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The Radio Frequency Systems Bulletin
2nd quarter 2004
Coverage complete for
Petrobras offshore
NASCOWs at the speedway
CELLFLEX an Olympic winner
China gets 3G smart
Fibre on the factory floor
The Clear Choice in Wireless

2
03 Editorial
The new ‘killer app’: the family phone
04 What’s New
RADIAFLEX ‘A’ enhances
confined coverage
Optimizer cellular/PCS wins
over 90 degrees
RFS CompactLine suite complete
at three-foot
RFS Superturnstile turns heads
06 Cover Story
Coverage complete for
Petrobras offshore
09 Confined Coverage
Fiber forms the factory floor
cutting edge
10 Feeder Systems
America applauds CELLFLEX ‘A’
RFS reels off rural success in Sweden
INDEX
12 Regional Focus
China gets 3G smart
15 Microwave
US public safety radio contract
awarded to RFS
16 Cellular
NASCOWs at the speedway
18 In Touch
New RFS software tool aids
microwave link design
RFS backbone for Nigerian operator
Focus on Asia in June 2004
PLURAL and CELLFLEX a winner
at Athens Olympics
PREVIEW: Connections, corrugations
and costs—the feeder cable debate
Radio Frequency Systems
WorldWideWeb:
http://www.rfsworld.com
Publisher: Jörg Springer
Executive Editor/Editor Asia Pacific:
Peter Walters
Editor EMAI: Paul Newsome
Editor Americas: Ann Polanski
Managing Editor: Allan Alderson
Production Editor: Christian Michatsch
Art Director: Matthias Schwedt
Authors: Allan Alderson, Dr Ellen Gregory
Photos: RFS archives; Chris Adams; Blickpunkt
Photodesign; Getty images; Thomas Kähler;
C. Mayhew & R. Simmon (NASA/GSFC),
(NOAA/NGDC), DSMP Digital Archive; Shelton
Muller; Petrobras archives; Ann Polanski, Chloe Yao
Cover images: Petrobras archives
Cover art: Matthias Schwedt
Print: Print Design, Minden
Layout and Graphics:
inform Advertising, Hannover
Editorial Services:
Relate Technical Communications, Melbourne
Trademarks: CELLFLEX ® , BDA ® , FLEXWELL ® ,
MicroTenna, Optimizer ® , RADIAFLEX ® ,
Radio Frequency Systems ® , RFS ® , RFS CompactLine ® ,
SlimLine ® and The Clear Choice in Wireless are
trademarks, service marks or registered trademarks
of Radio Frequency Systems.
On the cover:
One of 96 offshore oil production platforms owned
and operated by oil and gas giant Petrobras,
platform P25 is a semi-submersible oil platform located
off Brazil’s north coast, in the deep waters
of the Campos Basin.
China gets 3G smart
As the world’s largest mobile market
enjoys healthy growth—and increasing competition—RFS
provides 3G technology for
extensive trials of W-CDMA, CDMA2000 and
TD-SCDMA in three major cities.
12
6
Coverage complete for Petrobras offshore
Hundreds of kilometres from the Brazilian
coastline, RFS helps oil and gas giant Petrobras
realize a new industry standard in offshore
platform deck-to-deck RF communications.
16
NASCOWs at the speedway
New NASCAR series sponsor, Nextel Communications,
deploys a groundbreaking mobile
cellular coverage solution founded on RFS’s
unique Optimizer RT remote tilt technology.
Fibre forms the factory floor cutting edge
A major saw blade manufacturer in Massachusetts
enjoys the benefits of plantwide PCS
reception, courtesy of a hybrid passive/active
confined coverage solution from RFS.
9
PLURAL and CELLFLEX a winner
at Athens Olympics
Radio Frequency System’s Greek distribution
partner, PLURAL, has been awarded the
contract to provide the RF distribution system
for mobile telephony coverage of the Athens
Olympic Stadium—RFS’s CELLFLEX feeder
cable will play a vital role.
19

IMPRINT
The new ‘killer app’:
the family phone
When, in the closing days of 2003, industry
and media pundits began predicting high
levels of churn in the US cellular market,
the global cellular industry took a deep
breath. The central issue was the ruling
by the country’s Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) to introduce local
number portability (LNP), particularly from
mobile-to-mobile. It was predicted that,
when the legislation was passed in
November 2003, there would follow
huge waves of subscriber churn.
As it turned out, these worries were
unfounded. The country’s cellular
operators, in the large, retained their loyal
subscriber bases, and the resulting levels
of churn were unexceptional.
infrastructure offers enormous coverage
reach at low cost, while delivering greater
flexibility and functionality to the way
people communicate.
In the wake of the FCC’s limited fixedto-mobile
LNP ruling, numerous market
research groups have reported on the
potential cellular subscriber growth this has
unleashed, as consumers freely migrate to
wireless as their primary connection. Digital
communications market research group,
In-Stat MDR, has reported that while US
consumers using wireless as their primary
connection currently only account for
around 15 per cent of connections, around
Yet the reality is that to-date, the newly
liberated US subscriber hasn’t rushed to
‘cut the cord’ to his or her landline. In
essence, this is because the wireless market
is not yet ready. Consumers today believe—
perhaps justifiably in some markets—that
landline still provides some intangible sense
of ‘reliability’.
Herein lies both opportunity and challenge
for the wireless sector in all parts of the
world. Almost all the market research
shows that—while consumers are willing
and in many cases keen to rationalize their
communications to a wireless platform—
price, network coverage and QoS are still
viewed as reasons to retain the landline.
Radio Frequency Systems is committed to
addressing the latter two, by providing the
advanced RF solutions needed to achieve
the advanced levels of coverage and QoS
to support the progressive migration to
‘wireless-only’. The secret to unleashing
this next wave in subscription growth
is network RF optimization. As a result,
Dr Klaus-Dieter Mischerikow
Radio Frequency Systems President
EDITORIAL
3
At the same time that the FCC ruled on
mobile-to-mobile LNP, it also permitted
restricted fixed-to-mobile LNP. From a
global perspective, this is a far more
interesting development, and one that
regulators and industry groups around the
world are watching very closely. While the
FCC is the first to make such a landmark
ruling (albeit in a limited sense), it is a clear
indicator that other regulators and markets
will eventually follow. Why? Because
wireless technology can provide superior
performance, convenience and services to
those offered by legacy wireline—the
future is wireless.
The substitution of fixed communications
with mobile is a real and growing
phenomenon around the world. The
number of mobile subscriptions in each
country is increasing at a much faster rate
than that of fixed lines. Economics and
convenience are behind this trend: cellular
one-quarter of the remainder have
signalled a readiness to move from wireline
to wireless.
By 2008, it is predicted that close to
one-third of US wireless subscribers will no
longer have a landline connection. This
represents a massive potential for wireless
market growth, both in terms of raw
subscriptions and ARPU.
While the phenomenon of wireless subscriptions
outstripping wireline connections
is ‘old news’ for emerging markets such as
China, Africa and India, it is a completely
new concept in more established wirelinedominated
markets such as Europe and
North America. Clearly, the wireless
markets in these areas are ripe for a new
wave of growth, when legislators and
regulators eventually permit similar
subscriber number portability.
operators are turning to RFS for a
host of ‘smart’ filter, cable and antenna
technologies, which boost the capabilities
of existing systems while imparting
flexibility to system design and operation.
Adaptability of the network is also
of paramount importance—networks increasingly
need dynamic RF optimization
tools that allow them to respond to
surges in demand and variable subscriber
load conditions.
Since this optimizing methodology extends
to every part of the RF chain, the days of
just being an antenna vendor are over. Now
operators are looking to partner with
highly competent ‘engineering in RF’
organizations, such as RFS. In this way, they
are able to send an increasingly clear signal
into people’s homes: the future will be
wireless, and its ‘killer application’ will be
the family phone line.
Klaus-Dieter Mischerikow

