Telecommunications – Carrier wave repeater or relay system – Portable or mobile repeater
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-02
2003-09-02
Appiah, Charles N. (Department: 2682)
Telecommunications
Carrier wave repeater or relay system
Portable or mobile repeater
C455S015000, C340S007210
Reexamination Certificate
active
06615021
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to repeaters. More particularly, it concerns a method and apparatus for transmitting radio frequency signals to and from a pager.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Repeater systems are typically used where the area to be covered and/or capacity requirements do not justify the installation of a full base station system with managed frequency-channel allocation. Thus, tower-mounted repeater systems are often used to extend the range of a base station and to fill nulls in the coverage area of the base station. Nulls are regions that are blocked from receiving radio frequency (RF) signals. Nulls are created by hills, trees, buildings, etc. blocking the RF signal.
The typical repeater system comprises three basic parts: the link antenna which is directed/aimed at a base station antenna; repeater electronics; and a broadcast antenna which is directed towards the area of interest. Often, the link antenna is highly directive (high gain) with a very narrow beamwidth because it only needs to “see” the base station antenna. The broadcast antenna has a larger beamwidth which is determined by the intended area to be covered. The repeater electronics may contain an assortment of diplexers, filters, splitters, and RF amplifiers.
Two primary performance factors on which an antenna system is based are gain and output power. The output power is mostly determined by the sum of the link and broadcast antenna gains and the maximum (linear) output power of the amplifier(s). The system gain is determined by the sum of the passive antenna gains, plus the gain of the amplifier(s). This is limited by the isolation (or mutual coupling) between the broadcast and link antennas. The isolation depends on the antenna type, front to back (F/B) ratio and beamwidth.
Repeater systems are used in a variety of applications such as TV and radio transmission, cellular/PCS communications, and pager services. Existing pager repeaters typically only provide one-way communication with a pager. For example, a base station antenna typically transmits a signal to a pager through one or more pager repeaters. This signal usually contains a phone number where the person calling the pager can be reached. Thus, traditional pager repeaters only provided for one-way communication with the pager and could not transmit signals to the base station (BS) antenna.
Recently, however, two-way pagers have been introduced that allow the pager to transmit signals (such as messages) to the BS antenna. Thus, to provide nationwide two-way pager coverage, additional full base station antennas would be required because traditionally only they had the capability to send and receive pager signals. However, full base station antennas are costly to construct and expensive to maintain. Therefore, to avoid the proliferation of costly full base station antennas, a pager repeater capable of two-way communication with a pager is desirable. The present invention is directed to addressing this need.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A repeater for transmitting and receiving radio frequency (RF) signals to and from a pager. The repeater includes a forward path for receiving a first RF signal from a base station and a reverse path for receiving a pager signal from a pager. The forward path includes a channelizer which down converts the first RF signal to an intermediate frequency (IF) signal, amplifies the IF signal, and up converts the IF signal to a second RF signal suitable for transmission to a pager. The reverse path includes a second amplifier which amplifies the pager signal to an amplified signal suitable for transmission to a base station antenna.
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Kuiper William P.
Lovinggood Breck W.
Andrew Corporation
Appiah Charles N.
Wood Herron & Evans LLP
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