In case you missed it, Wireless Field Day is now Mobility Field Day, and day one of the inaugural MFD is complete. I am not a delegate this time, but there’s a great group of delegates with a number of new people who really added to the discussions. The day ended with a great roundtable session that you really should go watch. Check the Mobility Field Day 1 Playlist for that and the other sessions from MFD1. In particular, they have an excellent conversation about RRM, which has been a hot topic as of late. This, however, is not what I wanted to write about.

You probably see Ventev gear all the time and don’t notice it. They don’t make radios, but they do make antennas, mounts, enclosures and other tools and hardware useful in the WLAN space. That may not sound like a very interesting topic, but the 2 hour session flew by because they had so many great ideas to share.

I love the cool antenna ideas that come out of stadium deployments, like this one from @VentevInfra. #MFD1 pic.twitter.com/14Ecw8S7gv

— Scott McDermott (@scottm32768) April 13, 2016

I really like the innovation that stadium deployments are driving. From enclosures that have a slight slant to them so rain will run off, to handrail mounted enclosures and antennas. I particularly like this two AP enclosure. There’s no questioning what’s in that box!

Better picture of the @VentevInfra enclosure I mentioned earlier. I call it the "Wi-Fi Is Here" enclosure. #MFD1 pic.twitter.com/6a71cC1c4m

— Scott McDermott (@scottm32768) April 13, 2016

In case you are wondering about the antennas in this confined space, they actually have you mounting the external antennas back to back with a metal backing plate between them. They had data showing sufficient RF separation in their testing, despite them being so close.

Ventev has some great new ideas for antennas designed to serve the places that have always been difficult to cover. They are putting antennas everywhere and making them hard to spot.

Spot the AP is going to get a lot harder with all these new antennas from @VentevInfra. #MFD1 pic.twitter.com/6JHYelYFvJ

— Scott McDermott (@scottm32768) April 13, 2016

They also discussed their in floor antenna system, which is a unique solution designed for areas with raised floors, a nice antenna built into an old work junction box, and a number of mounting systems designed for challenging environments.

I see a lot of use cases for this electrical box antenna from @VentevInfra. Pleases the aesthetics police. #MFD1 pic.twitter.com/o5fmrMo9lI

— Rowell Dionicio (@rowelldionicio) April 13, 2016

.@VentevInfra at #MFD1

Articulating antenna arm to help keep antennas from being snapped off by wayward forklift. pic.twitter.com/JQcKlYK6Aj

— ΞDDIΞ ★ F0RΞR0 (@HeyEddie) April 13, 2016

It really was a great presentation and I highly recommend watching the video. It’s full of solutions to real problems facing WLAN designers who are trying to figure out how to install more APs into areas that are not designed with that in mind!

The videos are included below so you can see it all for yourself.

FIN