RADIAFLEX ‘A’ enhances
confined coverage
In-building and in-tunnel wireless coverage
is set to gain from the latest radiating cable
series enhancement from Radio Frequency
Systems. Offering enhanced performance
and reduced longitudinal attenuation,
RFS’s new RADIAFLEX ‘A’ is the successor
to its popular RADIAFLEX range of foamdielectric
radiating cable and connectors.
With RFS low-density foam technology at its
core, the new ‘A’ series offers crucial RF
performance improvements for all smooth
wall and corrugated RADIAFLEX cable
series products. Significantly, at the same
cost-per-length as its predecessor, the
RADIAFLEX ‘A’ series features a reduction
of typically six per cent in longitudinal
attenuation across the entire frequency range.
According to Peter Raabe, RFS Global
Product Manager for Wireless Distributed
Communication Systems, the introduction
of higher frequency services in confined
areas—including the universal mobile
telecommunications system (UMTS) and
wireless local area networks (WLAN)—
has been the key driver behind the
development of the new low-loss radiating
cable technology. “The system designer is
always fighting for every decibel (dB) loss,”
he said. “Saving insertion loss on the
radiating cable makes the system much
more future-proof, and very well-suited
for the high-frequency range, especially
3G applications.”
The ‘A’ series will be available in smooth
wall RADIAFLEX diameters (1/2, 7/8, 1-1/4
and 1-5/8 inch) and corrugated RADIAFLEX
diameters (7/8, 1-1/4 and 1-5/8 inch). To
accommodate the enhanced cable core,
RFS is also providing new connectors for
the 7/8, 1-1/4 and 1-5/8 inch diameter
RADIAFLEX ‘A’ cables, with the last two
being retrofittable to previous generation
RADIAFLEX cable. No new tooling is
required. And since the jacket diameters of
RADIAFLEX ‘A’ cable remain unchanged, all
existing installation accessories fit to the
new series as well.
4 WHAT’S NEW
Optimizer cellular/PCS
wins over 90 degrees
The ongoing demand in North America for
90-degree aperture cellular antennas,
coupled with an increasing need for
dualband solutions, has spawned an
important new addition to the RFS Optimizer
family—the new Optimizer cellular/PCS
dualband antenna.
Unveiled at CTIA 2004 in March this year, the
new additions to Optimizer antenna family
support both US cellular and personal
communications systems (PCS) bands under
one radome, with independent variable
electrical tilt in each band. Importantly, the
new antennas are available in beam width
variants of either 65 degrees or 90 degrees,
with effective polarization diversity retained
across the entire aperture.
“Until now, no-one has really been able to realize
an effective 90-degree polarization
diversity dualband antenna,” said David
Kiesling, Director of Marketing, RFS
Americas. “Other manufacturers have
struggled to realize effective cross-polar
discrimination over the entire 90 degrees.
Our new models boast 20 dB cross-polar
discrimination at bore site, and better than
7 dB across the entire aperture, guaranteeing
effecting polarization diversity over the
entire 90-degree beam.”
Both the 65 and 90-degree beam width
dualband Optimizer antennas boast an
electrical tilt range of 0 to 10 degrees. As
with all RFS Optimizer antennas, the new
Optimizer dualband antennas provide
superior upper side lobe suppression (better
than 18 dB across the entire tilt range) and
enhanced gain (nominal gain of 15 dB in
each band). At first release both antennas will
be available in two-metre long versions, with
1.3-metre versions to follow later in 2004.

RFS CompactLine suite
complete at three-foot
Radio Frequency Systems has recently
completed two important additions to its
range of cost-effective CompactLine
microwave antennas: the new three-foot
diameter CompactLine SB3 series, plus
a new two-foot diameter CompactLine
that meets the US Federal Communications
Commission’s (FCC’s) category A performance
requirements in the emerging
10-GHz band.
The RFS CompactLine family is a
comprehensive suite of solid reflector,
low-profile, high-performance microwave
antennas. Standard features of the
CompactLine suite include a short shroud
for low visual impact, and a modified
Cassegrain feed system with shaped
subreflector for optimum gain and
pattern performance.
The new SB3 antenna completes the RFS
CompactLine suite in the two- to four-foot
diameter area. Ideal for point-to-point
applications, the CompactLine SB3
provides a practical alternative to oneand
two-foot antennas, for high-capacity
applications that demand a greater system
gain. The three-foot CompactLine antenna
offers the necessary system gains without
concession, while dramatically reducing
tower load when compared to the
four-foot variants.
First release CompactLine SB3 antennas
were launched to the market during the
second quarter of 2004, with the complete
SB3 product portfolio ultimately providing
three-foot diameter microwave antenna
solutions for the 10- to 32-GHz frequency
bands.
Also launched during this period is the
new two-foot diameter CompactLine
SB2-105—a microwave antenna specifically
developed to meet the FCC’s recently
revamped Category A performance
requirements in the emerging 10-GHz
band. Earlier FCC Category A gain
requirement in the 10-GHz band effectively
had customers locked into a four-foot
antenna solution, which was often oversized
from a gain perspective. The new
CompactLine SB2-105 solution helps
open up this underutilized band, by
providing a truly economic and low-profile
solution for point-to-point and backbone
applications.
RFS superturnstile
turns heads
5
Radio Frequency System’s new ultra-slim and
lightweight superturnstile UHF broadcast
antenna turned many a head at the NAB
2004 broadcast industry exhibition, held in
Las Vegas earlier this year. Supporting the
entire US and European UHF bands
(470 to 862 MHz), the new RFS superturnstile
antenna exhibits pattern circularity
that competing, higher price point
broadband antennas struggle to achieve.
“The profile of our new superturnstile is less
than that of competing UHF broadband
antennas,” said RFS Broadcast Engineering
Manager Dale Davenport. “This has resulted
in a significant reduction in wind loading and
weight when compared with competing
products, providing broadcasters with
enormous flexibility when considering
installation on existing laden towers.”
The result of rigorous computer modelling
and ingenious materials selection, the RFS
superturnstile exhibits pattern ripple of
better than ±1.5 dB across the entire UHF
band. Its low drag profile underpins the
antenna’s high wind speed rating and low
wind load characteristics.
Uniquely cost-effective, the RFS superturnstile
antenna family provides the ideal
reduced-power digital television (DTV)
broadcast solution for broadcasters who
plan to take advantage of the Federal
Communications Commission’s (FCC’s)
waiver on the end-2004 full-power DTV
deadline. The RFS superturnstile is also ideal
for many other low and medium power
broadcast applications, such as coverage
of small to medium-sized cities, and
translator applications. Mounting options
include top mount and side mount.
The new superturnstile is available in
array sizes of up to 16 wavelengths for
the top-mounted antenna, and up to 32
wavelengths for the side-mounted version.
The family features a low drag fibreglass
radome that provides excellent protection
from the environment and acts as the
main structural element of the antenna
assembly. The antennas range in average
input power rating from 4 kW through to
16 kW, and up to 32 kW for the sidemounted
version. Gains from 7.2 dBd to
15.4 dBd are available.

