Professional Documents
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and thus break all the price barriers of tapping process, the barrel was then 16 gauge copper wire and silver plated,
the alternative, simpler system that was immersed in a clear sealing fluid which as was the connector assembly and
causing all the site problems. was particularly relevant to the inside these were lightly greased with a silver
surface in order to prevent spurious conductive grease in order to ensure a
oxidisation due to trapped swarf, good non-oxidising junction. One loop
The barrel structure moisture etc. This was followed by an was fixed and the other was allowed to
The standard production barrel was a external painting process, which was rotate by means of a disc of silver-
combination of cast sections welded done with the critical apertures and plated brass above and below the
together by an extremely hi-tech conductive faces masked. mating contact with the barrel. This
automatic welding process which The weight, rigidity and general allowed minute adjustment of the
produced seams that were almost physical structure of the barrel made it coupling impedance in order to match
invisible to the naked eye. The material highly durable and free from instability different transmitters; it was often
used was generally aluminium LM25A due to mechanical flexing. There was, difficult to match these to 50 .
or B and this was high conductivity, however, the temperature expansion However, by this means there was an
low corrosion, microscopically clean coefficient which will be dealt with in infinitely variable match that would
and free from imperfections such as the next section. associate with cable lengths and could
casting faults. Throughout the whole cater for a wide variety of transmitters
life of development and implementation and peculiar match combinations.
of this programme we did not come The resonator It was important at every stage to
across any significant problems due to characteristics consider that this device had to be
the casting or welding so the quality of The concept of using the beer barrel presentable to any site and compatible
the conductivity was of the highest was based on having a simple quarter- with any transmitter so a considerable
order. The other great advantage of wave resonant structure centrally degree of adaptability was required.
this device was the price which, in the placed at one end, leaving the other Modifications could be carried out on
raw form, was 47 per barrel when end closed. The frequency site, i.e. to size coupling loops and
ordered in quantities of 100. characteristics were determined by the angle, which was a very simple
The preparation of the barrel length of the centre conductor. The process, so there was no purpose in
involved cutting holes in the top coupling in and out of the transmitter taking cavities back to the factory and
surface to accommodate the centre frequency was achieved with circular thus spoiling the carefully timed
conductor and the coupling loops. loops which simply fed the centre point programme of work on site.
Figure 1 illustrates the basic barrel and of the connector directly to the loop External painting of the cavity also
Figure 2 shows the openings, tapped and thence to ground via the body of ensured a good insulation value from
holes and aperture arrangements for the cavity. These loops were made of the mounting rack, thus reducing to
the centre conductor and coupling minimum circulating currents that are
loops. Following the piercing and always prevalent on radio sites and can
2
cause intermodulation interference at
the point of contact between different
modules.
1
The first frequency band to be
tackled was the 150165 MHz base
station band for mobile radio, which
included a wide variety of users,
including health authorities, security
companies and transport
organisations. The parameters that
were sought were a transmission loss components are very different. The air
in the cavity of approximately 1.0 dB space between the bottom of the
with isolation at 500 KHz away from centre conductor at resonance and the
the carrier not less than 25 dB. In bottom of the barrel would normally be
practice, many installations had arranged to exceed one-eighth of a
transmitters at less than this spacing, wavelength and thus diminish the
and at 250 kHz and below, two temperature coefficient effect due to
resonators would be coupled in series, the barrel. The temperature
thus doubling the isolation. compensating element was an invar
The unloaded Q0 obtained in rod which was connected to the
practice at 150 MHz exceeded 9000 bottom of the inner conductor and
and in very carefully prepared cavities passed through a collar at the top of
figures up to 9700 could be obtained. the rigid outer assembly. 3
As the frequency of resonance was The upper boss was provided with a
increased the Q0 increased fine-thread, centre-adjusting inner boss
correspondingly and was still perfectly which could be locked by grub screw 4
satisfactory up to 175 MHz with the to the invar rod, thus providing coarse
same centre conductor assembly as adjustment by unlocking the grub
shown in the general assembly screw and fine adjustment by rotating
(Figure 3) and in detail in subsequent the threaded collar. This provided a
sections. solution for frequencies where the
inner-centre conductor did not come
within approximately one-tenth of a
The centre conductor wavelength from the bottom of the
assembly barrel.
