How to find out the coordinates of a GSM base station by MCC, MNC, LAC and CellID (CID). Megafon base station addresses. Map of cellular base stations Map of cell towers mts

Detecting communication towers is not a criminal activity, but a fairly common task in remote regions and villages where the quality of coverage leaves much to be desired. How can you understand why this post gives better results than that wicket? The following tools and websites can help you navigate.

Of the English-language services, perhaps the best is opensignal.com, where you can select the operator and the required location. The map does not show towers, but does show coverage areas. Among the Russians, I can recommend netmonitor.ru - its database contains a lot of information about operator towers.

Some Android applications are also interesting. For example, OpenSignal displays a map of cell towers and Wi-Fi points (locations with poor connections are also marked on the map), has a built-in compass and a speed checker.

Another interesting utility is Netmonitor. It can monitor GSM and CDMA networks, shows information about signal strength, contains a database of cell towers, supports devices with multiple SIM cards, and can also keep a log in CLF or KLM format.

Please note that Netmonitor has limitations when running on devices from some manufacturers. On Motorola, LG, Samsung, Acer and Huawei smartphones, the list of neighbors may be empty, and on Samsung devices, the signal strength may also not be displayed.

I also recommend the GSM Signal Monitoring application, which allows you to work with GSM, UMTS and LTE networks. It displays the change in signal level on a graph and shows neighboring cells (only in GSM networks). There is a data transfer rate monitor and the ability to track connection status, connection standard, cell and current zone identifiers (LAC/RNC/TAC) and received signal strength level (RSSI, as well as RSRP for LTE).

Knowing the data of the base station, you can access it through the website xinit.ru and obtain information about its location. In large cities, it doesn’t hurt to try to find popular maps with the location of the towers, but you should understand that the towers belong to different operators. Plus, base stations are placed not only on poles, but also on the roofs of houses.

In general, experiment, use specialized software, and you will know where the signal level is higher not by feeling, but by graphs and maps.

And again, some general educational material. This time we will talk about base stations. Let's look at various technical aspects of their placement, design and range, and also look inside the antenna unit itself.

Base stations. General information

This is what cellular antennas look like installed on the roofs of buildings. These antennas are an element of a base station (BS), and specifically a device for receiving and transmitting a radio signal from one subscriber to another, and then through an amplifier to the base station controller and other devices. Being the most visible part of the BS, they are installed on antenna masts, roofs of residential and industrial buildings, and even chimneys. Today you can find more exotic options for their installation; in Russia they are already installed on lighting poles, and in Egypt they are even “disguised” as palm trees.

The connection of the base station to the telecom operator’s network can be done via radio relay communication, so next to the “rectangular” antennas of the BS units you can see a radio relay dish:

With the transition to more modern standards of the fourth and fifth generations, to meet their requirements, stations will need to be connected exclusively via fiber optics. In modern BS designs, optical fiber becomes an integral medium for transmitting information even between nodes and blocks of the BS itself. For example, the figure below shows the design of a modern base station, where fiber optic cable is used to transmit data from the RRU (remote controlled units) antenna to the base station itself (shown in orange).

The base station equipment is located in non-residential premises of the building, or installed in specialized containers (attached to walls or poles), because modern equipment is quite compact and can easily fit into the system unit of a server computer. Often the radio module is installed next to the antenna unit, this helps reduce losses and dissipation of power transmitted to the antenna. This is what the three installed radio modules of the Flexi Multiradio base station equipment look like, mounted directly on the mast:

Base station service area

To begin with, it should be noted that there are different types of base stations: macro, micro, pico and femtocells. Let's start small. And, in short, a femtocell is not a base station. It is rather an Access Point. This equipment is initially aimed at a home or office user and the owner of such equipment is a private or legal entity. a person other than the operator. The main difference between such equipment is that it has a fully automatic configuration, from assessing radio parameters to connecting to the operator’s network. Femtocell has the dimensions of a home router:

