News

EAD is pleased to announce the arrive of the WTS7270 LTE waterproof vertical blade antenna. Designed primarily to mount directly onto terminals, modems and routers for fixed and mobile outdoor applications, the WTS7270 is a IP66 rated facilitating long term outdoor deployment.

With an overall length of 191mm, the WTS7270 is relatively compact with a superior, robust build quality and a tough, ruggedized SMA-Male connector. This lends itself well to harsher environments than standard LTE stub or blade-style antennas.

The WTS7270 LTE waterproof vertical blade antenna is shipping now. Please contact EAD or your local EAD distributor for pricing and availability.

For a MIMO LTE non-metal mount blade antenna, check out our MIMO-Blade.

Download the new EAD Wavelength Product Update October 2018 which offers a short summary of our new and recent antenna product releases including new variations of our LPO antenna and our new WTS7270 antenna.

EAD Wavelength Newsletter_October 18

For more information on any of the products featured in the newsletter, please contact your local EAD sales partner or contact us.

When selecting ISM-band and LoRa terminal antennas, there are many options for your application. Download our ISM band terminal antennas overview here:

ISM Antennas

If you are mounting antennas directly onto a terminal or enclosure using 169 MHz, 433 MHz, 868 MHz or 915 MHz, then the flyer has some suggestions for antenna choices. Our portfolio is not limited to these antennas and we have a full range for terminal antennas through to high gain omni antennas like the DMO8684 or the WMO8685.

The 169 MHz antennas are used for the European licence-free metering band at 169 MHz and we can offer terminal or wall-mount antennas at this frequency.

The EAD LPO antenna enhanced supporting 450 MHz for LTE 450 applications is now available. With 2 x LTE elements and 2 x WiFi elements, the LPO45727 is ideal for running 700-2700 MHz LTE alongside LTE 450 services.

EAD has used the modular LPO platform to bring this new offering to market. It is a compact design for a multiband antenna solution and is through-hole mount for permanent installation. The LPO has a gasket underneath for an IP67 waterproof deployment and is fed by 4 cables from underneath.

An alternative 450 MHz antenna is our VLP4.

For more information on the LPO45727, please contact us.

If you require a variation of the LPO antenna, please contact us to see if we can develop it for you.

The first units of EAD’S new MP-RTK L1/L2/L5 antenna available have now been dispatched to our initial customers.

The MP-RTK is a magnetic mount puck antenna supporting the reception of multi-constellation signals including GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS G1, GLONASS G2 and BeiDou. Well-suited for high precision applications such as precision agriculture, the MP-RTK antennas offers a high gain, but compact antenna solution for mounting onto a metal surface such as a vehicle roof.

Fed by a RG174 cable and SMA-Male connector as standard, the MP-RTK antenna has high pull-strength magnets built into the base of the antenna.

For more information, availability and pricing, please contact us.

The MIMO-Blade waterproof LTE MIMO blade antenna is an excellent solution for LTE applications where a MIMO antenna is be mounted outdoors or in an environment where moisture is present. This antenna is housed in an IP67 waterproof, low-pressure moulded and durable material and can be mounted onto non-metal surfaces via suction cups (2 supplied as standard), velcro, cable ties, adhesive tape or adhesive.

Particularly-suited to mobile applications such as trucking and transit where the antenna could be installed exterior to the cab onto or underneath a non-metal surface or covering etc, the MIMO-Blade waterproof LTE MIMO blade antenna offers excellent RF performance in a compact package. Complementing LTE routers and radios with 2 x LTE antenna connectors, this antenna can aid stealth or covert installations where antennas should be functional, but not seen.

Fed by 2 coaxial cables that can be terminated in SMA, CRC9, TS9, FME and other connectors, the MIMO-Blade is a a very flexible solution because it can also neatly address applications such as vending, utilities telemetry, monitoring, CCTV and security.

More information on the MIMO-Blade can be found here.

For customers in Europe, you can purchase low volumes of the MIMO-Blade via the Connex webshop.

EAD also supplies LTE MIMO puck and LTE MIMO Magnetic puck antennas which between them offer a flexible solutions to complement LTE routers and terminals.

Low Loss RF240 cables from EAD are ideal for longer cable runs from LTE antennas to routers, modems and radios. These cables have excellent RF properties whilst having an overall diameter of 6.1mm and being flexible enough to route easily during installation. Typical cable runs for RF240 measure up to 15M to 20M in length.

As an alternative to LMR240, low loss RF240 cables represent an excellent price performance offer. EAD builds RF240 cable assemblies to order in-house. With automated measuring, cutting, stripping and crimp tools, we can tailor the cable configuration to suit your application.

The most common connectors we fit to RF240 cables include SMA-Male, SMA-Female, TNC-Male, N-Male, RP-SMA. Many other connectors are possible.

