If it were me, the antenna would be a few hundred feet away from the equipment.

And the antenna wouldn’t be anything like an antenna, just something that looks like a lawn-chair.

And I’d move it every day or two. And definitely not run it 24h!!!

Could still be found, but good luck.

Hmm, then you need a super-mega-amplifier tacked on to boost the signal over the cable (AFAIK, the frequencies used really like short antenna runs).

So that then means a super-thick faraday cage around the actual device, and probably somewhat noteworthy power consumption (a battery certainly wouldn't be enough).

Probably meant transmitter (antennae + encoder/decoder) separated from actual BTS hardware & operatives.

So after counter-side finds your camouflaged BTS, it is only disposable and relatively cheap part and doesn’t lead to whole operation uncover.

That probe part then would connect to starbucks wi-fi and interact with BTS software somewhere far from physical location, so you can’t quickly trace channel between probe and spy team.

Doh. I see, of course.

Yeah, I'd gotten it in my head the BTS (TXCO) and the probe equipment needed to be super close together...

or just asking the cell towers providers for list of genuine hardware, and then cross-checking that against triangulated antennas.