak to an expert. It took me a while of reading and searching to finally figure out how this all works, but I know I'm making the right decision because I'm using my new Ubiquiti bridge to send this review at the fastest speed that we've seen with since the advent of the internet. became available here in semi-rural America.