Recently i saw a new Mikrotik device which i find amazing because its a complete 5GHz WiFi CPE like e.g. Ubiquiti's NanoStation M5 just more powerful and with a dual polarization 16dBi antenna. I was told, altough the SXT 5HPnd is a great device, one shouldn't use it productively because of its plastic case and front to back noise ratio thus unnecessary polluting the air. But "thats the same for Ubiquiti devices" i thought and looked for solutions on the web. RF Armor provides "Carrier Class RF Shielding Products" for Ubiquiti devices but seems none for a Mikrotik SXT. Because of its shape and dimensions it can't be hard to find a fitting "metal-case" that would completely reflect everything just to the front...
Let's think about round metal cases with minimum 145mm diameter, do i have anything similar at home? Well a pot is made out of metal, has a round shape and a Sextant would surely fit into it. When i took the smallest pot i've got (160mm diameter) and put the Sextant into it, i noticed some fixation is needed because it is loose in the pot. Just take some water-resistant packing-material for that.
The Sextant has now a metal enclosure, about time testing difference with and without pot to see results. Just to have a rough comparison i've positioned a Bullet M5 with omni antenna about 2-3 meters away from the Sextant. Without pot i've got -3 to -5 dB signal, with pot on the exact same position i've got +2 to +3 dB signal. Basically this proofs to be better WITH pot, but its no reference on a distance of two meters, so we have to find out by testing outdoors...
But how to mount a pot on a pole? While thinking about some mounting material, a friend told me like "you're working so much with magnets, why not use them here for your pot too?" and he was clearly right, because i've come up with this mounting proof-of-concept (right now i dont have enough cuboid supermagnets so i improvised with ball supermagnets, maybe ill order some cuboid ones as needed).
Our modified Sextant on the pole:
Hardware