DIELECTRIC LOADED CAVITY FILTERS FOR APPLICATIONS IN PROXIMITY TO THE ANTENNA

摘要

A dielectric-based RF device such as a tower mounted amplifier (TMA), mast-head amplifier (MHA), or Tower Mounted Boosters (TMB) includes a housing having a plurality of cavities and an input and an output, the input being coupled to the antenna and the output being coupled to a base station (Figure 1). The housing includes a transmission path with a transmit filter. The housing further includes a receive path with at least one receive filter and a low noise amplifier. The receive filter includes a plurality of cavities with a dielectric-based resonator disposed in at least some of the plurality of cavities. In one aspect, the RF device has a volume of less than about 155 in.sup.3. The RF device including the dielectric-based resonators has excellent out-of-band signal rejection with low loss. In addition, the RF device described herein is small enough to mount close to the antenna. The dielectric- based RF device has superior performance characteristics and a smaller footprint than conventional air cavity-based TMAs.