Answer
Jul 15, 2015 - 06:53 AM
RET stand for Remote Electrical Tilt. Macro cell systems are meant to cover an area between the next closest carrier sites. If a carrier has three sites in a row and Site A is 2 miles from Site B and Site B is 1 mile away from Site C, then the antennas facing between Site A and Site B will have to hold onto the calls longer before the cell phone call can be transferred to the next site. RF engineers and cellular field technicians can control the pattern of coverage by utilizing a RET motor to change the electrical down tilt of a specific antenna. These RET motors, shown above circled in red, are all wired together at the top of the tower and then a main cable is run down the tower to the ground. At the ground level is a control adapter that allows the cell technician to connect to the RET system via laptop. The technician can change the functionality of each individual antenna via the RET connections. This saves time and money because a tower climber is not needed to physically climb the tower and manually adjust the antenna, only to return to the site numerous times while the engineers “fine-tune” the coverage. Some new LTE antenna upgrades SITA sees involve antennas that have three RET motors each, which allows a carrier to adjust the coverage and functionality of each frequency band in three separate ways per antenna.
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