Is it possible to get MIMO on single antenna?

[sam1275tom]

Hello.
I'm traveling to India and using one of their fiber ISP, they give me a modem combo that have wireless router built in, The strange thing is, it have a RTL8192ER chipset, which is 2x2 MIMO, but there's only one antenna on the PCB, [strike]is that why I never get full 300mbps? (I got 180mbps for a second once, but most of time I only get 65,72,144 mbps, even near the modem).[/strike]
Update: I do get 300Mbps indication on some adapters, but is it really possible to have 2 streams on a single antenna?
I tear it down and here are 2 photos for both side of its PCB:

Thanks.

 

[InvalidError]

For 2x2, you need dual antennas at both ends of the wireless link. If only one has two, then that's 1x2. If both have only one, you're stuck with 1x1.

The chipset supports 2x2 but that doesn't prevent the manufacturer from implementing only 1x2. In many cases, doing so is either cheaper or necessary simply because the preferred chipset manufacturer has discontinued everything lower.

 

[sam1275tom]

For 2x2, you need dual antennas at both ends of the wireless link. If only one has two, then that's 1x2. If both have only one, you're stuck with 1x1.

The chipset supports 2x2 but that doesn't prevent the manufacturer from implementing only 1x2. In many cases, doing so is either cheaper or necessary simply because the preferred chipset manufacturer has discontinued everything lower.

Thank you for replying, but I'm afraid you may have something not correct, the AxB means the TX x RX antennas on a particular device, they don't refer to antennas for node A x node B.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009#Number_of_antennas

 

[bill001g]

Since you know how to find the MCS chart you must also know that there is only 1 combination that gives the magic 300m negotiated number. By definition it needs to have 2 unique feeds which requires 2 antenna using mimo. You can never really tell by just looking at the hardware. You can have a antenna that physically has for example a horizontal and a vertical feed so 2 antenna in one physical device....I have only seen that on point to point antenna though.

You best bet if you get lucky and some variation of this unit is sold in the USA or EU you can get a FCCID. The reports they must file will likely have information about what they are actually transmitting someplace in the huge documents.

https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/GenericSearch.cfm?calledFromFrame=Y