A picocell is a low-power BS owned by an operator and using IP/Ethernet as a transport network. Usually installed in places where there is a possible local concentration of users. The device is comparable in size to a small laptop:

A microcell is an approximate version of the implementation of a base station in a compact form, very common in operator networks. It is distinguished from a “large” base station by a reduced capacity supported by the subscriber and lower radiating power. Weight, as a rule, is up to 50 kg and radio coverage radius is up to 5 km. This solution is used where high network capacities and power are not needed, or where it is not possible to install a large station:

And finally, a macro cell is a standard base station on the basis of which mobile networks are built. It is characterized by powers of the order of 50 W and a coverage radius of up to 100 km (in the limit). The weight of the stand can reach 300 kg.

The coverage area of each BS depends on the height of the antenna section, the terrain and the number of obstacles on the way to the subscriber. When installing a base station, the coverage radius is not always at the forefront. As the subscriber base grows, the maximum throughput of the BS may not be enough, in which case the message “network busy” appears on the phone screen. Then, over time, the operator in this area can deliberately reduce the range of the base station and install several additional stations in areas of greatest load.

When you need to increase network capacity and reduce the load on individual base stations, then microcells come to the rescue. In a megacity, the radio coverage area of one microcell can be only 500 meters.

In a city environment, oddly enough, there are places where the operator needs to locally connect an area with a lot of traffic (metro station areas, large central streets, etc.). In this case, low-power microcells and picocells are used, the antenna units of which can be placed on low buildings and on street lighting poles. When the question arises of organizing high-quality radio coverage inside closed buildings (shopping and business centers, hypermarkets, etc.), then picocell base stations come to the rescue.

Outside cities, the operating range of individual base stations comes to the fore, so the installation of each base station away from the city is becoming an increasingly expensive enterprise due to the need to build power lines, roads and towers in difficult climatic and technological conditions. To increase the coverage area, it is advisable to install the BS on higher masts, use directional sector emitters, and lower frequencies that are less susceptible to attenuation.

So, for example, in the 1800 MHz band, the range of the BS does not exceed 6-7 kilometers, and in the case of using the 900 MHz band, the coverage area can reach 32 kilometers, all other things being equal.

Base station antennas. Let's take a look inside

In cellular communications, sector panel antennas are most often used, which have a radiation pattern with a width of 120, 90, 60 and 30 degrees. Accordingly, to organize communication in all directions (from 0 to 360), 3 (pattern width 120 degrees) or 6 (pattern width 60 degrees) antenna units may be required. An example of organizing uniform coverage in all directions is shown in the figure below:

And below is a view of typical radiation patterns on a logarithmic scale.

Most base station antennas are broadband, allowing operation in one, two or three frequency bands. Starting with UMTS networks, unlike GSM, base station antennas are able to change the radio coverage area depending on the load on the network. One of the most effective methods of controlling radiated power is to control the angle of the antenna, in this way the irradiation area of the radiation pattern changes.

Antennas can have a fixed tilt angle, or can be remotely adjusted using special software located in the BS control unit and built-in phase shifters. There are also solutions that allow you to change the service area from the general data network management system. In this way, it is possible to regulate the service area of the entire sector of the base station.

Base station antennas use both mechanical and electrical pattern control. Mechanical control is easier to implement, but often leads to distortion of the radiation pattern due to the influence of structural parts. Most BS antennas have an electrical tilt angle adjustment system.

A modern antenna unit is a group of radiating elements of an antenna array. The distance between the array elements is selected in such a way as to obtain the lowest level of side lobes of the radiation pattern. The most common panel antenna lengths are from 0.7 to 2.6 meters (for multi-band antenna panels). The gain varies from 12 to 20 dBi.

The figure below (left) shows the design of one of the most common (but already outdated) antenna panels.

Here, the antenna panel emitters are half-wave symmetrical electric vibrators above the conductive screen, located at an angle of 45 degrees. This design allows you to create a diagram with a main lobe width of 65 or 90 degrees. In this design, dual- and even tri-band antenna units are produced (though quite large). For example, a tri-band antenna panel of this design (900, 1800, 2100 MHz) differs from a single-band one, being approximately twice as large in size and weight, which, of course, makes it difficult to maintain.

