Who let me this close to multiple cell sites?

Which carrier is using those bigger round antennas in the first pic? Haven't seen that style before..

 

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Nice. I like how they even the cabling is red. How'd they do that? Cable is usually rubber, and trying to paint it usually doesn't work out too good. Or at least I'd expect the paint to peel and fake off within a year or so

On this pic below you can see on the top of the antenna, the top bracket (on the back of the antenna) can be extended to add more physical down-tilt. It doesn't look like there's much (or any) physical down-tilt at the moment (maybe -2° at most).

Kind of strange, because it looks like it's kind of high up in a urban area, there probably should be around -6° tilt. But maybe there's some electrical tilt going on inside the antenna that we don't see from outside.
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Oh yea, and what's with the round antennas? They aren't omni's, since there's 2 or 3 right next to each other, it wouldn't make sense. But then why a round directional/sectorised antenna? Strange.... Are they maybe "smart" antennas?
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Interesting. Where'd ya get that info?

I've heard/read about smart antennas, but haven't seen anyone actually using one yet. From my readings, the directional beam can be changed electronically (ie: no physical moving parts) to follow a user around the area of the cell, in order to reduce interference in the rest of the cell, which helps to improve call clarity, increase data rates, etc. usually in dense urban areas where interference is a problem.

 

Wow, I never heard/read/seen of a mechanical smart antenna. That's not really that "smart" then (maybe a "somewhat intelligent, but still kind of dumb" antenna ), since the beam can only be focused on one user/direction. "Real" smart antennas should be able to focus several beams on several users simultaneously from within the same antenna. But like I said, I never saw one in use, so maybe the practical technology hasn't caught up with the theorists yet

 

Don't fret Yankee386... you're well outside the danger zone for exposure. All of those antennas, while close to the general public don't appear to be close enough to do any real harm, especially for the lengths of times people would be nearby in that type of environment.

As for painting coax and antennas, it's quite a chore and picking the proper paint is extremely critical. Simply picking a can off the shelf could be devastating to the signal, especially when painting antennas. You have to work closely with your paint supplier to ensure the product will work. For coax, most high quality acrylic paints will stick pretty well.

On to those fancy Metro PCS antennas, the antenna they've been deploying have technology in them that allows the azimuth, beam-width on some and electrical downtilt to be changed from the ground. If you look closely, you'll see a third cable, a thin one running with the two coaxes, that's the control line. Some of the manufactuers are even making IP capable modules so that you could modify the coverage pattern from the comfort of your desk. These antennas are slowly taking off here in the US but they're heavily used in the Asian markets, especially Korea.

 

That's interesting about the cylindrical (MetroPCS) antennas. I had recently noticed them on a MetroPCS site near me and came here to ask about them, and found the question already raised and answered!

 

Actually their dual freq antennas 800MHZ cellular and 1.9HZ PCS. The give away is the 2 runs of coax coming into the bottom. Most cell carriers own blocks in other bandx

 

The City of Oakland, California has an almost identical site installation on the elevator penthouse of its City Hall parking garage. I have not had a chance to take any quality snaps of it yet, but I hope to in the next couple of months.

-Jonathan

PS: Yes, friend, I know I've been away for a while...I'll discuss more in a separate post. -jlk