Patent ID: 8064958

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving at each of at least two diversity antennas that are spaced apart and/or that have different polarizations and are included in a tower mounted amplifier unit (TMA), a radio frequency (RF) signal transmitted from the same transmitter, where each RF signal received at each of the spaced apart diversity antennas is at the same frequency and carries the same information; converting in the TMA one or more of the received diversity antenna signals into a corresponding number of different frequency signals by mixing with a first set of a corresponding number of reference signals; band pass filtering each converted diversity antenna signal using a respective band pass filter included in the TMA; combining in the TMA each band pass filtered diversity antenna signal and an amplified non-converted received diversity antenna signal into a composite signal; band pass filtering the composite signal using another band pass filter included in a duplexer of the TMA; forwarding the band pass filtered composite signal on a single external feeder to a radio base station such that a number of feeders required between the radio base station and the TMA is reduced; and diversity processing the forwarded composite signal to obtain a single enhanced received signal corresponding to the transmitted signal.