An alternative manufacturing technology for such antennas involves making strip antenna radiators (square-shaped metal plates), in the figure above on the right.

And here is another option, when half-wave slot magnetic vibrators are used as a radiator. The power line, slots and screen are made on one printed circuit board with double-sided foil fiberglass:

Taking into account the modern realities of the development of wireless technologies, base stations must support 2G, 3G and LTE networks. And if the control units of base stations of networks of different generations can be placed in one switching cabinet without increasing the overall size, then significant difficulties arise with the antenna part.

For example, in multi-band antenna panels the number of coaxial connecting lines reaches 100 meters! Such a significant cable length and the number of soldered connections inevitably leads to line losses and a decrease in gain:

In order to reduce electrical losses and reduce solder points, microstrip lines are often made; this makes it possible to create dipoles and the power supply system for the entire antenna using a single printed technology. This technology is easy to manufacture and ensures high repeatability of antenna characteristics during serial production.

Multiband antennas

With the development of third and fourth generation communication networks, modernization of the antenna part of both base stations and cell phones is required. Antennas must operate in new additional bands exceeding 2.2 GHz. Moreover, work in two and even three ranges must be carried out simultaneously. As a result, the antenna part includes rather complex electromechanical circuits, which must ensure proper functioning in difficult climatic conditions.

As an example, consider the design of the emitters of a dual-band antenna of a Powerwave cellular communication base station operating in the ranges 824-960 MHz and 1710-2170 MHz. Its appearance is shown in the figure below:

This dual-band irradiator consists of two metal plates. The larger one operates in the lower 900 MHz range; above it is a plate with a smaller slot emitter. Both antennas are excited by slot emitters and thus have a single power line.

If dipole antennas are used as emitters, then it is necessary to install a separate dipole for each wave range. Individual dipoles must have their own power line, which, of course, reduces the overall reliability of the system and increases power consumption. An example of such a design is the Kathrein antenna for the same frequency range as discussed above:

Thus, the dipoles for the lower frequency range are, as it were, inside the dipoles of the upper range.

To implement three- (or more) band operating modes, printed multilayer antennas have the greatest technological effectiveness. In such antennas, each new layer operates in a rather narrow frequency range. This “multi-story” design is made of printed antennas with individual emitters, each antenna is tuned to individual frequencies in the operating range. The design is illustrated in the figure below:

As in any other multi-element antennas, in this design there is interaction between elements operating in different frequency ranges. Of course, this interaction affects the directivity and matching of the antennas, but this interaction can be eliminated by methods used in phased array antennas (phased array antennas). For example, one of the most effective methods is to change the design parameters of the elements by displacing the exciting device, as well as changing the dimensions of the feed itself and the thickness of the dielectric separating layer.

An important point is that all modern wireless technologies are broadband, and the operating frequency bandwidth is at least 0.2 GHz. Antennas based on complementary structures, a typical example of which are “bow-tie” antennas, have a wide operating frequency band. Coordination of such an antenna with the transmission line is carried out by selecting the excitation point and optimizing its configuration. To expand the operating frequency band, by agreement, the “butterfly” is supplemented with a capacitive input impedance.

Modeling and calculation of such antennas are carried out in specialized CAD software packages. Modern programs allow you to simulate an antenna in a translucent housing in the presence of the influence of various structural elements of the antenna system and thereby allow you to perform a fairly accurate engineering analysis.

The design of a multi-band antenna is carried out in stages. First, a microstrip printed antenna with a wide bandwidth is calculated and designed for each operating frequency range separately. Next, printed antennas of different ranges are combined (overlapping each other) and their joint operation is examined, eliminating, if possible, the causes of mutual influence.

A broadband butterfly antenna can be successfully used as the basis for a tri-band printed antenna. The figure below shows four different configuration options.

