Antenna Placement and

Isolation Guideline
March 2015

Document Reference: 4-3-2-001

Related Policies and Documents

Report Issuer Reference Document Name

Reference
Number

Wireless Communications Systems Performance

Telecommunications in Noise and Interference Limited Situations Part
[1] TSB-88.3
Industry Association (TIA) 3: Recommended Methods for Technology
Independent Performance Verification

ITU-R Isolation between antennas of IMT base

[2] ITU-R
M.2244 stations in the land mobile service

Study of the isolation between VHF

ITU-R
[3] ITU-R land mobile radio antennas
M.2141
in close proximity

14/100 56-
Guideline for Interference Considerations in Co-
[4] Ericsson HSD 101
Existence
02/5 Rev A

Trunk Radio
[5] Telstra Tech Rept Mt Budawang : Co-Siting of Police and GRN
125-TR

[6] Motorola Solutions Report Mt. Gibraltar - Interference Investigation Report

Application Antenna Location is not an Architectural

[7] Bird Technologies
Notes Decision

Presentatio Passive Intermodulation PIM and Peak

[8] RFI
n Instantaneous Power PIP

[9] Rodhe & Schwarz 11356Cat VHF/UHF Filters/Multicouplers – Overview

4-3-2-001 Antenna Placement Guideline v1.0.docx 1

Contents

1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 3

1.1 Overview ............................................................................................................................................................ 3

1.2 Purpose ............................................................................................................................................................... 3

1.3 Scope.................................................................................................................................................................. 3

1.4 Audience ........................................................................................................................................................... 3

2 Guideline ................................................................................................................................. 4

2.1 Antenna Isolation ............................................................................................................................................. 4

2.2 Antenna Separation ........................................................................................................................................ 5

2.2.1 Horizontal Antenna Separation ..................................................................................................................... 5

2.2.2 Vertical Antenna Separation ......................................................................................................................... 6

2.2.3 Antenna separation from infrastructure....................................................................................................... 7

2.3 Stacked Antenna configurations .................................................................................................................. 11

2.4 General rules for antenna placement ......................................................................................................... 12

2.5 When Antenna Separation is not achievable ............................................................................................ 12

2.6 Antenna Separation calculator..................................................................................................................... 13

3 Appendix ................................................................................................................................. 14

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1 Introduction

1.1 Overview
The NSW Telco Authority (TA) and its Board are responsible for the strategic direction of wireless
operational voice and data telecommunications in NSW. This includes determining a whole-of-
Government telecommunications strategy, prioritising investment decisions, and developing and
implementing state wide policy affecting planning development, operations and maintenance.

Part of the TA’s mandate includes establishing a set of standards, guidelines policies and procedures that
can be utilised “cross sector” covering the design, installation, commission and operation of the
operational telecommunications infrastructure.

This document forms part of the overall guidelines, specifically the isolation required between antennas
for radio communication.

1.2 Purpose
The purpose of this document is to define the required isolation between systems for co-located antennas
and to establish a set of guidelines that can be used to design the Land Mobile Radio (LMR) systems (VHF
and UHF). It will address the physical separation of antennas required to meet the isolation criteria and
ensure minimal interference between systems sharing the same tower infrastructure. This will ensure that
Government Radio Network (GRN) and other LMR networks will operate in an optimal manner. This
guideline is not intended to replace the requirements for a detailed design for the antenna and filter
systems on a site by site basis.

1.3 Scope
The scope of this document applies to LMR radio communications systems operating in the VHF and UHF
bands. The application of this guideline does not extend to other bands for mobile radio or other radio
systems (broadcast, mobile etc.).

The document addresses physical methods (vertical and horizontal separation) for achieving the required
isolation but does not cover other aspects (filtering, polarisation, radiation patterns or consideration of the
effects of the tower/structure).

The recommendations are based on results of ITU-R’s studies conducted specifically in the UHF and VHF
bands and other documents listed in the related documents section.

1.4 Audience
The intended audience for this document are designers responsible for radio planning and associated
activities specifically in the VHF and UHF bands. It is expected that this guideline will be applied by the
intended audience for new sites and existing sites undergoing upgrades.

