A dual beam base station antenna for land mobile communications-60° beam width in horizontal plane

In general, the radio zone of a cellular mobile communications system is uses six sectors in order to increase the system capacity. This means, the base station must mount six antennas with 60° beam width in a horizontal plane. If the base station employs space diversity reception, 12 antennas are necessary. Accordingly, in cases where a six-sector radio zone is employed, it is important to try to reduce the antenna cross-sections (so as to reduce wind pressure) and the number of base station antennas to improve system reliability and reduce costs. It is well known that the use of dual beam antennas (DBAs), can reduced antenna cost, the antenna mounting space and the cross-section of the antenna because the number of the antennas is effectively halved. Accordingly, the authors propose a base station DBA of 60° beam width in the horizontal plane. The DBA is composed of main and sub plane reflectors with two radiation elements connected by a hybrid circuit. The radiation patterns of the DBA are analyzed by the moment method using a wire grid model