SB1-320AXMC

SB1-320AXMC is a microwave antenna manufactured by Rfs, supplied for use with Huawei microwave systems, 0.3 m in diameter, for the 32 GHz band, used with the RTN 950 radio platform. The antenna is the one component on a microwave link you cannot compensate for elsewhere: gain you do not have at the dish cannot be bought back with transmit power, and a beam you cannot hold on target is not usable gain at all.

At 32 GHz this is a short-haul band: typically two to eight kilometres, and less in a wet climate. Rain fade is the governing constraint on the whole design. These bands are chosen for capacity and for spectrum availability in dense areas, not for reach.

Gain is 39 dBi with a 2.1 degree beamwidth. Those two figures are the same fact viewed from two sides: gain comes from concentrating the energy into a narrower beam, so a higher-gain antenna is always a narrower one. At 2.1 degrees the beam is narrow enough that alignment needs doing with a level meter rather than by sighting along the dish, and rigid mounting matters.

It is a single-polarised antenna, carrying one signal on one polarisation. That is the straightforward arrangement and the right one for most links. If you expect to need to double the capacity of this hop later without acquiring more spectrum, a dual-polarised antenna is the thing to buy now, because changing the dish afterwards means another tower visit.

This is a high-performance antenna, which in practice means it carries a shroud and radome that suppress radiation to the sides and rear. That matters for frequency coordination rather than for the wanted signal: in congested spectrum the regulator or the coordination study may require the better pattern before a channel can be assigned, and a standard-performance dish in the same position may simply not be licensable.

The data also gives a figure of 30 dB. On a Huawei antenna line these normally describe cross-polar discrimination and front-to-back ratio, but which is which varies with how the entry was written, so we will confirm against the datasheet rather than guess. If you are doing a formal interference or coordination analysis you will want the full radiation pattern envelope file, which we can request.

The mount is a bracket mount. The mount also has to suit the pole or face it is going on, which is a mechanical question worth settling with the structural check rather than afterwards.

It is supplied with English documentation, which for an antenna means the installation and alignment instructions as well as the pattern data.

The RTN 950 is a Huawei microwave platform, and its lifecycle status is genuinely unclear. Huawei’s RTN line as a whole is still an active product family, but the position of this particular model could not be established: Huawei’s lifecycle database sits behind a login and model-level end-of-sale and end-of-support dates are not published openly.

So this page will not tell you the platform is current and will not tell you it is finished, because neither can be checked from outside. If that distinction matters to your purchase, and on microwave it often does because licensed-band links tend to live for a decade, ask us to confirm it with Huawei before you commit.

Tell us the band and channel on your licence, the path length, the availability you need to design to, and what the antenna is mounting on. We will confirm whether this dish gives you the margin you need, or propose the size that does, and flag the structural and coordination implications before you commit rather than after the order has shipped.

Green Code Technologies supplies Huawei microwave equipment, including antennas, radio units, indoor shelves and the mechanical parts that join them. We are a supplier of Huawei alongside HPE, Dell, Cisco, Samsung and Netgear, and we would rather confirm a part against Huawei’s own documentation than sell you the wrong one, which on RTN 950 equipment is worth doing. Send us the band and channel on your licence, the path, and the radio and antenna models at each end and we will come back with a straight answer.