The above antenna designs differ in the shape of the reactive element, which is used to expand the operating frequency band by agreement. Each layer of such a tri-band antenna is a microstrip emitter of given geometric dimensions. The lower the frequencies, the larger the relative size of such an emitter. Each layer of the PCB is separated from the other by a dielectric. The above design can operate in the GSM 1900 band (1850-1990 MHz) - accepts the bottom layer; WiMAX (2.5 - 2.69 GHz) - receives the middle layer; WiMAX (3.3 - 3.5 GHz) - receives the upper layer. This design of the antenna system will make it possible to receive and transmit radio signals without the use of additional active equipment, thereby not increasing the overall dimensions of the antenna unit.

And in conclusion, a little about the dangers of BS

Sometimes, base stations of cellular operators are installed directly on the roofs of residential buildings, which actually demoralizes some of their inhabitants. Apartment owners stop having cats, and gray hair begins to appear faster on grandma's head. Meanwhile, the residents of this house receive almost no electromagnetic field from the installed base station, because the base station does not radiate “downward.” And, by the way, SaNPiN standards for electromagnetic radiation in the Russian Federation are an order of magnitude lower than in “developed” Western countries, and therefore base stations within the city never operate at full capacity. Thus, there is no harm from BS, unless you sunbathe on the roof a couple of meters from them. Often, a dozen access points installed in residents' apartments, as well as microwave ovens and cell phones (pressed to the head) have a much greater impact on you than a base station installed 100 meters outside the building.

The mobile operator Tele2 is developing rapidly and is steadily expanding its coverage area and communication quality. Tele2 cell towers on the map below allow you to verify this; their number is sufficient to provide stable coverage to most regions of our country.

Briefly on the topic

Tele2 base stations operate on equipment from Nokia Networks and Flexi Multiradio
The company is currently working towards the development of the 4G communication format
Stations are located everywhere: rooftops, roadsides, subways and other places

Equipment

Our inquisitive readers are probably interested in knowing which towers Tele2 operates on? The telecommunications equipment that this cellular operator uses is truly first-class. Nokia Networks and Flexi Multiradio are the towers Tele2 uses, and these manufacturers produce the latest generation equipment.

Now this mobile operator aims to provide its customers with an uninterrupted signal in 4G format and is successfully working in this direction - residents of large cities have already seen this. In Moscow, St. Petersburg and many other cities, there is an LTE signal even in the metro. To verify this, we recommend reading the article about the Tele2 coverage map in the metro, which is available on our website.

Where are they located?

Where are the base stations located? To ensure an uninterrupted signal, cellular communication stations can be found almost everywhere - on the roofs of houses, along busy highways, in the forest and many, many other places. Sometimes, equipment is hidden in art objects, especially often in the historical part of cities, so as not to spoil the appearance of the central streets.

How they work

How does a standard base station work? In a nutshell, your SIM card receives the signal issued by the nearest tower, thereby providing you with various communication services - the ability to make calls, receive and send SMS messages, and mobile data transfer. When a person moves with the phone turned on, the device will invariably receive a signal from the nearest tower, that is, switch between them. This way the connection will always be good. The exception is when something interferes with the signal - for example, you are in a basement where no additional equipment is installed, or you have gone out of town and the nearest station is quite far from you.

While roaming

On whose towers does Tele2 work if you travel outside the country? To date, Tele2 has entered into an agreement with most mobile operators around the world and can connect to their equipment. Thus, you may experience communication problems only in the most remote corner of the globe.

Probably everyone knows that the operator’s base station is what a mobile phone “clings” to over the air so that its owner stays in touch. If there is an MTS base station nearby, then your smartphone has fast mobile Internet, and you can hear the other person on the phone as if he were in the same room with you. This is a generally correct idea of a base station, but still too simple for a device with such versatile capabilities. See for yourself.

