RF Mission Accomplished

One primary purpose of CommScope Blogs is to share valuable information with others in the industry. I am proud that the recently-concluded first installment of the “Meet the RF Experts” blog series has successfully supported that endeavor!

This series consisted of blog posts written by authors of our Understanding the RF Path ebook—experts from applications engineering, electrical engineering, product development, construction services, technical marketing, sales and operations teams. The authors used these posts to elaborate on subjects related to their ebook writings.

We published nine posts as part of “Meet the RF Experts.” I think the authors generated some engaging content that serves as a nice supplement to the very popular ebook.

If you are hungry for even more RF education, you can access the parallel Understanding the RF Path online training course for a nominal fee. We hope that all of these resources serve to broaden your knowledge of radio frequency issues, enlighten and inspire our next generation of RF experts, as well as further the wireless conversation happening in our industry today.

• Mechanical Downtilts Can Hurt Antenna Performance – Lou Meyer differentiates electrical from mechanical downtilt in base station antennas, pointing out how pattern blooming can appear with mechanical downtilt, leading to inconsistent coverage.


• You Say Tomato… – Erik Lilieholm highlights the lack of a common terminology for co-siting equipment and discusses how categorization of devices by application can help users choose their optimum solution.


• Add Some Class to Your Microwave Backhaul Network – Junaid Syed discusses microwave backhaul, touching on the benefits of upgrading to Class 4 antennas.


• Are You a Smooth (wall Cable) Operator? – Mike Schaefer looks at RF transmission lines, particularly smoothwall aluminum cable.


• 15 Steps to Precise RET Antenna Installation – Larry Seper lists his 15 steps for properly installing remote electrical tilt (RET) antennas. He provided practical guidance for cell site construction and installation in chapter two of the Understanding the RF Path ebook.


• The Many Considerations for Cell Site Backup Power– Mark Hendrix explores the pros and cons of using lead-acid batteries, generators or hydrogen fuel cells for backup power at cell sites.


• The Statistics and Physics of Reliability– Bill Burnett explains how reliability engineers try to predict future performance using statistics and physics.


• Isolation and Passive Intermodulation – Rob Cameron points out how passive intermodulation (PIM) can occur at any point in the RF transmission path, which is why isolation between the transmit and receive paths is important.


• Optical Fiber in the Air– In his second post, Junaid Syed discusses how millimeter wave backhaul offers the potential for fiber-equivalent throughput and more capacity, but also comes with increased risk for complete signal drop.