Configuring the antenna details
Each base station is equipped with at least one RF antenna. Additionally, the base station may have a GPS antenna if it has an embedded GPS receiver.
To configure the RF and/or GPS antenna details:
- Select the base station you want to edit. You may search it by its name or ID.
- From the detailed BS page, go to the Antennas tab.
RF antennas
Each base station is equipped with at least one RF antenna, but it may have up to three RF antennas depending on its hardware design. The maximum number of RF antennas supported by each base station model is determined from the BS profile implicitly associated with each model.
Typical deployments use 1 omnidirectional RF antenna, but you may use more antennas if your hardware supports it:
- 2 omnidirectional antennas with antenna diversity.
- 3 directional antennas with tri-sector layout.
The maximum number of RF channels depends on the number of RF antennas in use. To learn more, see the table below.
| Number of RF boards | Number of RF antennas | Maximum number of RF channels | Applicable BS models | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 8 | Base stations using Semtech's v1.x or corecell reference designs. Examples: Kerlink iStation and iFemtocell, MultiTech Access Point... | No antenna diversity (1 sector, 1 antenna and 1 board) |
| 1 | 1 | 16 | Base stations using Semtech's v2.x reference design: Kerlink iBTS, Cisco IXM, MultiTech Conduit Outdoor IP67 V2.1 anf Ufispace Macro v2.1 | No antenna diversity (1 sector, 1 antenna and 1 board) |
| 1 | 2 | 8 | Base stations using Semtech's v2.x reference design: Kerlink iBTS, Cisco IXM, MultiTech Conduit Outdoor IP67 V2.1 anf Ufispace Macro v2.1 | Antenna diversity (1 sector, 2 antennas and 1 board). The same 8 channels are configured on both RF chains to provide reception diversity. |
| 1 | 2 | 64 | Tektelic Kona Mega | Different configurations allowed: - 1x64 (64 channels over 1 antenna, no antenna diversity) - 2x32 (32 channels with antenna diversity) - 2x16 (16 channels with antenna diversity) |
| 2 | 2 | 16 | Browan Outdoor Micro (ODU) with dual RF boards, MultiTech Outdoor IP67 V1.5 (16-channels, with dual RF boards) | 16 channels are only possible without antenna diversity. The maximum number of RF channel is limited to 8 if antenna diversity is required: in this case, the same 8 channels are configured on both RF chains to provide reception diversity. |
| 3 | 3 | 16 | Kerlink iBTS tri-sector | Three sectors with directional antennas (no antenna diversity). Each sector supports up to 16 channels. |
| 4 | 1 | 64 | Kerlink iBTS 64-channels | No antenna diversity (1 sector, 1 antenna and 4 boards) |
If your base station supports more than 1 RF antenna:
- You can set the RF antennas in use while provisioning your base station as described in Adding base stations on GUI.
- You may also change the current setting at any time from the RF Antennas widget in the Antennas tab of your base station's detailed page. This may be useful for instance to activate/deactivate antenna diversity on the fly.
To view/edit the characteristics of each configured RF antenna, click its Antenna name. To learn more, see RF antenna attributes.
It is crucial to properly set the gain and cable losses of each RF antenna, as this information is used by the LRR packet forwarder to determine the right downlink transmission power without violating local regulations.
Other attributes may be also mandatory depending on your deployment use case: for instance, the RF cable delay must be properly set if you use the TDoA network geolocation feature.
To learn more, see RF antenna attributes.
GPS antenna
If your base station is equipped with a GPS receiver, the GPS antenna widget is displayed under the Antennas tab of the base station page.
The most important information about the GPS antenna is the cable delay (in nanoseconds) because it directly impacts the geolocation precision using TDoA algorithms.
Other administrative information, such as the distance between the GPS antenna and nearby cellular transmitters, may be useful to troubleshoot eventual GPS performance issues in case they are caused by interference from surrounding antennas (for instance, blocking of the GPS receiver due to the presence of a strong cellular transmitter less than 2m away).
To learn more about the GPS antenna characteristics, see GPS antenna attributes.