AP on a Hot Tin Roof

[RumorConsumer]

Well.. I don't know if its tin or not. But its this house where I am installing a new MX and MR84 w omnis. Here is what the house looks like:

So the roof has a wood eave protrusion on the front we could mount the MR84 to, which would work great but be cosmetically terrible. Or, we could mount it somehow to the metal roof. There are plenty of places on the metal roof to put it so that im not worried about. My question is, if there is line of sight to all the places I want the wifi, in other words not caring about it coming indoors, will the metal roof in any way mess with that signal? Or is it just going to render the signal going into the house below it more inert.

thanks!

[BlakeRichardson]

@RumorConsumer  AP's typically should be mounted vertically or horizontally not on an angle. Also a metal roof will heat up and you could end up baking the deivce and it running outside of its certified operating temperature. 

I would mount of the side of the building and say to the owner its a trade off between aesthetics and performance. 

[RumorConsumer]

Yea just trying to avoid one of these 

[BlakeRichardson]

@RumorConsumer  Yeah that doesn't look great, if you can work with the buildings lines it shouldn't stick out as much as you would think. 

[MerakiDave]

@BlakeRichardson is correct and I'd also suggest placing the AP a bit closer to the ground/user level if possible if using omnis, like a standard wall mount, otherwise the bulk of the RF energy could be several feet over the users heads.  Perhaps consider tucking the MR84 away on the underside of the roof overhang and using a pair of ANT-25 patch antennas aimed 45-degrees downward (more directly at the coverage area where the users will be).  With the omnis you'd want to mount as close to vertical as possible, but if the AP is too high, you could mount the AP in a tilted fashion, effectively you'd have a mechanical downtilt, but that might look weird, and you'd only be giving half the signal to the users and the other half up into the sky (and/or perhaps a lot reflected back down off the metal roof).  

[PhilipDAth]

Maybe contact these people are see if they can do a custom cover to hide it for you.

https://coverandhyde.com/

Or perhaps get a sign writer to print you an adhesive vynol sheet to stick on the AP to make it look like part of the house.

[RumorConsumer]

thanks @MerakiDave 

The issue is what you can't see is the hillside directly across from it with several yurts that need WIFI, as well as the other house 130 feet away that we will be doing an MR52 repeater of this unit. So its not just for the area right around the house. The air is completely RF empty - WAY out in the country side - no cellular of any kind - so I think it will all work out pretty well. Omnis are for sure the only way to get a wide enough service angle for the needs of the environment.