Howdy All,
I first asked this over at the embedded community, but they sent me over here:
I'm working on a project for a WiMAX-like network, but at 5091-5150 MHz band (I know... federally protected spectrum - but my team has an experimental FCC license, so as long as we keep the transmitted power in spec, we'll be OK). The system is/will be called AeroMACS and is based off the WiMAX / IEEE 802.16-2009 spec. It works as a subset to the overall WiMAX spec - i.e. limited to 5MHz channels, code rates between QPSK 1/2 and 64 QAM 5/6, etc. and I'm looking to see if there is any COTS hardware that might be able to talk to it.
In my search I came across the WiMAX/WiFI Link 5150 (2 antenna) and 5350 (3 antenna) network adapters. After a quick read, they're listed as not being able to talk to802.11a/b/g/n and 802.16 at the same time. My guess (I'm just a lowly mechanical engineer, unaccustomed to EE voodoo) is that the boards are using SDR for the radio and it reconfigures it or switches amplifiers when switching between bands. If this is the case, then it gives me hope that using these boards might be a viable option. I'd expect that since the radio can talk at ~2.5 GHz and at ~5 GHz between 5180-5835 MHz, it's likely that it has a wideband front end and it's just a matter of configuration to get it to talk to an AeroMACS base station between 5091-5150 MHz.
So my question is this... are my guesses correct or am I barking up the wrong tree? Given the right antenna, could this work or am I so hopelessly lost that I don't even understand why it might be impossible?
-Beaker