[TowerTalk] Nasty RF Problem. Advice Please

Daron J. Wilson daron at wilson.org
Sun Sep 10 12:21:48 EDT 2006


Wow, lots to comment on.

This is an increasing problem with unlicensed and even licensed gear where
the radio is so buried in the electronics there is little if any
troubleshooting one can do.  Very frustrating, trying to guess if it is just
RF overload or some problem that is somewhat easily corrected.

IMHO, much of that gear isn't going to hold up in a high RF site anyway,
it's just not designed for that.  I've seen quite a bit of this concern on
sites.

You might be able to find a lower RF field behind or below the broadcast
antenna, but since that stuff is circularly polarized, and with that much
power, you will have RF almost everywhere.  You might be able to measure the
RF field and find a quieter spot.  One thing would be to take two radios and
shoot back and forth just up on the hill where the tower is, in the RF
environment.  Crank the power down, make sure they will work at all in that
much RF before you separate the radios.

In order to know the pattern of the FM antenna, you'll need to provide a
good description, find the manufacturer and get some plots.  Generally, they
are stacked elements which provides the gain, but there are numerous
different designs.

Good Luck!

Daron Wilson, RCDD
N7HQR



> -----Original Message-----
> From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:towertalk-
> bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of CARY GOOCH
> Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 8:26 AM
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: [TowerTalk] Nasty RF Problem. Advice Please
> 
> We have an 80ft tower on which reside two tower mount Airstream 5.8GHz
> Radios. One fires through a 6ft parabolic 27 miles clean as a whistle.
> 
> The other has an integrated antenna, 2 mile shot and taking so much
> interference from a 3KW FM Stereo antenna 40 feet higher up the tower
> that I can not even log into it (power over Ethernet, shielded cable
> with drain wire.
> 
> I have moved the antenna, changed polarity, upped the transmit distance
> setting, everything I can think of. The only time I do not get RF and
> Ethernet frame drops (sometimes 90 percent) is when I have the FM
> transmitter turned off.
> 
> We also have Nivini (spelling) gear in the building at 2.4GHz, and
> though it is working well enough, their tech says they are getting
> significant interference as well.
> 
> Barring the obvious (move a whole lot of gear to another tower, time and
> money) is there something else I might do?
> 
> Now I don't know what an FM Stereo radiation pattern looks like, but
> when I woke up this morning it occurred to me that if I had my
> radio/antenna setup DIRECTLY below the FM setup, that I might have found
> a null spot in the FM pattern? I think that if I can just clean up the
> signal in this one antenna that we can live with the interference on the
> rest of the gear.
> 
> But I don't know if there IS a null spot, or even if it would matter.
> 
> Since my 27 mile shot with parabolic antennas is so clean, I know that
> is an option, but these integrated antenna radios do not have options
> for external antennas.  New airstream radios for this company are a
> rather significant investment.
> 
> What can I do?
> 
> Advise please. If I have not been clear on any points then ask me to
> elaborate. I am just getting some coffee.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Cary Todd Gooch
> RF Engineer
> New Roads Telecom
> (479) 494-0300 X211
> 
> 
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