Some example part numbers for reference are:

RF240-NM-SM-10M – 10M RF240 with N-Male / SMA-Male

RF240-SF-SM-15M – 15M RF240 with SMA-Female / SMA-Male

RF240-SM-TNM-5M – 5M RF240 with SMA-Male / TNC-Male

Please contact us for your RF240 requirements.

For longer cables again, RF400 cable from EAD is an excellent solution. Some RF400 cables can be purchased via our webshop.

868 MHz LoRa antennas are becoming a hot topic in our markets. Using the licence-free ISM frequency bands, LoRa is a long range, but low power wireless technology that is increasingly being used for IoT technology. By wirelessly enabling devices and terminals to operate using LoRa technology, applications can be developed for control and monitoring without the need to use mobile cellular networks such as GSM, 3G or LTE. All of the LoRA enabled nodes will need an antenna of some description and here we look at some options to help enable your 868 MHz IoT environment.

There are many choices of 868 MHz LoRa antennas, but we’ll focus on internal, terminal mount and outdoor omni antennas to cover requirements for remote devices and hub/concentrator applications.

In areas of low signal or for concentrator applications where a higher gain antenna is required, an outdoor omni antenna is often a good choice. Especially if you can select an antenna with good gain figures, the nature of an omni-directional antenna in radiating in a 360 degree pattern allows communication with other devices and hubs in every direction. These outdoor antennas can be wall or pole mounted and can be supplied with various levels of gain depending on the antenna size – see the DMO8684 for a 4.3 dBi gain in a compact package or the WMO86916 for a 5.8 dBi gain version which is a bit larger.

For external mount antennas where the following terminal antennas cannot be deployed, sometime a compact wall-mount antenna offers a useful alternative. Perhaps the radio is housed in a metal enclosure or a cabinet and a terminal antenna will not fit directly onto it. An antenna like the Wall-Blade which has a small footprint might well solve the problem.

For terminal mount antennas i.e. antennas that mount directly onto the device or terminal, typically you can go with a small stub antenna like the WS868 and the MW868 or a dipole style antenna similar to the BKR868 or HWD868. The stub antennas are smaller, however usually offer lower performance than the longer whip or dipole antennas. The selection of the terminal antenna depends on the environment in terms of space available and the desired performance. Captive mount terminal antennas are also possible where the antenna is locked in placed with a nut so it cannot be removed and the antenna is connected via an integrated coaxial cable and connector – for an example see the W868-FLY.

For internal mount antennas, a simple solution is a groundplane independent PCB such as the IoTa or  Morava antenna. These antenna mount inside a non-metal enclosure or terminal housing with a minimum of 15mm clearance from any metal components or surfaces and can provide a discreet way of enabling 868 MHz communications without the need for external antennas.

Hopefully the above information has given you some food for thought about possible LoRa antenna solutions and offered some suggestions on how to enable antenna solutions with your application. For customers not using 868 MHz, for example in the USA or New Zealand, many of the above antennas can be re-tuned for 915 MHz if required or have 915 MHz options.

For customers in Europe, the some of these antennas including the WMO86916, DMO8684 and IoTA can be purchased via the Connex webshop. For other questions, requests and quotes for 868 MHz LoRa antennas, please feel free to contact us.

For applications requiring LTE power dividers, EAD can recommend the Wevercomm 2-way and 4-way SMA-Female RF power splitters from Wevercomm. A compact,well-engineered solution, these power dividers cover all the 4G/LTE, 3G and GSM frequency bands from 700 MHz to 2700 MHz.

The WVV-0.7T2.7G-2WS01 is a 2-way power divider for 700-2700 MHz with SMA-Female connectors.

The WVV-0.7T2.7G-4WS01 is a 4-way power divider for 700-2700 MHz with SMA-Female connectors.

For more technical information, you can visit our sister site www.specialistantennas.co.uk  

The Wevercom power dividers can be purchased from the Connex webshop. For higher quantity quotations or application requiring more ports (i.e. 8-way) or alternative frequencies, please contact us.

EAD can also provide RF feeder cables for these LTE power dividers.

EAD is introducing a multi constellation magnetic antenna for RTK GNSS applications. The MP-RTK antenna is based on the popular MP (Magnetic Puck) platform and supports GPS L1, L2, L5, GLONASS 1, GLONASS 2, Beidou 1 and Beidou 2 frequencies.

Fed by a single RG174 cable for all frequencies, the MP-RTK antenna has an integrated LNA with approximately 37 dB gain thereby offering high gain performance. With a strong magnetic in the base of the antenna, it is ideal for vehicle or non-permanent mounting applications.

Alternatively, if required the MP-RTK antenna element could be housed in the CPx permanent mount enclosure when a through-hole mount solution is required.

For pricing and availability of the MP-RTK antenna, please contact us.