MR84 Omni Antenna Fell Off

[NWNSM]

We have MR84 APs mounted on poles on top of press boxes at our athletic fields.  (They work beautifully by the way.)  On one, the antenna was found on the ground.  It has N mount from the AP still firmly screwed into the antenna.  

I can only assume the antenna came unscrewed and was hanging by the thin coax before finally breaking off and falling to the ground.  The AP continues to work. With the coronavirus, our facilities have been padlocked and the person who discovered this was the facilities doing the first mow of the season.  

I checked all of the other APs and they all look fine.  Has anyone ever seen this failure before?  

[SoCalRacer]

I have not seen this issue. Possibly someone in the press box broke it on accident? I would maybe look at when it was found and when it was known to be in place. Check the logs to see who might have been connected to the AP during that time. I would say if it keeps happening you might need to look into it further.

[NWNSM]

It is physically unreachable without dropping the supporting pole which is bolted to the side of the press box and us 10' above the roofline.  It doesn't show any physical damage, just unscrewed.  

We are a K-12 school and everything has been padlocked since fall.  (We never opened for spring sports.)  The AP continues to work and has never thrown an error so this could have happened anytime in the past six months.  

[SoCalRacer]

Then I would say its possible an animal or weather did the damage. I would guess weather. If you experience high winds and possibly it was screwed on loosely. Over time it may have slowly loosened. When and if you get a chance you might check the other antennas to see if they are tight.

[BrechtSchamp]

I sincerely doubt this was weather.

I would try my luck with Meraki support. But dont get your hopes up. Otherwise bite the bullet and just replace it.

[ConnorL]

Yeah, Ourdoor APs have a 1yr warranty, so unfortunately if the AP is older than 1yr then we'll be unable to provide an RMA for this. Strange though, can't say I've seen this before.

When processing RMAs we do see some pictures of APs in sorry states, I remember one MR33 that was pretty badly burnt from a building fire, impressively it was pretty intact despite some darkened paint!

[cwf]

X-Files That's very strange.

[MerakiDave]

Agreed, that's a first, never seen this before.  Not even an antenna failure, but the actual female N connector on the AP itself came out, that is not even a part that can be tightened or loosened and removed (normally), it's part of the AP itself, and it's very solid and weatherproof.  This had to have been done with some force.  I would imagine someone jumping up and grabbing hold of the antenna, but it sounds like the AP is way out of reach.  Any chance the AP is in the field of view of any MV cameras? 😁  

[RJordan-CCS]

I'm not familiar with that model; is the AP mounted so the antennas come out parallel to the ground?  Perhaps a sizable bird took to using it as a perch, or a critter on it became the target of a predatory bird.  A bird launching from a perch can put a fair amount of force on it; a raptor nailing an unwary squirrel can probably generate a solid whack too.

Might have been a Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom moment there...

[BrechtSchamp]

No, they're usually mounted with the antennas pointing up and down. But I like the way you think. I wonder if there's any ANSI standard that tests for dinosaurs wreaking havoc.