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2 Guideline

2.1 Antenna Isolation

Antenna isolation is a key consideration in the design of any radio communications system. Sufficient
isolation is required to ensure that interference between systems is kept within acceptable levels (levels at
which the equipment can operate effectively). A number of techniques for achieving isolation between
two antennas/ systems exist including but not limited to:

• Physical separation

• Polarisation

• Optimisation of antenna patterns

• Filtering

A lack of sufficient isolation can lead to a number of undesirable effects:

• Intermodulation issues

• Receiver desensitization

• Transmitter noise; or

• Adjacent channel interference.

Antenna isolation is a measure of power transfer from one antenna to another (Transmit Tx to Receive Rx),
generally represented as a loss in dB. As a general rule, the antenna isolation should be as large as
possible to minimize interference between systems and can be maximised by:

• Increasing the physical separation between the antennas

• Using filters to reduce the received power of unwanted frequency (for systems operating on
separate frequencies)

• Reducing the correlation coefficient between the antenna's radiation patterns - that is, have the
antenna's peak radiation in different or opposite directions (azimuth and tilt changes can be used
to achieve this along with antennas that meet specific design criteria)

• Using different polarizations

The GRN and most other LMR systems used by NSW Government agencies typically uses omni directional
antennas with vertical polarization, as a result of this architecture physical separation and filtering will be
the main methods used to achieve the required isolation.

The lowest recommended antenna isolation for co-sited (co-located) antennas is 30 dB (Interferer port to
victim port). This is valid for equipment on the same site, belonging to the same system as well as for all
systems sharing the same site. This isolation can be achieved through the application of the following
rules:

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 Victim Interferer Horizontal Separation Vertical Separation –
– dh (m) dv(m)
Rx Antenna Tx Antenna

UHF VHF 4.5 3

UHF UHF 2 1

Table 1: Recommended Antenna Separation [2] [4]

2.2 Antenna Separation

2.2.1 Horizontal Antenna Separation

As antennas are separated the amount of signal coupled from one antenna to another is reduced as a
function of the distance. One way of achieving this isolation is through antenna separation in the
horizontal plane. Horizontal separation tends to follow the inverse square law, which states that signal
level will drop by 6 dB (75%) every time you double the distance. If the distance between the antennas is
doubled, the signal levels will drop by 6 dB and any intermodulation products produced by those
fundamental signals can drop up to 18 dB ([7]).

Figure 1: Horizontal Separation

The table below shows isolation measurement results and the horizontal separation required to achieve
specific isolation requirements for UHF and VHF. As can be seen, relatively large horizontal antenna
spacing are required to achieve the required isolation values, in instances where this is not practicable
other techniques for achieving isolation will need to be investigated.

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 Victim Interferer Horizontal Separation Isolation(dB)
– dh (m)
Rx Antenna Tx Antenna

UHF VHF(High) 4.5 30

VHF (low) 7.6

UHF UHF 1.62 30

9.11 45

Table 2: Horizontal separation vs Isolation [2] [3]

It is recommended that a minimum horizontal separation of 2m and 4.5m is achieved for UHF to UHF and
UHF to VHF installations respectively. On building roof tops where greater horizontal separation is possible
10m is recommended.

2.2.2 Vertical Antenna Separation

Vertical antenna separation is a more efficient method of achieving the required isolation in space
constrained environments (i.e. towers). Vertical separation provides significantly more isolation than
horizontal separation. Based on industry standard isolation charts, spacing two VHF antennas 3m apart
vertically will provide approximately 35 dB of isolation while 3m of horizontal spacing will provide less than
20 dB.

Inverted mounting of antennas is another method often used to conserve tower space or to provide RF
isolation (typically utilised for omni directional whip antennas). Some antennas are designed for in-field
changes between upright and inverted mounting.

