Reconstruction of the polarization ellipse of the EM field of telecommunication and broadcast antennas by a fast and low-cost measurement method

A low-cost measurement method for the extraction of the relative phases of the field of base station and broadcast antennas is presented. Our purpose is to determine the polarization of the field at a measurement site using magnitude measurements only. By determining six amplitude components using a spectrum analyzer, the polarization ellipse of the field can be obtained. This low-cost method can be used for outdoor measurements, which is not possible with network analyzers. Using this method and thus knowing the polarization of the incident field we are able to determine more accurately the actual electromagnetic power absorbed in people at a measurement site. Index Terms--Base station antenna, electromagnetic field, measurement, measurement probe, phase extraction, polarization, specific absorption rate (SAR), telecommunication and broadcast antenna.