Coverage complete for
Petrobras offshore
Hundreds of kilometres from the Brazilian coastline, RFS helps oil and
gas giant Petrobras realize a new industry standard in offshore platform
deck-to-deck RF communications.
6
COVER STORY
Offshore oil explor ation and drilling—most
particularly deepwater and ultra-deepwater
wells—is a relatively young and fast
changing industry. While the earliest
offshore platforms were established in
the late-1940s, offshore oil production
really only reached global significance
two decades later. Over the past ten years,
drilling operations have moved into areas
well beyond the continental shelf
and water depths exceeding 1,000
metres—the so-called ultra-deepwater
drilling. This is a very new industry
that demands entirely new approaches
to offshore exploration, drilling and
production. One company leading in this
important area of resource development is
the Brazilian oil and gas group, Petrobras.
Petrobras is a name synonymous with
deepwater and ultra-deepwater drilling,
and is renowned for its innovation in
this sector. An integrated international
oil and gas company engaged in
exploration, development and production
of hydro-carbons, oil and a wide range of
petroleum products and derivatives,
Petrobras is Brazil’s largest company in
terms of revenue and one of the world’s
top 20 oil and gas groups. The company
holds the world ‘water depth’ record
for offshore oil drilling—the 7-RO-8 well
in Roncador field, in the far reaches of
the massive Campos Basin oil and gas
reserve, off the northern coast of Rio
de Janeiro state.
Deepwater innovation
The company has played a vital role in the
development of new technologies that
are now the mainstays of such deep and
ultra-deepwater exploration and drilling.
These include 3D seismic exploration
programs, innovative drilling and production
structures such as the ‘floating
production storage and offloading’
(FPSO) and tension leg platform (TLP),
and horizontal and multibranch well
development.
According to the company’s Supervisor of
Offshore Maintenance and Operations—
Telecommunications, Acir Cumin, onplatform
communications have also
undergone change, as the company
moves into deeper waters of exploration.
Any offshore drilling platform, Cumin
explains, presents a demanding environment
from a communications perspective.
Two imperatives underscore all offshore
operations: ensuring premium operational
safety, due to the remoteness of the
platform and the volatile nature of the
materials being handled; and optimizing
uptime and efficiency, due to the enormous
costs of establishing and manning a rig.
Seamless on-platform communications are
essential to realizing these two goals.
An important 2001 initiative by the
company—known as the ‘Operational &
Excellence Plan’—set out a number of
performance benchmarks for its platform
systems and development. One of these
was on-platform communications coverage.
On most offshore platforms throughout the
world, deck-to-deck communications is
achieved via a combination of UHF ‘lineof-sight’
communications and hardwired
paging intercoms. Given the dense-packed
nature of the machinery and men on the
platform deck areas, achieving immediate
operational access to clear communications
can often prove a challenge. “I’ve been
using UHF communications for platform
operations and maintenance crews for
more than 15 years. Using such
conventional radio systems we’ve often
experienced RF ‘shadows’,” Cumin says.
The Petrobras 2001 ‘Operational &
Excellence Plan’ demanded a raising of

the industry bar in on-platform radio
communications, by specifying 100 per
cent RF coverage of all platform operations
and maintenance areas.
Up to 2001, Petrobras had used a
‘passive repeater’ system to distribute
the 450 MHz production and maintenance
communications band about the platforms.
This involved a network of antennas
located across each of its platforms to
distribute and re-distribute the signal. “It
was a success in some areas, but not in
others,” Cumin explains. “So we
approached Radio Frequency Systems for a
system guaranteed to achieve 100 per cent
coverage.”
group in its Sao Paulo centre, Amauri Soares,
concurs with Dorst’s view, and cites the
dense-packed nature of RF reflection and
attenuation objects on each platform as a
further challenge. “The platforms are all
unique—they are all different,” he says.
“Each deck area can measure as much as 120
metres by 100 metres in area, with the deck
crammed with metal machinery and rooms.
There are many people moving about on the
platform as well—often up to 110 personnel.
The combination of the RF reflections caused
by the metal objects, coupled with the
prospect of RF ‘fades’ (caused by personnel
as they move about the decks) makes for a
challenging design environment!”
Unique structures
The project entailed innumerable
challenges, not the least being the wide
variety of platform structures that RFS
had to address. In addition to Petrobras’s
more conventional fixed platforms, it also
requested RFS address RF communications
on its two deepwater structural innovations:
the ‘floating production storage and offloading’
(FPSO) and the ‘semi-submersible’
platforms. The FPSO is essentially a ship fitted
out for drilling and product storage, and
long-term at-sea location at the well site. The
‘semi-submersible’, on the other hand, is a
floating drilling unit fitted with pontoons and
columns that, when flooded with
seawater, cause the structure to submerge to
a predetermined depth. Both the FPSO and
the semi-submersible are moored to the
seabed at the drilling location, and
connected to the well by flexible risers.
“What was interesting here, is that these
structures really demanded a hybrid
approach to the RF design,” explains RFS’s
Vice President of Americas Wireless
Distributed Communications Systems (WDCS),
Ron Dorst. “The buildings on the multideck
platforms are essentially similar to
high-rise building structures. The columns
and pontoons of the semi-submersibles, on
the other hand, have much more in common
with the many rail and road tunnels and
metros that RFS has worked on throughout
the world. So what we’ve had to do is
combine our know-how from the road and
rail sector with that of in-building, to come
up with the optimal oil platform solution.”
Chief designer with the RFS WDCS design
From prototype to project
The solution proposed by Soares and his
team was based on realizing ‘contoured’
RF coverage, tailored to achieve 100
per cent coverage of the operations and
maintenance points on each of the
Petrobras platforms. RFS’s Stationmaster II
omnidirectional antennas were proposed to
achieve RF coverage in the open outdoor
deck areas, while a network of RFS
point-source omnidirectional indoor
antennas were suggested for the platform’s
closed deck areas. In these areas, the RF
signal would be distributed via power
dividers and directional couplers to ensure
balanced coverage to all points.
Feeder connections to each RF device
would be achieved via RFS’s CELLFLEX
foam-dielectric coaxial feeder cable. For
the more tunnel-like areas of the
platforms, such as the semi-submersible’s
columns, pontoons and submarine deck,
RFS proposed using its world-renowned
RADIAFLEX RCF series broadband radiating
cable to provide homogeneous RF
distribution.
On the basis of this proposal, Petrobras
commissioned RFS in 2002 to develop a
prototype system for the first of these
platforms, an exploration drilling rig known
at P23. “This was the first to use RFS’s
distributed RF approach,” explains
Petrobras’s Cumin. “The P23 prototype
proved a success. The main gains [on
this platform] related to the speed of
communications and the assurance that
every part of the platform was covered.
For example, if you have to close a valve for
Petrobras’s platform P25 is a semisubmersible
platform located in the
deep waters surrounding the
Campos Basin’s Albacora oil field.
7

