Base station antenna arrangement

摘要

An antenna arrangement (10) for a cellular radio base station is provided with a plurality of r.f. transceivers, including one or more antenna arrays (12) each comprising a plurality of sub-arrays (20) each selectively operable of forming a beam in azimuth. Each sub-array is provided with elevation beamforming means (24) and individual transmit and receive amplifiers. (30,32) Each sub-array beamformer is coupled to at least one r.f. transmitter feed (26) and each r.f. receiver feed is coupled to at least two sub-array beamformers, the sub-arrays of each antenna array together forming a multiplicity of separate substantially coincident beams in azimuth. A method of operation is also disclosed.