While the antenna may be vertical it's still possible to have electrical downtilt in the antenna (3 degrees negative electrical tilt is VERY common especially the higher in gain you go) This needs to be refered to the spec sheet of the antenna for more info. The next obvious to look at is if your running vertically polarized if you are loosing the signal because of noise (horizontal plane should be quieter) Some real world experiance has shown that the dual chain nodes (Rockets and NanoStations) have an advantage because as signals turn from bounces and reflections the dual polarity allows it to work better... We have one case of a bullet into a 20dbi dish could be heard by a nano station 12 miles away, but the bulletm couldn't see the NanoStation at all. Replace the bullet with a 10dbi nano and it's a stable link.
Than we get to omni's in general. They do make dual polarity and horizontal only polarity omni's ( Dual would be better choice IMHO). All omni's though will suffer from the 360degrees of noise they can receive so one needs to keep this in mind as well and look at the noise floor and the SNR. If it's going to be a serious hub point it may make sense to go with multiple nodes with sector panels to allow a large a tea of noise to be excluded and increase potential range.
If you ask me for my "gut instincts" only seeing 1 mile sounds like either Noise Floor, obstruction or electrical downtilt Also what's the receive side setup with that your using to look for the signal?
|