emergency reasons, it can be performed
quickly. This derives the safety and security
that Petrobras targets.”
As a result of the P23 trial success, RFS was
commissioned in late-2003 to fit out a
further twenty offshore structures: seven
FPSOs, ten semi-submersibles and three fixed
platforms.
Soares and his team immediately surveyed
all twenty structures and assigned an
installation and commissioning crew for the
project. “An important element of this
project was that Petrobras required a total
turnkey approach,” explains RFS Key Account
Manager for Petrobras, Marcus Gama. “This
meant we were not only responsible for
the total RF design and technology supply,
but also for the supply and installation of
the radio basestations, the on-platform
distribution systems and all associated
peripherals. We also took responsibility for the
mobile radio programming, site commissioning
and system performance tests.”
Design of all 20 platform systems was
The installation demanded ‘intrinsically
safe’ radio systems be used—these ensure
that ‘emitted’ electrical energy is kept
below a maximum level, and prevents the
occurrence of any potential spark ignition
sources. Suitable lightning protection was
also essential in the exposed open waters of
the Atlantic. A ten-hour rated UPS backup
was included for the radio system, to
provide support in the event of a platform
power failure. While the initial design scope
was to support a five channel, 450 MHz
analogue system, for reasons of
futureproofing, Petrobras demanded that
the entire system be broadband to 2.4 GHz.
The RFS design team had also to take special
heed of on-platform ‘hazardous area
zoning’ requirements, and particularly the
transition of cable between these zones.
To this end, many room-to-room cable
transitions had to be specially sealed and
fireproofed, using appropriate synthetic
sealing blocks and sealant. The entire
Plan’—achieving 100 per cent RF coverage
of all operations and maintenance points
across the platform.
This was put to the test in late March 2004,
when the first of the twenty upgraded
platforms—an FPSO called P47—was
subjected to System Assessment Testing by
the Petrobras team in its dry dock facility in
the city of Rio de Janeiro. The RF signal
levels easily met the Petrobras-specified
minimum requirement of -70 dBm across
the entire platform, and often clearly
exceeded this level. “This is a 100 per cent
improvement [over the previous system],”
Cumin says. “The operations and maintenance
crews will now have the guarantee
that they will find a well-established
signal to start and receive the communications—quality
communications can now be
achieved anywhere on the platform.”
With the P47 soon destined to leave Rio de
Janeiro and make its way out to the deep
waters of Campos Basin’s Marlim field, the
8 C OVER STORY
An FPSO is a ship fitted out
for drilling, product storage and
long-term at-sea location—pictured
is Petrobras’s P37 in the Marlim oil field.
completed by the RFS Sao Paulo team
during September/October 2003, with
Petrobras-witnessed factory acceptance
testing completed at RFS Sao Paulo.
Installation commenced in November of
the same year, with commissioning of
the systems completed during the first
half of 2004.
Offshore challenges
The project presented the RFS WDCS
design team with a number of technical
challenges—many of them unique to
the offshore platform environment. For
obvious safety reasons, the entire
installation—including feeder cables
and radiating cables—had to be both
flame and fire retardant, and low
smoke producing. This specification was
easily met by RFS RADIAFLEX and
CELLFLEX, as its ‘JFL’ jacket is flame and
fire retardant to IEC 60 332, and
classified ‘low smoke’ in accordance
with IEC 61 034.
installation had to be both corrosion and
vibration resistant, to ensure it survived
the salt-laden atmosphere and platform
vibrations.
System redundancy was also essential.
“The system had to be designed to ensure
optimal reliability,” explains Cumin. “On
the platform there are operationally hazardous
areas—such as the production
deck—where a feeder cable passing over
the area might be at risk from machinery.”
A complete system redundancy plan was
undertaken by RFS in conjunction with
Petrobras. In areas where it was deemed
necessary, RFS deployed redundant feeders,
alternative low-gain back-up antenna
systems, and so on.
New industry standard
But the most important objective of all,
according to Cumin, was realizing
the new industry standard specified in
Petrobras’s ‘Operational & Excellence
remaining 19 platforms in this project are
scheduled for System Assessment Testing
by Petrobras through to mid-2004. In the
latter half of 2004, RFS is scheduled to
commence fitting out a further nine
Petrobras platforms. Once again, this will
be a total turnkey project, with guaranteed
RF coverage on each of the platforms.
The Petrobras 2001 ‘Operational &
Excellence Plan’ set out to realize a new
global standard for deck-to-deck RF
coverage on offshore platforms. As a
renowned leader and innovator in the
sector, this is no new terrain for the oil and
gas giant. “RFS is proud to have played
such a significant role in helping Petrobras
achieve this new standard,” says RFS’s Ron
Dorst. “It’s been an undeniable challenge,
but the success of this project exemplifies
the breadth of our company’s confined
coverage know-how and experience—and
the almost limitless nature of a truly
tailored RF solution”.

Fiber forms the factory
floor cutting edge
A major saw blade manufacturer in Massachusetts enjoys the benefits
of plantwide PCS reception, courtesy of a hybrid passive/active confined
coverage solution from RFS.
Lenox Saw in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts,
USA is a company on the cutting
edge—in every respect. Manufacturing a
wide range of bandsaw, hacksaw, and
reciprocating saw blades, plus hole saws
and other cutting tools, its LENOX brand
enjoys an enviable reputation for premium
quality in over 70 countries around the
world.
The company uses the most advanced
manufacturing techniques, and relies on a
plantwide personal communications
service (PCS) wireless communications
system as a means of communicating
with many of its key staff, as
they move about its massive
525,000 square foot
(52,500 square metre)
facility. “Our senior
management, supervisors
and support
people use it,” explained
Lenox Saw’s plant engineer
Ed Lagoy. “It has definite
advantages for us. For example, if you’re
a maintenance fellow and you’re
trouble-shooting a problem, it’s kinda nice
to talk to the manufacturer while you’re
looking at the machine.”
Hybrid solution
While the mobility of PCS wireless
communications provides convenience,
the company had struggled with a number
of ‘dead spots’ or poor reception areas
about its large facility. A detailed site survey
initiated and overseen by Lenox’s Director
of Information Systems, Wes Crouch,
quantified the extent of the problem and
the possible solutions. Radio Frequency
Systems was approached in late 2003 to
explore these solutions further. “Due to the
scale of this facility, we knew that
a conventional passive RF solution
would not be practical,” said Jerry Black,
RFS’s Director Wireless Distributed Communications
System (WDCS) Products
Technical Sales. “As a result, we explored
our library of hybrid passive/active
systems.”
Working in conjunction with US fiber optic
technology group Mobile Access, RFS came
up with the optimal solution—one that
provides both premium performance and
cost-efficiency. The solution proposed was
based on a backbone of single-mode
optical fiber, routed about the entire
manufacturing facility. At the donor site, or
front end, was an RFS I-BDA 48000 series
bi-directional amplifier (BDA). This
provided the important uplink and
downlink gain required across the
installation. The I-BDA 48000, in turn,
fed into a main hub, which provided the
RF-to-optical (E/O) transition and optical
fiber marshalling point.
Three remote hubs were located along the
fiber backbone, supporting the optical-to-
RF (O/E) transition, and marshalling to around
20 strategically located point source
antennas. The nominated antennas were
RFS’s renowned A088 series broadband
MicroTenna indoor antennas, which were
connected to the hubs using RFS’s low
attenuation CELLFLEX foam dielectric coaxial
cable.
Fiber turnkey
The entire hybrid solution was provided
by RFS on a total turnkey basis. “This
was a complete engineering/furnish/install
project—it was our responsibility from
end-to-end,” said Black. “The design was
completed by our engineering team in
Meriden, Connecticut, then the site
installation, commissioning and testing
completed by our nominated installation
sub-contractor.”
According to Lenox Saw’s Ed Lagoy, the
installation went very smoothly indeed. “It
was completed over a couple of weeks and
they worked during the off-shift. Frankly,
they were pretty invisible to us—and that’s a
good thing for me, ‘cause it means the job’s
getting done!”
The hybrid solution deployed at Lenox Saw
offers a number of key advantages over
conventional fiber-based confined coverage
solutions—most notably, its broadband
nature. “The RFS/Mobile Access solution is
broadband from end-to-end,” Black said.
“While the Lenox Saw system currently supports
only code division multiple access
(CDMA) 1900 multi-carrier service, it could
CONFINED COVERAGE 9
easily accommodate an overlaid WiFi,
paging, or other cellular based services in the
future—all on the same fiber!”
Dead spots out
At the completion of the project the results
were very positive indeed, with the ‘dead
spots’ essentially eradicated. “Our subcontractor
took levels throughout the building
and compared it to our design predictions,”
Black said. “We were 95 to 98 per cent of
predicted—Lenox Saw could not have been
more pleased!”
With its proven strength and capability in
the large-campus confined coverage sector,
Black is enthusiastic about RFS’s future.
“We come to the market with proven wireless
know-how, total turnkey capability, and
the richest library of passive, active and
hybrid solutions and technologies from which
to draw,” he said. “It’s an unbeatable combination—we
bring the best of both the passive
and active worlds to our customers.”

