Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1. Background
Site Master has been extensively used within Ben and THE OPERATOR to
accurately deploy their networks and avoid Downlink Power outage/mismatch.
Site Master is used not only for site commissioning but during maintenance and
subsequent checking further to O&M monitoring as well. The document intends to
give common guidelines for what to measure in view of reducing the amount of
parameters to be measured, and keeping a reliable and high quality site production
process.
2. Scope of Work
3. Introduction
Site Master measurements have become more and more widespread within the
telecommunications arena. Most Operators use it either for commissioning or
subsequent monitoring. THE OPERATOR/Ben/THE OPERATOR need to have
common tools and procedures, especially when we are dealing with the quality of
the sites being deployed. To fully cope with both THE OPERATOR and Ben
expectations, a number of RF parameters have to be clearly explained. With Site
Master numerous things can be done, but to speed-up the production of UMTS
sites we will attempt to focus on the most relevant and rather important
parameters.
Obviously, the aim is to update the Planning Tool with the accurate feeder loss
values but also to prevent high power outage.
4. Technical Input
Importance : High
Reason : Cable Loss will be used for accurate propagation and linkbudget
calculations to reflect the real situation.
Importance : Low
Reason : RF Planning does not need this info provided that feeder loss is
supplied. However, for our Mams Database and site tracking this should be
important.
Purpose : Check if the total return loss of the whole transmission line is
below, say -24 dB (0.4% maximum power reflection).
How : A Matched Load is used with the whole Transmission line. Return Loss
measured in point 1 (see ANNEX 1). A single marker is used corresponding to
the maximum return loss.
How : A Matched Load used on connector 4 and two Markers are used. One
for bottom jumper and one for top-jumper. Maximum values are then taken
and compared to the specifications (to be agreed upon !)
How : Antenna connected this time, the return loss of the overall system in the
frequency domain is measured using one marker (highest value). This value is
then compared to the maximum RL given by the Antenna manufacturer.
Example : For Thales 2209 T6, the manufacturer specifies –15.56 dB.
Importance : High
How : Same as in e) except that there are 3 Markers. One for the bottom
connector, one for the top connector, and one for the antenna.
Importance : Low
4.2. Reflectometry
Site Master uses the Frequency Domain Reflectometry (FDR), which is a well-
known technique. First, a narrow pulse is sent through the transmission line under
study and the reflected impulse response is then processed and analysed. This
impulse response is in fact converted to an Analogue discrete stream of samples
(according to Shannon Theorem) and then sampled and converted to Digital data
(using a A/D converter), and finally an FFT is applied to get the frequency
response. The frequency-domain data is thus displayed on the Site Master screen
for further analyses.
Incident Pulse
Load : Antenna,
Short-circuit or
Open End
Using basic Fourier analysis, the impulse response in the frequency domain can be
written as :
n =∞
h(t ) = ∑A
n = −∞
n exp( jnω c t ) (1)
An are the discrete amplitudes given by the sampler and ωc is nothing but the
carrier frequency. Afterwards, an FFT is applied to the above impulse response to
obtain the Spectrum response of the transmission line. The FFT function will have
the oscillating behaviour as the impulse response contains also oscillating
contributions. The presence of sine and cosine in the FFT explain why the
frequency response is oscillating. Site Master always shows such an oscillating
behaviour, which confirms this theoretical analysis. The values of An will
influence the amplitudes of each maximum we see on the Site Master display.
In a coax cable the propagation is on a TEM mode basis where the power is
represented by the Poynting Vector. The cut-off frequency is given by the
resolution of the Maxwell’s equation in a cylindrical confined medium filled by a
dielectric material (Ni-Teflon, Polypropylene, etc.). The velocity inside the
waveguide (coax) is given by :
c
vp =
εr (2)
This parameter is very important for Site Master for length computation. In fact
the length is given by :
L = v p .∆t (3)
The amount of lost energy (not transmitted to the antenna) is expressed in the
return loss. This can be due to impedance mismatch (aging antenna for example),
or connector or cable problems.
This section is very important because so far Ben and THE OPERATOR were
using different values. THE OPERATOR proposes a value not exceeding (e.g. -30
dB) for the return loss.
The return loss is nothing but the dB value of the Reflection coefficient and is
given by :
e.g. for a reflected power of 0.4% (0.004) the return loss is 24.3 dB ! therefore, a
return loss of 30 dB corresponds to a reflected power of 0.1 %.
As a reminder, the relationship between the Transmitted power (%) and the
reflection coefficient is as follows :
∴
PRe flected (%) =100 − PTransmitte d (%) (6)
Note : A VSWR of 1.13 is an acceptable figure and this will not lead to any
problem in DL transmission.
The most relevant and important measurement is the Return Loss with an antenna
connected. Within THE OPERATOR the following antennas will be used :
Feeder loss measurements are very important. This guarantees that the measured
value SHALL be the value the Planning Tool will be using. Besides, this is a
double-check of the values given by the coax cable manufacturer, for a given
length.
5. Concluding Recommendations
c) Frequency Domain Return Loss with a Matched Load to check the overall
Return Loss
d) Distance to Fault Return Loss : Allows to check each connector status (useful
during site maintenance)
e) Frequency domain Return Loss Measurement for the complete set (including
antenna). This is the most important and most relevant one because it
encompasses the whole elements (Connectors, feeders, antenna).
6. Technical References
[2] Bill JAUCHLER, “Return Loss Testing in the Field”, EMS Wireless Technical
Support.
ANNEX 1
SITE MASTER
MEASUREMENT SETUP
Antenna
Top-Jumper
Feeder
2
1
To Site
Master Bottom-Jumper
Connector