Cellular subscriber antenna configurations and their effects on cellular system design

In designing and growing a cellular radio system, it is important to understand that the cellular system design tools, being it either computer generated propagation models or manual radio frequency field strength measurements, typically assume or use a 3 db gain omni directional mobile antenna for the subscriber equipment. In car portable use or real world antenna patterns may result in degraded service to the cellular customer in areas where a cellular radio system design predicts adequate signal strength. Thus, the cellular radio system design must be modified to account for this subscriber equipment, and that modification proportional to the quality of service that the cellular carrier desires to provide. An additional goal of this test was to make recommendations as to the type of antennas which would give the NewVector customer the best possible quality of service.