America applauds CELLFLEX ‘A’
From coast to coast, US cellular OEMs and installation crews are enthusiastically
embracing RFS’s enhanced base station feeder cable.
In the quest for improved wireless coverage
and services, operators across the United
States are embarking on a broad program
of infrastructure upgrades, and this has
created an ever-increasing demand for high
quality feeder systems. Increasingly, many
operators and OEMs are turning to Radio
Frequency Systems. Just under a year after
its July 2003 global launch, the ‘A’ series of
CELLFLEX feeder cable is proving itself
well suited to meet the range of
RF performance and field installation
requirements of modern American cell
sites. And the word is fast spreading.
Corridor to performance
The CELLFLEX ‘A’ series is winning over new
and existing RFS customers across the
US, says Chris Adams, RFS Area Product
“The needs of the project were simple.
They wanted the best possible material for
RF transmission, without compromising
mechanical performance. They also wanted
a product that they were comfortable
using,” explains Adams. In CELLFLEX ‘A’,
the companies found an optimal feeder cable
solution, offering reduced transmission
losses, while having enough similarities to
the more familiar CELLFLEX products to
minimize further training.
Preferred approach
In the last few years, the US RF market has
demonstrated a substantial shift in attitude
towards feeder systems. The previous focus
was largely on the performance of
antennas and, to some extent, the filtering
and combining equipment. “In the minds
10 FEEDER SYSTEMS
Manager for Transmission Lines. The
success is attributable to the fact that
the cable has achieved an improved
attenuation profile without sacrificing
mechanical properties, while maintaining
tooling and connector compatibility with
the popular preceding technology—the
RFS standard CELLFLEX series. Adams adds,
“We’re finding that many of those who
have had a chance to review the product
are now opting to make the ‘A’ series their
preferred cable product. In Central America
too, a number of customers are assigning it
a ‘priority’ status.”
Recently, the ‘A’ series feeder cable was
selected for a large-scale project in the
Boston area where two major personal
communication service (PCS) operators
have formed a joint venture to fill in
coverage gaps or ‘holes’, particularly along
highways. In the early stages of the project,
it was necessary for both companies
to fundamentally agree on a feeder cable
product, which could accommodate
immediate and future capacity improvements.
of many, cable was cable, and there really
were no differences,” Adams remarks. By
contrast, today there is a clear imperative to
look closely at the performance of the
transmission line system. “If you don’t
minimize losses in the feeder cable, then
the best overall performance for the
transmission system won’t be realized.”
All components of RFS’s CELLFLEX ‘A’ series
have been designed with a view to ensuring
the best possible performance for the entire
transmission line. Adams points out that
this is a new approach, a change from the
days in which, “cable people only focus on
cable, and connector people only focus on
connectors.” He adds that RFS is now going
beyond cables and connectors, and is
looking, for example, at optimizing the
performance of the jumpers at the
cable ends, cable related accessories and
installation tooling.
Beyond performance metrics, however,
there is another factor behind the
growing appeal of the ‘A’ series—
the often-overlooked impact on site
installation. In the US, the fact that
CELLFLEX ‘A’ connectors are backwards
compatible with the original CELLFLEX
connectors is a very attractive feature of the
RFS system. Adams says, “It is important to
cater to the needs of the guys in the field—
they’re the ones who have to deal with any
problems. So, we’re doing a lot of different
things to make them happy.”

RFS reels off rural
success in Sweden
Quality, service and innovative cable reel solutions are behind the
selection of RFS as a key feeder supplier to Sweden’s UMTS roll-out.
The last thing that Torbjörn Zadig wants
is for those building Sweden’s third
generation (3G) cellular infrastructure to
be left out in the cold. Zadig is Contract
Manager for the 3G Infrastructure Services
(3GIS) group, responsible for implementing
universal mobile telecommunication system
(UMTS) services in Sweden’s non-metropolitan
areas. With several thousand base
stations to be constructed in a narrow
time-frame, the fast and efficient delivery
of equipment to site is a priority. “We have
thousands of people building the
network for us. We don’t have a minute
to spare,” he says.
The challenges for the suppliers of base
station feeder systems are particularly
Zadig says that the need for 3GIS to keep
costs down means that there is much
pressure placed on logistic support.
“We require that suppliers take full
responsibility for the logistic processes:
from confirming the order with the
contractors, cutting the cable, and making
sure that the cable arrives at the site in due
time,” he explains.
Speed is also a major factor; deliveries are
based on a five-day lead time and the
cables have to arrive at each site pre-cut.
“We don’t want the contractor to purchase
a cable drum of 500 metres, then
take it to a local storage and cut the cable
to the dimension that they want—we
don’t have time to do that,” says Zadig.
has been supplying 3GIS with feeder
systems (mostly 1-5/8 inch CELLFLEX
feeder cable and jumpers) over the last
year, and in November 2003, 3GIS
extended the agreement and selected RFS
to supply these products for its roll-out in
the southern half of Sweden.
Martin Buhl, Senior Sales Manager for
RFS Denmark, attributes this decision
to RFS’s approach to service, and the
development of a unique cable supply
solution. Buhl explains that RFS and its
local distributor, Elproman, raised the
issue of how best to supply feeder
cable with a number of Swedish antenna
installation companies: “They explained
that they had waste cable and empty
FEEDER SYSTEMS 11
significant. The higher frequency
(2100 MHz) signal used for UMTS means
greater diameter feeder cables are
required to minimize attenuation. For
3GIS, quality is important, but overall
service is critical: the cable needs to arrive
at site in a way that is convenient for
contractors to handle, and which also
minimizes waste. As a result, Radio
Frequency Systems was recently selected
as a key feeder systems supplier to the
3GIS project.
Rapid roll-out
3GIS is a joint venture between Vodafone
Sweden, Orange Sweden and 3 Sweden.
While the rival operators have separate
UMTS network infrastructure in the main
cities, Sweden’s very stringent 3G license
requirements (almost 99.8 per cent population
coverage once the rollout is completed)
compelled them to cooperate in rural areas.
Even so, the scale of the task ahead is
impressive: the roll-out constitutes one of
Sweden’s largest ever industrial projects.
To ensure the fastest turnaround, the
feeder cables arrive at each 3GIS site,
in lengths pre-cut for the site. These are
provided on purpose-built cable drums
that can be strapped to a pallet for easy
transportation, then easily dismantled
afterwards.
Unique service
As it turns out, RFS is able to meet 3GIS’s
requirements of taking full logistic
responsibility for deliveries, while
providing cable pre-cut to length. RFS
drums that they couldn’t get rid of, so
we asked the factory to engineer an
alternative solution.”
Buhl points out that now RFS can not only
provide pre-cut cable lengths, but it also
has developed a cable drum that can
be strapped to a pallet (and thus
lifted by a normal truck lift) for easy
transportation, and which can also be
easily dismantled afterwards. “Nobody
thought about these easy-to-dismantle
drums beforehand—it has proved to be a
real advantage,” he says.
Finally, according to Buhl, the specific
design of RFS’s feeder cable makes it
eminently suitable for use in Sweden’s
harsh climate. “There are very low
temperatures in the winter time, and most
cables become quite stiff and difficult to
bend,” he says. “The advantage of the
CELLFLEX cable jacket is that it is well
suited for these conditions and easy to
install even in the extreme cold.”

China gets
3G smart
As the world’s largest mobile market enjoys healthy growth—and
increasing competition—RFS provides 3G technology for extensive
trials of W-CDMA, CDMA2000 and TD-SCDMA in three major cities.
A few months before the billionth global
subscriber was acquired by the global
system for mobile communications (GSM)
digital cellular technology, the People’s
Republic of China achieved its own wireless
milestone: in November 2003, the number
of mobile phone users in China exceeded
the number of landlines.
With an estimated 260 million landline
connections in China, surpassing this has
been no mean feat; and certainly GSM has
played a large part, contributing more than
90 per cent of the 270 million Chinese
cellular subscriptions. Yet this figure
represents less than 25 per cent cellular
least, capacity for more than 10 million
subscribers will be added across Beijing
and at least 13 major provinces. As the
network also deploys improved general
packet radio service (GPRS) offerings,
the upgrades will not only provide
enhanced data services for China Mobile
subscribers, but are likely to propel their
number past the 200 million mark.
“Yet despite these projects, the main
emphasis for China Mobile this year
will be network optimization,” says
Zhu Du-qing, Product Manager for
Radio Frequency Systems China. “After
10 years in operation, China Mobile’s
12 REGIONAL FOCUS
The Chinese government
is supporting widespread
trials of 3G technology
during 2004.
penetration, highlighting the still-enormous
growth potential in China, and justifying
the current emphasis of many global telcos
on this, the world’s largest market.
The rate of cellular uptake in China
continues to be staggering. In 2003, over
50 million mobile subscriptions were added
by the nation’s two existing wireless
operators, China Mobile and China
Unicom. To support this level of growth,
both operators are confronted by an almost
perpetual need to expand and upgrade
their networks, with performance a rising
issue in the face of competition from the
‘Little Smart’ limited mobility networks of
the fixed line operators. The healthy
market has also encouraged the Chinese
government to support widespread trials
of third generation (3G) technology
during 2004.
Optimization expansion
The world’s single largest cellular network,
China Mobile GSM, is continuing to expand
capacity in 2004. In one series of projects at
GSM network is approaching maturity.
Capital investment in the network will
be reduced by about a quarter in 2004,
and China Mobile will be seeking to
wring maximum returns out of its
existing assets.”
China Unicom’s GSM network is less than
half the size of China Mobile’s, but Zhu
says it is likely the network will remain
static, as the operator instead focuses on
the expansion of its two-year-old code
division multiple access (CDMA) network.
“The third phase of its expansion was
launched late last year, and the fourth
phase will commence towards the end
of this year,” he says. “With just 19 million
subscribers, there is still plenty of room
for growth of the network.”
In support of the CDMA phase III
network expansion, RFS is supplying
antenna and feeder systems to at least
eight of the provincial Unicom operators.
The range supplied by RFS encompasses
fixed and variable electrical tilt antennas
(AP, Optimizer APX and Optimizer