Figure 2: Vertical Separation

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The table below shows isolation measurement results for vertical separation for UHF and VHF:

Interfered Interferer Vertical Spearation – Isolation(dB)

dv (m)
GRN Rx Antenna Tx Antenna

UHF VHF 3 35

UHF UHF 0.72 30

1.72 45

Table 3: Vertical separation vs Isolation [2] [3]

To obtain maximum vertical isolation, the antennas must be located exactly above and below each
other. Any offset will reduce the isolation. It is recommended that a minimum vertical separation of 1m
and 3m is achieved for UHF to UHF and UHF to VHF installations respectively. On towers where greater
vertical separation is possible a minimum of 2 m is recommended.

2.2.3 Antenna separation from infrastructure

Transmitted energy coupled into other structures such as the tower or the rooftop antenna grid can be
conducted along the structure and coupled into other antenna(s), thereby reducing the isolation.

In many cases, depending on the coverage requirements a directional antenna array can be used to
reduce the impact of installing below the tower by minimising the amount of power that is radiated in the
direction of the tower (minimising the coupling affect).

Figure 3: Omni Array Figure 4: Directional Array

The following figures show examples of the predicted antenna pattern distortion caused by close
proximity with a steel tower.

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 Figure 5: Simulated Antenna Pattern distortion at 1m from the tower

Figure 6: Simulated Antenna Pattern distortion at 2m from the steel tower

As general rule, separation distances are chosen as a multiple of wave lengths. UHF separation distance is
shown in the following table, based on a wavelength of 0.75m at 400MHz.

Wavelength Separation

3 2.25 m

2 1.50 m

1 0.75 m

Table 4: UHF Separation from Infrastructure

If the antenna cannot be installed on the top, it is recommended to place antennas at least 1.5 m from
the tower for a omni array and 0.75m for a directional array.

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 1.5 m 0.75 m

Figure 7: Tower separation for omni array and Directional array

Note that this recommendation only applies if the tower is steel or metalic. For concrete poles the effect
of shadowing by the tower should be taken in consideration.

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2.3 Stacked Antenna configurations
Typical Isolation between stacked antennas is shown below:

Figure 7: Antenna Isolation for dual stacked antenna configurations [5]

The dual stacked antenna configuration should comply with the minimum vertical antenna isolation
requirement of 30dB.

Where separation of UHF and VHF antennas are not possible, UHF and VHF stacked antennas are
recommended as shown in the following figure.

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 Rx VHF

Greater VHF separation

Rx UHF

TX UHF

Tx VHF

Figure 8: Dual band VHF and UHF stacked antenna configuration

2.4 General rules for antenna placement

The isolation between transmitting and receiving antennas should be maximised. On towers, the best
separation can be achieved by grouping receive antennas together on one level and installing transmit
antennas on another level.

Intermodulation of 3rd order products should be eliminated whenever possible. Where intermodulation
(im) interference is detected or predicted, it is recommended that the frequency used by at least one
transmitter is altered. Most systems utilise some amount of transmitter combination. Transmitters that
produce IM must not be installed into the same combiner.

2.5 When Antenna Separation is not achievable

Whenever the recommended antenna separation cannot be achieved, calculation of the antenna
isolation and additional filtering [9] need to be assessed to:

• Suppress out-of-band interference

• Suppress third-order cross-modulation (PIM)

• Prevent desensitization (reciprocal)

• Prevent blocking by the attenuation

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2.6 Antenna Separation calculator
The Friis formula can be used to calculate isolation for any relative position and orientation of two
antennas. If the antennas are located and oriented such that they are in the sidelobe region of each
other, the peak gain level in the sidelobe regions can be used.

Isolation = 22 + 20 log(r/ λ) – (Gt,SL + Gr,SL) [2]

Here Gx,SL = is the peak gain in the sidelobe region [2]

This formulation is implemented in the “Antenna Separation calculator.xlsx” in the appendix for antenna
separation estimation. Note that taking antenna mounting imperfections into account, the gain values
have been chosen conservatively.

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3 Appendix

Calculation based on ITU-R M2244 [2]

Antenna_Separation
_calculatorv 1.0.xlsx

Available to download as a separate document – 4-3-2-001 Antenna Separation Calculator v1.0

4-3-2-001 Antenna Placement Guideline V1.0.Docx 14

END of DOCUMENT