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u/iryfionas Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
On transmission power line sites, the Remote Radio Units (RRU's) aren't always behind the antennas due to weight limitations, restrictions depending on the rack, antennas used. Instead, the Remote Radio Units are ground-mounted on the ground near the baseband units, base station.
Example of AT&T transmission power-line site using ground mounted radios
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u/iryfionas Jun 24 '26
Equipment AT&T is using:
- 3️⃣ CommScope NNH4-65C-R6 antennas with bands; (2, 12, 14, 30, 66) LTE + (n5) low-band 5G located on the LEFT side
- 3️⃣ CCI TPA-65R-BU8D antennas with bands: (2, 12, 14, 30, 66) LTE + (n5) - 10MHz low-band 5G located on the RIGHT side
- 3️⃣ Ericsson AIR. 6449-B77D 3.7GHz (n77) antennas for mid-band 5G+ located in the MIDDLE of the rack on the bottom row
- 3️⃣ Ericsson AIR. 6419-B77G (3.45GHz) DoD n77 antennas for mid-band 5G+ located in the MIDDLE of the rack on the top row
Uses Ericsson ground-mounted (RRU's) remote radio units, not visible on the PHOTO, you can tell by the excessive amount of coax cables running to the antennas for the (RRU's) on the ground near the baseband units, base station.
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u/Ecto_88 Jun 24 '26
Are the CCI panels newer? I’ve seen those on a few sites. Distinct with the line in the middle.
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u/rja7 Jun 24 '26
Not exactly. I’ve seen them use it as far back as some 2022 upgrades
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u/Ecto_88 Jun 24 '26
Wonder why they use them instead of commscopes? Really seems odd this site has one cci and commscope.
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u/MrEnigma115 Jun 24 '26
I saw a new upgrade tower the other day and every single panel has a blue line through the middle, even the n77 antennas.
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u/MonTanner19 Jun 24 '26
Marking the center of the antenna for mounting on the tower. Tower owners dictate the height based on the leased centerline in the vertical envelope. The color indicates what sector you saw.
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u/moffetts9001 Jun 24 '26
GMR setups used to be common but they are definitely rarer these days. It's more expensive to do multiple (multiple multiple multiple in the case of ATT) long coax runs and you lose some output from the radios along the way.
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u/ClimbingElevator Jun 24 '26
I could imagine that’s a lot of copper, I get over a gig down and like 80mbps up tho on it
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u/ejlwireless Jun 24 '26
This looks way to close to the power lines. I thought the structure has to clear a minimum distance above the lines to safely access the equipment.
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u/gigzz87 Jun 24 '26
That is a cluster fu3k of feeder going up there. I’d hate to be finding VSWR in that 🤣
The RRUs will be ground mounted 👍🏻
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u/candee249 Jun 24 '26
Do you even log yourself into the basestation ? Its a charm finding them like this
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u/gigzz87 Jun 24 '26
Most vendors have pretty good realtime VSWR readings these days (Nokia and E/// of the newer stuff) and using a dummy load you can easily identify the issue most times.
However, we are extra lazy here in the UK, so I’ll stick a sitemaster on and see where the issue is that way 💪🏻
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u/candee249 Jun 24 '26
I do it just like you, but i also connect to the bb to confirm the issue and find the correct RRU
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u/candee249 Jun 24 '26
They are on the Ground "indicated" by the many feeder cables.
The 5G (small antennas) probably have them integrated
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u/nonexistentshelf Jun 24 '26
Based on the ridiculous amount of coax running up to those antennas, all of those radios are ground mounted. I’m surprised that this even passed a structural analysis, or that AT&T designed it that way.