APXV series), along with CELLFLEX feeder
cable and accessories, plus RF conditioning
components.
RFS was similarly involved in the phase II
China Unicom CDMA expansion during
2002-2003, and significantly expanded the
area of its Shanghai manufacturing facility
last year to accommodate the demand.
Since then, the range of products locally
manufactured continues to increase, with
14 antenna models added in 2003, and
plans to introduce more this year—
particularly the Optimizer cross-polarized
variable electrical tilt antennas (APXV series).
“More and more of our customers are in
need of these high performance antennas
to meet demanding network expansion
and optimization requirements,” Zhu says.
“Features such as side lobe suppression and
null fill are becoming very important as the
networks mature.”
Little Smart
According to Zhu, the emergence of the
1900-MHz ‘Little Smart’—or Xiaolingtong—
limited mobility networks as major players
in China’s wireless market has challenged
the cellular operators and shifted the
balance.
Originally introduced into rural areas in
1998 by China’s two fixed line operators,
China Telecom and China Netcom, Little
Smart is based on a wireless local
loop (WLL) technology called personal
handyphone system (PHS), reconfigured
and renamed the personal access system
(PAS). It is technically a citywide extension
of the fixed line phone service, offering all
the functionality of cellular technology—
including text messaging—for around a
quarter of the price.
Owing to high user demand, in 2003
China’s Ministry for Information Industry
(MII) eventually relented on the ruling that
banned Little Smart from metropolitan
areas. “Last year, the Little Smart service
was launched in cities around the country,
including Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai,”
says Zhu. “Both China Mobile and China
Unicom are facing stiff competition, and
have had to drop their tariffs significantly.”
Now claiming 38 million subscribers
throughout China, the Little Smart service
has found its niche in China’s vast ‘budget’
subscriber market, but its lack of true
mobility means that the cellular networks
are likely to retain and continue growing
their subscriber bases, particularly with the
dawn of next generation technologies.
3G trials
Although the Chinese government might
be some way off issuing licenses for
3G cellular services, 2004 is seeing
comprehensive trials by all likely operators
of all likely 3G technologies.
In a series of outdoor base station trials
taking place mainly in Beijing, Shanghai
and Guangzhou, China Mobile and China
Unicom, plus potential 3G license-holders
Beijing
Shanghai
Guangzhou
RFS’s Shanghai manufacturing centre
continues to expand its product range,
with manufacture of RADIAFLEX RLKU
to be introduced in July 2004.

The Chenghua Mobile Building in
Guangzhou features a camouflage
antenna solution from RFS.
tilt antennas, remote control units, feeders
and accessories to Nortel, Alcatel, Fujitsu
and UTStarcom for their trial 3G sites.
“High performance RFS Optimizer
broadband antennas (APXV18-206515L),
manufactured in Shanghai, are being
used at many of the trial sites—both
W-CDMA and CDMA2000,” says Zhu.
“The Optimizer RT remote tilt functionality
has also been deployed. This enables the
antenna footprint to be adjusted through
tilting the beam via computer instructions
from the bottom of the mast or the
network control centre.” The trials will
focus on performance, stability, and
wide-area RF testing.
Poised to explode
RFS’s significant involvement in the
nationwide 3G trials is indicative of its
status as a valued supplier of cellular
antenna technology in China. Its three sales
offices and distributor network are well
positioned to support the massive market,
14 REGIONAL FOCUS
China Telecom, China Netcom, China
Satcom and China Railcom, are each
testing a selection of wideband CDMA
(W-CDMA), CDMA2000, and the Chinadeveloped
technology, time division
synchronous CDMA (TD-SCDMA).
According to Zhu, the year-long trials
are largely to allow time for the
fledgling TD-SCDMA technology to
mature. “The government is really
encouraging TD-SCDMA,” says Zhu. “It has
been allocated the widest UMTS [universal
mobile telecommunications system]
bandwidth of 155 MHz, and the MII has
made it mandatory for all six operators to
test the technology during 2004.”
TD-SCDMA is a 3G radio access technology
that combines the unique spectrum
efficiency of CDMA with the possibility of
asymmetric data transfer provided by the
time division multiple access (TDMA) frame
structure of GSM. “Carriers such as China
Mobile will probably use a combination of
TD-SCDMA in metropolitan areas—since it
provides better bandwidth utilization—and
High performance RFS Optimizer antennas
are manufactured and tested in Shanghai.
W-CDMA in provincial regions,” says Zhu.
Also extensively trialled by five of the six
carriers will be W-CDMA, the natural
evolution of GSM, with 200 trial base
stations deployed across the three cities.
CDMA2000, as the progression of CDMA,
is being tested by China Unicom, China
Telecom and China Satcom. Most of
the prominent OEMs in China are also
participating in various partnerships, and
RFS has supplied high performance variable
particularly as the company’s Shanghai
manufacturing centre expands in capability.
In July this year, RFS will commence
production of its leading RADIAFLEX RLKU
radiating cable in the 1-5/8 inch size, which
is proving a popular solution for metro
coverage—as evidenced by deployments in
the Shenzhen, Shanghai and Guangzhou
Metros. The company is also involved with
a number of provincial cellular operators,
trialling cluster antennas, remote tilt
control, and environmentally-friendly (low
visual impact) solutions.
The feeling in China at the moment is one
of baited breath. Although the second
generation networks will continue to
expand and optimize, and Little Smart
gain momentum, a great deal of attention
will be focused on the 3G trials in
Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. At the
end of the year that breath will be
released; and once 3G technologies are
proven and licenses issued, the world’s
largest market, thus poised, is set once
again to explode.

