https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • Product Guides
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookie Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Omdia Crit Comms Circle Podcast
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
    • Product Guides
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Why Attend
    • Exhibitor Listing
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Join the Event Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

Test & Measurement


Article

Antenna misalignment is becoming a bigger problem

Antenna misalignment is becoming a bigger problem

Solution from Sunsight can help alleviate antenna-alignment issues that are expensive for LTE network operators to correct.
  • Written by Donny Jackson
  • 18th July 2013

Right now, an arms race is underway in the LTE sector, as commercial carriers race to stay ahead of the competition and to keep up with the data demands of their customers. That means a lot of new towers are being built, and many others are being converted from older technologies to 4G LTE. That, in turn, is causing headaches for both the carriers and their contractors, because the coverage and performance from the site often is less than expected.

The biggest culprit is antenna misalignment, according to John Vetter, vice president of Sunsight Instruments, which manufactures the AntennAlign alignment tool. Vetter estimates that about half of all tower sites have some sort of antenna-alignment problem, with roughly 40% having an antenna’s azimuth off kilter by 10 degrees or more. The cumulative effect of such misalignment is enormous, he said, particularly in the LTE space, which utilizes more sites than 2G and 3G cellular, and many more than land-mobile radio (LMR) networks.

When antennas are misaligned, interference is created, coverage is affected and spectrum is used inefficiently. Vetter said that the interference issue is particularly problematic for data transmissions.

“Voice wasn’t that big of a deal—you could have overlap and a poor signal, but you could still get a call through,” Vetter said. “[But] with data, if you have coverage overlap and interference, you’ve just driven up your noise floor; therefore, you … get less throughput for the users on that sector.”

The time to find out about such problems is when the tower crew is still onsite, given that it can cost a contractor several thousand dollars to send another crew to correct the problem.

“They’ll modernize a site for LTE, and then do a drive test because they did an antenna swap-out, and they realize that the coverage is off,” Vetter said. “Why? Because nobody used any sort of alignment tool. These guys pay up to half a million dollars for a cell site and, at the very end, they don’t make sure that the cell site matches the RF design.”

Exacerbating the problem is that there is a shortage of experienced tower workers right now, because of the aforementioned arms race, but Vetter said that even experienced crews struggle with antenna alignment.

“There are a lot of green crews out there,” Vetter said. “But there are a lot of people out there who are starting to realize that this is a problem, even if they have a quality crew—there still could be issues with human error. … A lot of the bigger [contractors] are using us, because they don’t want to do rework, they want to do new work.”

The AntennAlign tool works in a manner similar to that of a carpenter’s level. First, target values for the antenna are loaded into the tool; this can be done in advance or onsite. Then, the tool is attached to the antenna using a “very secure” mounting device to establish four contact points, in order to capture measurements for azimuth, tilt, roll and height, Vetter said. The tool compares those measurements to the target values. If something is off, the technician simply manipulates the antenna and measures again. This continues until the antenna is properly aligned according to the four parameters. Once that happens, the antenna is locked down and the tool generates a report that confirms all is well.

The tool offers 20 hours of battery life, is IP 65-rated for water and dust resistance, and has survived falls from 200-foot-tall towers. “It’s very durable,” Vetter said.

 It’s not cheap, costing $10,000, but given that it can cost as much as $5,000 to deploy a three-person crew to correct an antenna’s alignment, avoiding just two such truck rolls will pay for the device, according to Vetter.

Vetter added that antenna misalignment is not just a problem for the cellular carriers and contractors—it also can be vexing for public-safety answering points.

“There’s all of this data for [Enhanced]-911 Phase 2 and Phase 1,” Vetter said. “What happens is, they think the antenna is pointed to zero degrees true north, when it’s actually pointed to 120 degrees, so the call gets routed to [the wrong PSAP] because the antenna was pointed in the wrong direction. That’s a response-time issue." 

Tags: PSAP Long Term Evolution (LTE) Public Safety System Design System Installation Test & Measurement Article

Most Recent


  • AT&T wireless growth keyed by FirstNet—now provides 24,000 agencies with 4.4 million connections
    AT&T this week reported that FirstNet ended 2022 supporting more than 24,000 public-safety agencies with “about” 4.4 million connections, including 377,000 connections that were added during the last three months of 2022—a total that represents more than half of the carrier’s post-paid wireless growth for the quarter. AT&T officials released these figures in conjunction with […]
  • Report: Remote work causing offices to empty, but walkable cities still in high demand
    Given the reliance on vehicular transportation in the United States, some American cities historically haven’t prioritized being walkable in past planning and or design. But amid an unprecedented shift in the economy toward remote work, those that have are increasingly desirable for prospective residents. A new report from Smart Growth American and Places Platform, “Foot Traffic Ahead […]
  • AT&T FirstNet unleashes robotic dogs for emergency services
    AT&T is releasing robotic hounds from Ghost Robotics as part of the service provider’s FirstNet emergency responder service. In a blog, AT&T VP Lance Spencer explained that the robotic dogs will be connected to AT&T’s network and deployed for public safety, defense, federal and state agencies, local police and fire departments, and commercial customers. “Network-connected robotic dogs can deliver a […]
  • Federal agencies infested by cyberattackers via legit remote-management systems
    It has come to light that hackers cleverly utilized two off-the-shelf remote monitoring and management systems (RMMs) to breach multiple Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agency networks in the US last summer. On Jan. 25, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) released […]

2 comments

  1. Avatar Donald E. Cusson 19th July 2013 @ 12:02 am
    Reply

    Why is this not mandatori
    Why is this not mandatori with all these nes sites, or conversion sites. Just about all sites are beeing converted.

  2. Avatar jdv1 26th March 2015 @ 11:41 am
    Reply

    Yes, you would hope it would
    Yes, you would hope it would be mandatory just from an ROI perspective, some wireless carriers have started mandating this for work on their sites, we hope the others follow.
    Would also be helpful if FCC would required standardization for collecting site antenna position.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Antenna misalignment is becoming a bigger problem
  • Antenna misalignment is becoming a bigger problem
  • Antenna misalignment is becoming a bigger problem
  • Antenna misalignment is becoming a bigger problem

Commentary


How 5G is making cities safer, smarter, and more efficient

26th January 2023

3GPP moves Release 18 freeze date to March 2024

18th January 2023

Do smart cities make safer cities?

  • 1
6th January 2023
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


UrgentComm

AT&T wireless growth keyed by FirstNet—now provides 24,000 agencies with 4.4 million connections dlvr.it/ShY5qH

27th January 2023
UrgentComm

Report: Remote work causing offices to empty, but walkable cities still in high demand dlvr.it/ShXM7Z

27th January 2023
UrgentComm

AT&T FirstNet unleashes robotic dogs for emergency services dlvr.it/ShW7p8

27th January 2023
UrgentComm

Federal agencies infested by cyberattackers via legit remote-management systems dlvr.it/ShVhn3

26th January 2023
UrgentComm

How 5G is making cities safer, smarter, and more efficient dlvr.it/ShVS1h

26th January 2023
UrgentComm

MCPTT interworking for critical communications dlvr.it/ShTm3P

26th January 2023
UrgentComm

Self-driving cars present terrorism risk, FBI director says dlvr.it/ShTTHx

26th January 2023
UrgentComm

UK Home Office officially will cut ESN ties with Motorola Solutions in December dlvr.it/ShNjfN

24th January 2023

Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.