The proposal to use the beer barrel as However, for frequencies which
a resonator always included the could be tuned but caused the centre
intention to cover as many frequency conductor to come very close to the
bands as possible and the lowest bottom of the barrel, different problems
frequency encountered in practice for arose; i.e. the temperature coefficient
mobile radio base stations was became very complex and the stability
68 MHz. Since the first production both with temperature and power also
units were centred on the became highly complex. The solution to
150165 MHz band their centre extend the lower frequencies of
conductors were arranged to achieve operation was to envelop the bottom of
lengths between 28 and 50 cm by the centre conductor with an outer 5
means of extendable concentric tubes concentric tube which, for convenience,
made in copper then silver-plated and was called a capacitor end section.
connected to a brass top plate, which This provided capacitive loading of the
was also silver-plated. The interface end of the centre conductor, severely
connection, where the sliding joint was reducing the resonance frequency and
constructed on a silver-plated eliminating the problems of proximity to
phosphor bronze fingering section, was the lower end of the barrel.
brazed to the outer-centre conductor,
thus allowing the inner-centre Figure 3 The general assembly of the
conductor to slide freely up and down barrel, externally painted to
and allow adjustment to the resonance seal the material and insulate
the cavity. The centre
frequency.
conductor is also in place
We must now consider the
Figure 4 The centre conductor assembly an extendable arrangement of silver
temperature coefficient; while the basic plated concentric copper tubes connected to a silver plated brass top
ingenia
This alteration by definition lowered UHF bands The VHF cavity resonator
the Q0 because of occupation of what
The success of the barrel resonator in This is best likened to an organ pipe
was previously an air space. The
VHF bands led to its use being which resonates at a frequency
benefits were, of course, considerable
required for Band III, i.e. 174224 MHz, determined by its length. The note
expansion of the range of operation and
and this was achieved simply by that one hears is that produced by the
flexibility of use in that the same barrel
shortening the centre conductor by particular length of pipe and this is the
could now be used from 67175 MHz.
25% thus allowing it to resonate over only frequency that pipe will pass. This
The centre conductor assembly for
the required frequency range. There is exactly what happens in the VHF
these modifications is shown in Figure 4
was a very rapid expansion in the use barrel cavity resonator in that, by the
and the detail of the end capacitive
of UHF bands 420470 MHz during determination of the length, a
section is shown in Figure 5.
the early 1970s and a resonator was resonant part of the barrel will pass
A great deal of experimentation was
required to cater for these frequencies. only a particular frequency. It is,
carried out in terms of temperature
The standard barrel was then provided therefore, an excellent component
compensation using the capacitor end
with a short centre conductor in the from which to construct a network of
section and the best compromise was
range 1318 cm and this covered the resonators (a VHF multi-coupler) of
reached with a combination of invar,
band 430470 MHz with a which each component resonator
brass and steel where the steel portion
correspondingly higher Q0 and was passes only its own frequency.
occupied one-quarter of the length of
able to cater for transmitter frequency
the centre rod and the brass roughly a
suppressions as small as 300 kHz at
quarter, whilst the remainder was left
450 MHz. This centre conductor The need for high quality resonators
as invar. This complex mixture gave a
assembly is shown in Figure 6. It The difficulty that arose with the limited
temperature coefficient of less than 0.5
should be noted that the size of the number of spaces for antennas on
parts per million per degree centigrade
coupling loop determined the basic existing masts and the need to
but held only over a narrow frequency
insertion loss but, of course, increasing minimise the construction of new
band, i.e. 5% of the centre frequency.
the size also reduced the loaded Q and masts led to the introduction of
However, once the mixture was
thus a compromise had to be achieved multicouplers, i.e. systems that enable
established, a table was produced
in each case, with a trade-off between several transmitters and receivers to be
showing the various combinations of
resonant frequency, insertion loss and connected to one antenna. The
materials for various bands and these
isolation between transmitters. devices that enable this to be carried
held true over many years production
of these devices. out simply are the resonator and cavity
resonator. In this case a beer barrel is
Frequencies above 470 MHz
eminently suitable for the purpose.
There were many applications requiring
resonators at frequencies above the
6 commercial mobile radio bands and up
to and including television frequencies; 7
however, it was found that at about
590 MHz a horizontal resonance
occurred in the field across the top face
of the barrel, i.e. between the coupling
loops and the side wall. This produced
a spurious resonance which seriously
damaged the performance and reduced
the practicality of use of the standard
beer barrel at these frequencies.
Figure 6
The short centre conductor (1318 cm
long) used to cover the 430470 MHz
frequency range
ingenia
Figure 7
A modified square cavity used
to produce operational resonators
for the range 300790 MHz
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DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
barrel resonators at an structures are both rigid and long Academy of Engineering and the IEE
airport. This system uses two lasting they provide a very dependable and is Chairman of the ETSI
antennas supplying ten and component in the RF system on radio committee, ERM TG 27 Radio Site
eight channels respectively sites and have mean time between Engineering.
25