RFS: a world of
microwave
communications
The equipment specified in the WSCA
purchasing agreement represent a small
part of the complete RFS microwave
product suite. The full range of RFS
microwave antennas is the most
comprehensive in the industry, available in
all common frequency bands up to 40 GHz.
The microwave product range includes:
Solid parabolic microwave antennas—
point-to-point antennas in four performance
classes—Standard, Improved,
High and Ultra High—offering complete
flexibility when designing a network.
This range includes the popular RFS
SlimLine and CompactLine series antennas.
RFS SlimLine and CompactLine antennas—
cost-effective microwave solutions for
mobile operators and private microwave
users. The SlimLine series antennas utilize
a conventional feed system and are
available in Standard, High and Ultra High
performance versions. The CompactLine
series antennas use a special feed system,
which results in a reduced shroud length
and consequently a lower antenna profile.
This CompactLine range is extending with
the release of the three-foot diameter
SB3 series, the new two-foot diameter,
10-GHz SB2-105 antenna (see What’s New
pages), and the new four-foot diameter,
7.1-GHz SB4-W71 antenna products.
Microwave grid antennas—heavy-duty
antennas in four basic types for
low capacity rural telephony, Spread
Spectrum/ISM band and wireless local loop
(WLL) applications.
Broadband wireless antennas—a wide
variety of point to multipoint antennas for
WLL, local multipoint distribution system
(LMDS) and multipoint microwave
distribution system (MMDS) applications.
RFS FLEXWELL waveguides and accessories—in
support of the microwave
antenna, the corrugated elliptical waveguide
provides the highest quality
transmission medium for the radio-toantenna
microwave link.
US public safety radio
contract awarded to RFS
The signing of a new purchasing agreement for RFS microwave equipment
provides a number of US states with a cost-effective means of improving
public safety infrastructure.
The Western States Contracting Alliance
(WSCA) has finalized its contract for the
purchase of public safety communications
equipment. The development enables
government agencies, sub-agencies and
political non-profit organizations, within
the WSCA member states, to purchase
microwave antennas, waveguide, and
related accessories directly from the
competitively awarded contract. Wireless
technology group Radio Frequency Systems
was the sole awardee for the two phases of
the US$10 million contract, signed in
November 2003, which pertain to existing
and new microwave networks respectively.
According to RFS District Sales Manager
Tim Twiford, the purchasing agreement
comes at a time of major investment in
public safety radio networks in the US. The
need for greater infrastructure to support
more communities and roads is one factor
behind this. The federal government’s drive
for a reliable communications backbone
across the country—especially in the wake
of national security threats—is another.
“They don’t want the equipment to fail.
So, while every state has these networks in
place already, many of them need to be
upgraded to newer digital systems,”
said Twiford.
One of the key issues that the WSCA
contract will, in part, address is the issue of
interoperability. The public safety radio
networks, be they for police, fire-fighting or
transport, have traditionally used a variety
of vendor systems, supporting different
communications formats and frequencies
from VHF 150 MHz to PCS 1900 MHz.
By enabling the states to obtain highperformance
microwave components
directly from RFS, without the administrative
burden of having to manage multiple
MICROWAVE
bids, the contract takes a step towards
equipment standardization. Twiford believes
that the impact will be
increasing inter-working between public
safety radio systems across the region, “By
using equipment that is standardized,
or that can work together and talk to
each other, they will be able to handle
emergencies that go across counties
or jurisdictions.”
15

NASCOWs at
the speedway
New NASCAR series sponsor, Nextel Communications, deploys a groundbreaking
mobile cellular coverage solution founded on RFS’s unique
Optimizer RT remote tilt technology.
Even as the thunder of engines roars
through the air, NASCAR race-goers need
cellular coverage. Whether it’s the building
excitement associated with Matt Kenseth’s
quest to win consecutive NASCAR NEXTEL
Cup Series titles, or Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s
drive for his first championship, Nextel is
determined that all NASCAR fans will be
able to talk about it—using their mobile
phones.
Nextel Communications is one of the USA’s
top six national wireless carriers, and
operates the largest Motorola integrated
digital enhanced network (iDEN) in the
country. In June 2003, Nextel signed a
which they occur at different venues
thousands of miles apart, demanded a
more comprehensive and robust solution.
To meet these requirements, Nextel
engineers began development of the
largest mobile cell sites seen anywhere in
the world—and dubbed them ‘NASCOWs’.
Radio Frequency Systems was introduced
into the project in late 2003. For the
16 CELLULAR
Each mast on the Nextel COWs has three RFS
Optimizer APXV antennas with remote tilt to
streamline coverage optimization.
10-year agreement for the title sponsorship
of NASCAR’s premier series—to take
effect in 2004. The company immediately
embarked upon a project to deliver
consistent cellular coverage at all NASCAR
NEXTEL Cup Series races.
Since NASCAR holds its events around the
USA at more than 23 race tracks—including
the famous Daytona International and
Indianapolis Motor Speedways—a portable
cellular coverage solution was required. The
mobile cell sites also needed to be flexible
and sophisticated enough to accommodate
the dramatic variation in racetrack size and
topography—not to mention unpredictable
peaks in mobile phone usage.
NASCOWs
The conventional means of providing
coverage at large public events is to deploy
mobile base stations—often dubbed ‘cells
on wheels’ or COWs—which are used to
augment existing networks for the duration
of an event. However, the sheer scale of the
NASCAR races, and the regularity with
past three years, RFS has been working
closely with Nextel as a key wireless
solutions provider, delivering antennas, codeveloped
Autotuner combiners, and
assorted RF conditioning products for the
operator’s 800-MHz time division multiple
access (TDMA)-based iDEN network.
“Nextel met head-on a fast-track project,”
says Dick Cullinan, RFS Key Account
Manager. “They had to conceive and build
two NASCOWs and eight junior COWs
(nicknamed ‘SUPERCOWs’) in just three
months. Due to predicted optimization
challenges, they had already decided to
use remote tilt antenna control; so we
demonstrated our Optimizer RT remote tilt
solution, and Nextel decided it would be
the right solution for the job. They had
already been using standard Optimizer
antennas in many of their markets.”
According to Cullinan, the NASCOWs are
self-contained 53-foot (16-metre) trailers
featuring dual pneumatic antenna masts—
essentially comprising two base stations. At
each major NASCAR race, one NASCOW,
plus three or four smaller (single-mast)
SUPERCOWs, are deployed around the
speedway. “Each mast has three of our
Optimizer APXV antennas with remote
tilt,” Cullinan says. “It’s just like having six
base stations surrounding the racetrack.”
Fine-tuning via remote tilt
The use of remote antenna tilt greatly
expedites deployment and optimization of
these temporary network extensions.
Cullinan explains that the NASCOW and
SUPERCOWs are hauled to the site a
few days before each race event to
allow time for wireless coverage to be
established and optimized. After raising
the antenna mast, the engineers then
sit within the control room and finetune
the antenna tilt via a computer
connection.
“Using RFS Optimizer RT technology, they
could adjust the antenna tilt of all COWs
deployed around the track from a single
terminal,” says Cullinan. “This provides a
great deal of flexibility and saves a lot of

NASCAR (‘National Association for Stock
Car Auto Racing’) is the fastest growing
spectator sport in the world, and is ranked
second only to the American National Football
League (NFL) in television ratings and
audience. In fact, 17 of the top 20 highest
attended sporting events in the US are
NASCAR races—in some instances crowds
of 200,000 flock to the race track for fast
and furious entertainment
CELLULAR
17
time—particularly when they have to pack
it up and do it all again somewhere else
the following week!”
He adds that coverage optimization can
be somewhat challenging at the race
tracks, especially since if there are nearby
permanent base stations, it is important
that the temporary cells do not interfere
with their signals. This means the footprint
has to be exactly tailored to provide
coverage to a stand, without blocking the
neighboring sites.
“The other challenging issue relates to call
patterns and peak capacity,” says Cullinan.
“For instance, when the yellow flag is
raised during a race and the pace car
arrives, there might be a sudden blast of
mobile phone calls—that could be more
than 20,000 calls in less than a minute!”
Capacity maximized
To maximize the capacity of the NASCOWs,
RFS six-channel Autotuner combiners
(ATC860R-6) are being used to feed
multiple radio signals into each antenna.
Developed in association with Nextel
Development Engineering, the RFS
Autotuner combiner features continuous
monitoring and adjustment of frequency
tuning to maintain tight channel control. By
connecting Motorola Quad radios—which
are used extensively by the iDEN network—
to the Autotuner combiners, 24 or more
channels can be delivered through a single
antenna.
RFS expansion racks are also playing a
role in each NASCOW, providing design
flexibility and extended functionality in a
compact unit that is ideal for the limited
space aboard the trailer.
According to Cullinan, the NASCOWs were
ready and in place for the first NASCAR
NEXTEL Cup Series race for 2004—the
renowned Daytona 500, held at the
Daytona International Speedway in Florida
on February 15. “It was a really rushed
program, with the COWs being built at
three different locations across the
country,” he says. “RFS engineers were
involved in the design and configuration of
the antennas, and we were working to very
short lead times. However, in the end, all
the work we’ve done with Nextel over the
past few years really helped both us and
them understand what was needed.”
The NASCOW represents a significant step
forward in mobile cell site technology, says
Cullinan of the trailer now being carted all
around the USA. The key is remote tilt. As
the 2004 NASCAR racing season evolves
and crowd calling patterns emerge, remote
tilt will provide the ultimate in flexibility to
Nextel engineers seeking to further refine
network performance. For as long as there’s
a break in the racing action, the crowd will
want to make calls.
NASCAR is a registered trademark of the
National Association for Stock Car Auto
Racing, Inc.
Nextel and the Nextel logo are registered
trademarks of Nextel Communications, Inc.
The NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series marks are
used under license by NASCAR, Inc. and
Nextel Communications, Inc.
iDEN is a trademark of Motorola.

