Patent ID: 8027703

Claim:
A base station antenna for a telecommunications system comprising: a plurality of beam systems supported by an antenna housing, each beam system comprising a plurality of antenna elements for directing a beam of electromagnetic energy in a propagation direction, a plurality of phase shifters operatively connected to the antenna elements for tilting the beam propagation direction, a control device operatively connected to the phase shifters for operating the phase shifters to tilt the beam propagation direction, and a gear-motor unit operatively connected to the control device for electro-mechanically driving the control device to tilt the beam propagation direction; a multi-device control unit operative to selectively control the beam propagation direction of each beam system; and at least one modular switching device configured to interface between the multi-device control unit and the motors and position sensors of the antenna systems to allow a single set of control electronics of the multi-device control unit to selectively control the beam propagation direction of each beam system.