Adding side antennas

[Jonathan Newton]

I know there's much discussion on this but I've found it to increase read rates for our longer looped events and trail races where bib placement can widely vary.

I'm trying to figure out if the side antennas can be in ports 5-6 after the mat or if they need to be in ports 1 and 6, with the mat being in order 2-5.. Couldn't find documentation on this but that's my understanding of what the reader wants. 

FX9600 8-port reader. black box 4 antenna mat. MTI side antennas (left and right side, pointed across the mat).

[Dan Garman]

My suggestion is to connect them where you can quickly look at the read statistics and make see where your key reads are coming from.  I would be more cautious about where they (and the mat) is in relation to your finish line so the reads are consistant regardless of which antenna grabs it first.  I run my mat a foot or two past the official line.  I run a mat on 1-4 and I have a double side antenna with two different rotaions that are on 5 and 6.  Im sure you know that the tag orentation needs to match your mats.  If they are opposite you get very little signal in or out of the tag.