Remote Alarm Dialers (RADs) are essential in environments where traditional landlines or IP-based networks aren't practical or available. From water treatment facilities to military installations and public transportation depots, these radio-based alarm systems provide a dependable communication backbone for life-safety and infrastructure alerts.

But there's a persistent blind spot in many RAD implementations - and it's not the radio hardware, the power supply, or even the software. It's the antenna.

In fact, in many deployments, once an antenna is installed and aligned, it's never looked at again. There's often no telemetry, no visibility, and no active alarm if something goes wrong. Unless the radio link fails completely, you may never know that your antenna has degraded - or that your backup path has silently dropped offline.

Why are antennas often overlooked? How can this oversight lead to catastrophic communication failures? What can you do to fix it using advanced monitoring tools?

Antennas Eventually Become the Weakest Link

RAD systems are built on the premise of reliable wireless communication. These radio alarm dialers are designed to transmit alarm data from remote field sites to a central receiver or master station. Every link in that communication chain must function properly, though. The antenna is where it all starts (and can easily fall apart).

Some of the most common issues that plague RAD antennas include:

• Corrosion at the cable or connector: Over time, especially in outdoor installations, moisture and air exposure cause oxidation. A corroded cable might still pass some signal, but at a significantly reduced quality. This leads to intermittent or low-strength transmissions.
• Physical misalignment: Windstorms, seismic activity, or nearby construction can subtly nudge directional antennas out of alignment. These changes aren't visible from ground level and rarely produce a hard failure. Instead, signal quality degrades slowly and quietly.
• Environmental exposure: Water intrusion, ice buildup, UV degradation of plastics, and lightning strikes can all compromise antenna performance. Depending on your region, this can become a seasonal concern that repeats annually.
• Redundancy loss in multi-path systems: In advanced RAD setups with failover paths (such as IP fallback or secondary radios), you may lose your backup path without any indication. If both the primary and the backup fail - but only one is actively monitored - you won't know until a critical alert fails to get through.

This is the silent failure mode that many teams only discover after a post-incident review.

Legacy Systems Don't Catch Antenna Failures

It's tempting to assume that if your radio is online and not actively throwing an error, then the system must be fine. Sadly, this assumption is built into many legacy alarm systems. It's a dangerous one for a few reasons:

• No signal telemetry: Basic RAD implementations don't track or report radio signal strength (RSSI), signal-to-noise ratio, or transmit errors. That means your system could be limping along at 20% of its nominal signal strength and you'd never know.
• No threshold-based alarms: Even if signal data is available, older systems may not generate alarms when performance drops below acceptable levels. They may only flag total communication failure.
• No redundancy monitoring: If you've configured multiple communication paths, but aren't actively monitoring which one is currently in use, you might not realize when the system switches from the primary to the backup - or fails to switch back.

This lack of visibility creates a false sense of security. When the time comes that an alarm must travel over that RAD link, you may not get the message since the antenna gave up weeks ago.

Your Antenna Monitoring Setup Has a Few Key Needs

Modern monitoring isn't just about catching failures. It's about predicting and preventing them. That means moving from reactive to proactive.

An effective antenna monitoring system for RAD deployments should:

Actively track radio health in real-time

This includes:

• RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator)
• Transmit and receive error rates
• Connection status to the radio hardware

These should be updated continuously and recorded in logs for later review.

Generate alarms based on thresholds

You should receive a notification not just when the radio fails, but when:

• RSSI drops below a defined threshold
• A backup path is activated
• Transmit retries exceed a safe limit

That way, you get a heads-up before things go sideways.

Provide long-term visibility into trends

Antenna performance degrades gradually. By logging signal strength over time, you can identify seasonal trends (such as ice buildup in winter) or slow failures due to cable corrosion.

Support SCADA and central platform integration

There's no reason to build an island. Your antenna monitoring should integrate into your existing SCADA, alarm management, or facility dashboard system.

When integrated properly, the antenna becomes just another monitored asset - no different than a pump, HVAC system, or generator.

DPS Delivers Real-Time Antenna Visibility

While many platforms treat antennas as passive accessories, DPS solutions integrate antenna and communication link health directly into your alarm monitoring ecosystem.

There are a few ways DPS devices give you the real-time insight you need to keep your RAD links fully operational.

1. NetGuardian RTUs and T/Mon Master Station

The NetGuardian series isn't just about collecting alarms. These remote telemetry units (RTUs) also gather signal and communication data that's critical to maintaining reliable RAD operation. When paired with a T/Mon Master Station, your antenna becomes a fully monitored asset.

With this setup, you can:

• Capture and display RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) from your RAD systems
• Monitor transmit/receive error rates and connection status
• Set custom alarm thresholds for signal degradation
• Detect failover events between radio and backup communication paths (IP, cellular, etc.)

In addition to this, DPS NetGuardians support external telemetry inputs, so you can integrate environmental sensors, inline RF analyzers, or other health indicators from antenna enclosures or towers. That gives you total visibility (whether it's a single antenna or an entire multi-path network).

2. Remote Site Monitoring with NetGuardian RTUs

Your remote field sites are where communication issues often start, but they're also the hardest to reach. With DPS NetGuardians deployed at each site, you get local intelligence that pushes antenna health data back to your central T/Mon server.

This gives you:

• Proactive remote visibility: Know immediately if an antenna is misaligned, water-damaged, or beginning to fail (even if the site is 100 miles away).
• Telemetry logging and reporting: NetGuardians can send back granular data like signal strength, communication retries, and hardware status.
• Fewer truck rolls: Instead of discovering issues only after a failure, you'll catch the warning signs in real-time. This saves time and money on field dispatches.

Whether it's a public safety site, utility plant, or a DoD installation, NetGuardians keep your RAD system transparent and your operations secure.

3. Custom Integration Capabilities

Off-the-shelf monitoring doesn't always cover real-world complexities. We understand that after several decades of working in this space.

That's why we provide custom engineering and integration options to tailor your antenna monitoring to your unique deployment:

• SNMP, Modbus, and serial telemetry: Pull data directly from your radio equipment into NetGuardian RTUs and T/Mon
• Custom GUI dashboards: Add signal strength bars, antenna status indicators, or weather-triggered alerts to your T/Mon interface
• Third-party integration: Easily incorporate inline RF signal testers, spectrum analyzers, or SCADA systems

Whether you're protecting life-safety systems or critical infrastructure, DPS builds antenna monitoring solutions that fit your environment - not the other way around.

Don't Ignore the First Link in the Chain

It's easy to focus on the radios, the data, or the software, but the antenna is what gets your signal into the air. Without it, nothing can be reported.

The truth is, antenna failure is one of the most overlooked - and dangerous - vulnerabilities in RAD-based systems. And since these failures don't always produce immediate outages, they can lurk undetected for weeks or months.

By using DPS NetGuardians with a T/Mon Master, you're not just watching for alarms - you're monitoring the entire communication path, from antenna to central receiver.

Don't Let a Failing Antenna Leave You "Blind"

If your RAD system isn't watching its own communication path, you're operating blindly. One small cable issue or weather-damaged antenna could cause you to miss a critical alert.

DPS can help you fix that.

• Gain visibility into signal strength and antenna health
• Reduce downtime and prevent silent failures
• Monitor every link in your alarm chain - from the field to the NOC

Call 559-454-1600 or email sales@dpstele.com to learn more about integrating antenna monitoring into your infrastructure or schedule a system review customized to your environment.