The Internet is our everything

For many of us, the Internet is a means to always stay in touch, an opportunity to be in the center of events. A lot of convenient services depend on it, without which we cannot imagine ourselves today - from instant messengers and social networks to taxi ordering and online stores. The fact that the Internet is everywhere in our lives is the merit of MTS base stations, which are always ready to help you stay online, instantly connect you with another area of the city or a friend from distant Australia, convey good news and share photos, show movies or play music from the network.

Invisible

Let's say you are sitting at home or at work. You don't see any base station. But your phone works: calls are made, notifications from VKontakte and WhatsApp are received, funny videos from YouTube are played. This is because the MTS base station does not have to literally “see” your phone: it can connect to it using a radio signal reflected from walls and other obstacles, and many walls that are not too thick for the base station are completely translucent, that is, they do not interfere with communication .

Neighborly

Also, if the base station near your home or office suddenly goes down, your phone will most likely still remain online. This is because usually your mobile phone is “looked after” not by one base station, but by two or even three, and each of them is ready to pick up a fallen banner at any moment. Of course, occasionally it may turn out that there are no other base stations nearby, but MTS always tries to make sure that your base station always has responsive neighbors.

Pass it on to someone else

By the way, when you move, base stations skillfully pass your phone to each other, like a relay baton. You don’t need to worry about this at all: MTS base stations can negotiate among themselves about such things. There are no border quarrels over the desire to send you an SMS, and a mobile conversation started in the area of one base station can continue without interruption in the area of another station and end near the third or fourth.

Where are you?

When you connect to the base station, it immediately understands that you are somewhere nearby. If your phone is “seen” by three or more base stations, then together they can determine your location very accurately. Geolocation services are built on this, which, for example, help parents always find out where their children are, and transport companies - control their cars.

Above all

MTS base stations are able to set priorities. It can't be that someone next to you who needs to download a big movie from the Internet will take over all the resources of the nearest base station, and you won't even be able to send a comment on Facebook. Moreover, the base station is able to give up part of its resources allocated for the Internet for calls. This, for example, is sometimes useful at train stations, where there are a lot of people, and they constantly need to call each other to find each other, inform about their arrival, or call a taxi. If the base station sees that somewhere, on the contrary, the Internet is more needed, it will take this into account.

Where there are people, there is connection

Mobile communications are available where base stations are located. But where are they placed? It depends on people, including you. If somewhere in the city too many subscribers begin to constantly claim connection to one single base station due to the fact that a new shopping center has opened in this place, MTS will very soon launch another base station nearby - a new one. It is not people who are chasing the MTS mobile network, but it is developing based on their needs, which, as you know, are increasingly flowing into the mobile Internet. This is an almost magical vicious circle: in recent years, the development of the mobile network has allowed us to get more and more from the Internet, and our growing needs for it determine how the mobile network develops.

Get yours

You may live or work in a special place, you may have a poorly designed room - in general, where it is very difficult for the MTS base station to connect to your phone. However, if you have wired Internet in the same room, you can easily get your own MTS base station, for example, like this one. If you want, use it even alone.

It is safe

So, base stations appear where people need them, and some people can buy an MTS base station for themselves. However, some still believe that base station radiation poses a threat. Such people may anxiously point a finger at a tower that has appeared nearby and gossip with friends about sudden headaches. In fact, the “rays” from the base station are harmless, and any person receives more radiation from his own mobile phone. By the way, the farther the base station is from you, the more your smartphone “tries” to be in touch, showering its owner with radiation more and more abundantly. However, even with such diligence, you have absolutely nothing to worry about, since it is not the extremely weak radiation of a mobile phone that is dangerous, but talking on it while driving or while crossing the road.

It's fun

MTS strives to introduce new stations in the regions of the country as actively as possible - we know that literally every year high-quality communications and fast mobile Internet mean more and more to people. If an MTS base station appears somewhere near you, this is definitely a good omen!

To find out where you can live and get out of it all, take the phone book and move RIGHT to the center where all the synagogues are, that is, if you can get there. If you are not one of them, rely on a payout 4 times higher than the community average. Their communities are insanely expensive for outsiders, but even in the poorest of them you can not only live there, but make progress while doing so. During the Iraq War, America took control of all Iraqi transmitters and began broadcasting propaganda.

