Patent ID: 8208962

Claim:
An antenna system for shared operation in association with a plurality of base stations, wherein the antenna system comprises: a plurality of antennas each arranged to transmit and receive for at least one respective base station; and circuitry for processing on to at least one feeder of a plurality of different feeders, signals with different non-contiguous frequencies associated with the plurality of the base stations, and for processing on to different feeders of the plurality of different feeders, signals with at least one of: contiguous, overlapping and like frequencies for at least one of a transfer of signals from the antennas to the base stations in a receive mode and a transfer of signals from the base stations to the antennas in a transmit mode, wherein the circuitry is for processing transmit signals on to feeders of the plurality of different feeders that are different to those feeders of the plurality of different feeders that are associated with receive signals, the circuitry having: one bandpass filter per base station per polarisation for combining base station transmit signals of a first polarisation on to a first single feeder of the plurality of different feeders and base station transmit signals of a second polarisation on to a second feeder of the plurality of different feeders; one bandpass filter per antenna per polarisation of the first polarisation and the second polarisation for separating base station transmit signals for routing to different antennas; one bandpass filter and one low noise amplifier per antenna per polarisation and one combiner per polarisation for combining antenna receive signals of the first polarisation on to a third feeder of the plurality of different feeders and antenna receive signals of the second polarisation on to a fourth feeder of the plurality of different feeders; and one splitter per polarisation of the first polarisation and the second polarisation for routing antenna receive signals from the third feeder and the fourth feeder to different base stations of the plurality of base stations.