Performance of narrow-beams in an suburban environment

Based on measurement results, an analysis of antenna gain and side-lobe levels in a realistic propagation environment is performed. In particular, emphasis is put on the array gain as a function of antenna height and excess path-loss. Other parameters such as path-loss slope and shadow fading are also estimated. The implications of the extracted models and parameters on capacity and coverage of a cellular system are obtained through simulation. The analysis indicates that the lower antenna height yields higher capacity since its path-loss slope is higher, even though the directivity of the effective antenna patterns is lower. The coverage area of the higher antenna height is much larger than that of the lower. It should also be noted that basically no tilting is performed.