Generally, people will definitely refuse this. But America knew this, so with each emission they added a layer of noise. They did nothing, only people listened to the sound, but with a predominance of modulated background noise in the radio signal, and if the Iraqis were caused by this, they accepted what was emitted, although often this is an obvious lie, the injected noise in the radio signal is modulated with the waveform that was placed in people's brains in reception mode, and it worked effectively. Soldiers were usually brought in to hold them.

If Poppers are found, anyone attempting to disable them will be shot. This works even better than the modulated radio noise of the Iraqis, who have never been manipulated in this way before. They realized that Poppers was controlling the mind through the beam. The first is to manipulate the video signal. The second is audio signal manipulation, and the third and worst is a beam in your head plus a recording of your brain waves. Let me ask you WHY? “Imagining the thoughts in your head” and then calling you “crazy.”

Let me ask you why? While people who know the truth are successfully identified as hit jobs, the truth will remain in an isolated reality, then anyone considered "normal" will be crumpled. Of course, some people will respond by saying that cell tower frequencies are limited. This is a fake - it is common for microwave frequencies to indicate distances greater than 50 miles. This is much more than what is needed for mind control when the nearest tower is usually less than 2 miles away.

The antennas of these cell towers are not limited to high frequencies. For reference, the longest antenna required for any cellular activity in the US is about 20 inches for the lowest cellular frequencies. Most likely these are 9-inch antennas. Why then the antennas that adorn cell towers that are up to eight feet long? Maybe you should ask the Corps of Engineers why the size of the arrays doesn't match the function, because the Corps of Engineers has no legal right over the civilian tower. We must understand that we will do what Satan appoints, with demons on our shoulders and screams in our ears!

It looks like a cartoon, but it's realism! The credentials and principles are real! Once upon a time, when we only had three mobile operators in the market, people would often choose the one whose network was in their home or workplace. We don't think about it now because the coverage issue is virtually non-existent.

Super-fast operators do not always reach every citizen. However, it is always better to choose an operator to which we have a base station, or at least line of sight. By nature, we aim blindly, and this gives us less than satisfactory results. We don't make it special, we make it out of ignorance or haste.

Knowing the data of the base station, you can access it through the website xinit.ru and obtain information about its location. In large cities, it doesn’t hurt to try to find the location of the towers, but you should understand that the towers belong to different operators. Plus, base stations are placed not only on poles, but also on the roofs of houses.

Where can we find such information? We must admit that when we came to the last hand, we were delighted and we immediately thought of sharing information with you. On the page, it is very useful to be able to filter the view of the selected technology.

How many times have you been in the city and your mobile Internet was as fast as a turtle walking through the park on a sunny day? It's possible that if you knew where your carrier's transmitter was, you'd be just a few yards away from enjoying fast download sites.

The mobile version of this application will definitely help you and will search for nearby base stations. In a word, it is very good that such a tool was created. It may not be high-flying, but it is certainly extremely useful, especially for those who have trouble tuning their antennas. We even recommend it for enjoyment, especially for those chilly fall evenings.

If the coverage is unsatisfactory and there are areas that are not covered ("white spots"), then the connection is unstable and may fail. Our resource was created to solve these problems.

Here you can see the layout of base stations on the interactive

According to the director, the cellular antenna has been on the roof of the school for nine years. Also, residents of the surrounding neighborhoods are not afraid to live in the shadow of the station. “I don’t mind, and by the way, the range on the phone is very good,” emphasizes Zbigniew. This attitude is completely incomprehensible, Bolena Leszkowicz, who fled from Warsaw from Wilanow to Krakow due to the harmfulness of the cellular antenna.

He means in particular. Insomnia or high-pressure jumping. Now the court is demanding compensation from the cooperative and the operator. I had to pay an expert out of my own pocket. However, having moved to Krakowska Polana Zywiecka real estate, she did not avoid old problems.