18
RFS backbone
for
Nigerian
operator
The latest telco to enter Nigeria’s booming
cellular market is Globacom Nigeria, which
was pronounced the ‘second national
operator’ by the Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) in August 2002. In
addition to the provision of Nigeria’s second
fixed line network, the NCC agreement
incorporated the fourth Nigerian digital
mobile license.
Globacom Nigeria’s new global system for
mobile communications (GSM) service—
known as Glo Mobile—was commercially
launched in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja,
followed by the cities of Lagos, Ibadan,
IN TOUCH
New RFS software tool aids
microwave link design
To streamline microwave link network
planning and design, Radio Frequency
Systems has launched a new software tool
available for download from the company’s
global website. The ‘RPE-Viewer’ is a
stand-alone Java application that provides a
quick means of visualizing up-to-date
radiation pattern envelope (RPE) data for
all commercially available RFS microwave
antennas.
“The RPE of a microwave antenna is an
essential parameter for microwave link
design,” said Gerd Bohnet, RFS Area
Product Manager Microwave Antenna
Systems. “It describes the worst case
situation for spurious reflections that might
interfere with adjacent microwave links.
This data is available on-line so network
designers can access it easily, and even
download it into their own design
software. The RPE-Viewer is a new tool for
visualizing that data.”
Up-to-date microwave antenna RPE data is
available for easy download in globally
accepted NSMA format within the
‘antenna patterns’ section of the RFS
global website, www.rfsworld.com. The
new RPE-Viewer tool—downloaded from
the ‘tools’ section of the website—displays
this data graphically, and allows it to be
saved in portable document format (pdf)
for easy collation and reference.
Port Harcourt and Ijebu Ode in the fourth
quarter of 2003. To meet the terms of
the license, Globacom needs to provide
capacity for 150,000 cellular subscribers
within the first year of operation.
In support of a Siemens project to
expand Globacom’s GSM network into
northern Nigeria, Radio Frequency Systems
is supplying high and ultra high
performance antennas to build up a
microwave backbone system for the new
cellular network. According to Günter
Mechsner, RFS Global Account Manager,
the solid body antennas range in diameter
from six to 15 feet providing link distances
up to 50 kilometres.
Delivery of the first batch of RFS microwave
antennas was scheduled for May this
year, with deliveries to continue over the
following months. The resulting network
extension will provide GSM coverage to
more than 20 cities and roads in the north
of Nigeria.
PLURAL and CELLFLEX a
winner at Athens Olympics
Radio Frequency System’s Greek distribution
partner, PLURAL, has been awarded the
contract to provide the RF distribution system
for indoor and outdoor mobile telephony
coverage of the Athens Olympic Stadium and
other venues in the surrounding area. The
project, an investment of 2.5 million Euro, is
the largest of its kind undertaken to date in
Greece. PLURAL will supply, install and support
the infrastructure to cover the communication
needs of the ATHENS 2004 Olympic and
Paralympic Games. The contract was awarded
by Vodafone and TIM (Telestet), among the
three leading mobile telephony operators in
Greece.
The contract includes the supply and
installation of products and solutions, based
on the designs of both Vodafone and TIM’s
technical teams. This will be supplemented
with the provision of 24-hour support services
during the games, along with technical training
for the clients’ internal network operations
and support staff at PLURAL’s premises in
Athens.
Radio Frequency Systems, market leader in
Greece with its CELLFLEX cable solutions, has
partnered with PLURAL since the beginning of
the nineties. “Being in close partnership with
RFS, world leading manufacturers and providers
of wireless technology, and having a long and
productive collaboration with Vodafone and
TIM during the years, we were able to be
awarded the contract. The project—the biggest
in its kind ever in our country—is of a great
importance as the infrastructure is designed to
cover increased mobile telecommunication
needs of such a large and critical event as the
Olympic Games”, said Vangelis Halkiopoulos,
Managing Director of PLURAL. “We are excited
to be selected as the solution provider.”

PREVIEW
STAY CONNECTED
3rd quarter 2004
Connections,
corrugations and
costs—the feeder
cable debate
Singapore is hosting the concurrent
CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia
exhibitions in june.
Focus on Asia
in June 2004
As a new generation of data-rich RF
technologies arrives in Asia, the demands
placed on wireless infrastructure are
greater than ever. Providing future-proof
RF solutions to meet these demands will be
the focus of Radio Frequency Systems
when exhibiting at both CommunicAsia
and BroadcastAsia 2004—the two major
communications expos for the Asia
Pacific region being held concurrently in
Singapore this June.
At the CommunicAsia exhibition, RFS will
showcase RF solutions that offer both
enhanced network performance and
flexibility for mobile operators. “Recent
W-CDMA [wideband code division
multiple access] and CDMA2000 1X
deployments in Hong Kong, Australia,
Japan and Indonesia, coupled with
planned trials of third generation (3G)
technologies elsewhere in the Asia
Pacific region, are illustrating the need for
dynamic coverage and capacity,” said Peter
Walters, Area Marketing Manager for
RFS. “Add to that the optimization
requirements of maturing 2G networks,
and network operators are faced with an
interesting cocktail of challenges.”
To help meet these challenges, Communic
Asia will see the Asian launch of RFS’s
portfolio of cellular antenna line products
developed in accordance with the
open standard of the Antenna Interface
Standards Group (AISG). This will be
complemented by a complete range of
advanced RFS Optimizer antennas, feeder
systems and in-building products, suitable
for use with all key wireless frequencies.
The Asia Pacific broadcast sector consists of
a similar mix of current and next
generation technologies—with China,
Malaysia, Korea and Japan facing the
immediate challenge of deploying digital
television, while others are involved in
ongoing network expansion projects. “At
BroadcastAsia we will focus on talking to
the broadcasters from these diverse
markets,” said Walters. “By understanding
their specific needs, we can work with
them to develop the most practical
solutions—on a case by case basis.”
RFS at CommunicAsia
and BroadcastAsia:
Singapore Expo, 15 to 18 June, 2004
CommunicAsia—Hall 3, Stand No. 3E2-01
BroadcastAsia—Hall 1, Stand No. 1F1-1
IN TOUCH
The ubiquitous coaxial feeder cable
forms the critical link within RF base
stations the world over. Much has
been written and spoken about the wide
range of feeder design architectures on
offer, the performance factors they exhibit
and the design objectives targeted.
While the science and theory of feeder
technology is important, the true bottom
line in the feeder cable debate usually
comes down to practical field performance—particularly
during installation—
and the total life-cycle cost of the feeder
itself.
In the next issue of STAY CONNECTED, we
explore the practicalities of the modern
coaxial feeder cable via those who
know best—the field installers, system
integrators, network operators and cable
designers. Issues such as feeder cable
connection technique, tooling, feeder
routing and bending, crush resistance and
long-term feeder maintenance and
fault-finding will be explored.
19

RADIO FREQUENCY SYSTEMS
The Clear Choice in Wireless
Please visit us on the internet at http://www.rfsworld.com