Today’s crowded airwaves make it increasingly harder to get clear wireless signals over your entire coverage area day and night. Remote electrical tilt (RET) antennas meet this challenge by providing precise beam-steering and an ability to remotely adjust your antennas’ positioning to optimize coverage and signal quality as traffic patterns and environmental conditions change.
This blog post explains how RET antennas work and the main differences between RET sector antennas and RET omnidirectional antennas. We conclude with a brief summary of L-com’s variety of RET antennas.
RET Antennas: It’s All in the Tilt
The term “remote electrical tilt” refers to the ability to electronically adjust the tilt angle of the antenna’s radiation pattern. Traditionally, adjusting the tilt angle of an antenna required physically changing its position or using mechanical means. With an RET antenna, this adjustment can be made remotely and electronically.
The main purpose of adjusting the electrical tilt of the antenna is to optimize the coverage and signal quality in a specific area. By tilting the antenna’s radiation pattern, the signal strength and coverage can be optimized for a particular sector. This is especially helpful in urban environments and other congested areas.
The remote control of the electrical tilt is usually achieved through a control unit located at the base station. The control unit communicates with the antenna elements and adjusts their electrical characteristics to achieve the desired tilt angle.
One big benefit of RET antennas is that they provide flexibility for network operators to adapt to evolving network requirements. As technologies advance and network conditions change, operators can remotely adjust the electrical tilt to optimize performance without requiring physical changes to the antenna infrastructure. This flexibility allows for easier deployment of new network technologies and facilitates the implementation of future upgrades or reconfigurations.
RET capabilities make antennas useful in many types of communication networks, including mobile, WISP and Wi-Fi, GSM, UMTS, LTE, 5G, public safety, smart cities, and industrial and enterprise networks.
RET Sector Antennas vs. RET Omni Antennas
L-com’s comprehensive lines of antennas, antenna kits, and antenna accessories include both RET sector antennas and RET omnidirectional antennas. The main differences between the two lie in their coverage patterns and their suitability for different use cases. Here are the key distinctions:
Coverage Pattern
A sector antenna has a directional radiation pattern that covers a specific sector or angle, typically ranging from 60 to 120 degrees. It focuses its energy and coverage in a particular direction while minimizing radiation in other directions. The coverage pattern is narrower and more concentrated within the sector.
An omni antenna, as the name suggests, has a 360-degree radiation pattern that provides coverage in all directions equally. It propagates the signal uniformly in all horizontal directions, providing a spherical coverage pattern around the antenna.
Application
Sector antennas are commonly used in cellular networks to provide coverage and capacity to specific areas or sectors. They are suitable for environments where it is necessary to concentrate coverage in a particular direction, such as urban or suburban areas where multiple sectors are deployed to serve different user groups.
Omnidirectional antennas are typically used in scenarios where equal coverage is required in all directions. They are well-suited for applications like Wi-Fi hotspots, small office/home office (SOHO) setups, or environments where the coverage needs to be distributed uniformly in all directions.
Interference and Signal Control
RET sector antennas offer better control over signal propagation and interference management. By adjusting the electrical tilt, operators can optimize coverage, reduce interference with adjacent sectors, and direct the signal towards specific areas or user groups.
RET omni antennas provide equal coverage in all directions, but they may be more susceptible to interference from neighboring antennas or signal reflections. They have less control over signal propagation and may require additional techniques, such as antenna diversity or beamforming, to mitigate interference.
Make L-com Your RET HQ
At L-com we recently expanded our line of RET antennas. They include several new sector antennas and a new omnidirectional antenna.
Key Features:
- Frequency options: sector models covering1710 to 2690 MHz and an omni antenna covering 694 to 960 MHz
- Flexibility: remote controller enables adjustment of antenna beams to instantly respond to changing traffic patterns and environmental conditions
- Longer coverage distances with high-gain options of 11 or 18 dBi
- Clearer signals with low-PIM 4.3-10 connectors
- Weather-ready fiberglass radome
For more info on L-com antennas, see our recent blog posts on antenna downtilt, embedded antennas, GPS antennas, and Wi-Fi antennas.
Need help deciding on the RET antenna you need? Connect with one of our L-com technical experts now. Call us toll-free at 1-866-506-2818, chat with us live, or email us at sales@l-com.com.
