I always wonder how telecommunication masts operate. Some have very huge dishes that look like drums. What’s the function of these drums?
In: 9
The drums are just directional antennas with a cover over the dish. The cover is transparent to radio frequency (RF) energy, but protects the dish and the antenna from the weather.
The dishes used with the antenna focus the RF energy so instead of a broadcast, they become a tight beam, kind of like the difference between a light bulb and a flash light. With all of the energy focused like that, the range of the signal they send is a hell of a lot longer than it would be if they just put an open-air antenna up, and it’s a lot more secure, too (you’d need to get an antenna in the beam path itself to intercept whatever was being sent)
The function of these dishes is to transport large amounts of data from one point to another over long distances. It’s a *lot* cheaper and easier to do this over the air than it is to try and run cables over several miles.
Latest Answers