Effects of External PIM Sources on Antenna PIM Measurements

Antenna Passive Intermodulation (PIM) level measurement results are rarely credited to be due to external signal receiving characteristics of the antennas or serious effects from external PIM sources, such as the anechoic chamber absorber and antenna tower. This paper presents an antenna PIM model for a reflected PIM measurement method. Based on the findings of null point generation and the behavior of the third order PIM values obtained by theoretical predictions and experimental results, we concluded that the results of the antenna PIM level test were influenced by the external PIM sources generated by the anechoic chamber absorber and the path differences of PIM signals coming into the antenna.

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