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Home  Site Surveying Do you own ANY site survey equipment?
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Knowledge Base - Are you interested in starting a wireless ISP but don't know where to start? Do you need help writing your business plan and could use some samples?
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Do you own ANY site survey equipment? |
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Written by HighGain
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Sunday, 11 June 2006 |
"I just read binary1000's plea again to find someone to go in on a purchase a handheld SA with him and I have to say my hat goes off to him for trying.
Please, please don't beat me up here but I can answer my own question by reading the daily posts. Anyone serious about this industry and serious about being a true Professional should have something in their arsenal to assure they are doing the best job they can when hooking up a customer or deploying a new AP.
Do you have any idea what your nice new purchased piece of equipment is radiating down to the dB? Do you know the VSWR of that antenna you just deployed? Or do you just Ass-U-Me you are getting what you pay for.
Let me share something with you if you think that data is true you read on the box, website or label. We have purchased 10's of thousands of radios, thousands of antennas annually and the same amount of connecting pigtails and cables. What we find should bother you as much as it bothers me."
Here's a quick example, 2 years ago we purchased thousands of antennas from one of the largest US resellers for our CPE production. This was their VSWR spec:
VSWR 1.5:1 avg.
Today we still measure every single assembled component we sell for FCC compliancy and your piece of mind. Two years ago it was no different other then we had the time to measure every individual component.
What we found with this antenna was the VSWR was as high as 2.2:1 and as low as 1.2:1 on average. That doesn't count the 4:1 antennas we also measured. Over 50% of every antenna measured was over 1.5:1 and that is where I absolutely draw the line. I don't like seeing anything over 1.2:1.
I ended up with over 50% of the measured antennas to RMA and called my supplier. They set up a conference call with 2 of their engineers to discuss this with me as they were as dismayed as I was. Well, the engineers were not and that is what the avg. was there for they said. I think I said something like "are you smokin crack?" and that's basically where the conversation started to go to crap. I was told that was normal for that type of element design. I would love to post pictures but you will quickly figure out the brand and they did eventually refund my money for those.
To this day I will not use anything other then a PCB element design for my panel antennas. When we receive in 10,000 PCB’s I only need to test 1. They will either all be great or all be junk, no in-between as with free standing element designs. I can rest assure that after the solder joint is checked (down to the nano-siemen, a nice FLUKE 88 can do that) that antenna assembly is good to go. BTW, we use only silver doped solder for antenna connections.
As for radios, they arrive much better but by no means perfect. I have an RMA box for those also and about once a month those manufacturers get them back. Radios can arrive with an array of problems, low receive sensitivity, low transmit power or just DOA. Just because all your LED's come on doesn't mean it's working to specs. We have been eliminating them from our outdoor production models because they have little long term value and only jeopardize the sealed rating.
Pigtails are just a go-no go check for us. We have a limit on loss per pigtail and that's all the pickier we can be or we would be throwing too many away. The obvious are tossed in the pigtail warranty box and we use 1 supplier so returns are easy.
I have been called anal by more then just a few people and ya know what? If I am you don't need to be.
I just retired from an industry where down to the new car dealer service technician, these guys have investments over $100,000.00 on average in their own tools and equipment. Not to mention the thousands in chrome they own they have 4 channel hand held lab scopes with color TFT screens. Serial data scanners for programming and reflashing up to 15 on board computer modules and ignition analyzers (were not talking about breaker points) for monitoring 2006 model coil on plug designs.
Using Netstumbler to do a site survey is equivalent to an automotive service technician putting a screw driver up to his ear to listen to an engine noise. If you still think that is the norm, you need to visit a new car dealer and look at the frequency probes they attach to an engine, transmission or chassis today that measures harmonics that display exactly what frequency is being generated and a software program that will pinpoint the location.
I spent my last 5 years with GM at the dealer level training these guys. I found technicians making less then $30,000 a year and technicians making well over $100,000.00 a year and I am not talking about owners, these are kids from the age of 20 to adults in their 50’s. This does not count the cost of their means to get back and forth to work which also varied from the transit bus to $100, 00.00+ very tricked out bikes.
There were 3 common denominators that matched their income.
1. How clean they stayed all day despite their specialty
2. The time they spend studying their industry and educating themselves
3. Their investment in their tools
You cannot go into this industry without a proper education and equipment and Netstumbler and wi-spy is not it. The replies that Jack received on his post Interference: »Interference using the wi-spy pic absolutely amazed me. I had jack e-mail me everything he was experiencing, he will remember I asked him to leave out what others had commented and I made a suggestion with a money back guarantee because I knew what the problem wasn’t and I was 99% sure what the problem was.
Now as I asked earlier, please don’t beat me up! This is just 1 persons opinion and observation. I have customers making a lot of money in this industry and their common denominator is no different then the professional new car dealer technician.
1. How clean they stayed all day despite their specialty
2. The time they spend studying their industry and educating themselves
3. Their investment in their tools
Again binary1000, my hat goes off to you for trying
superdog1:
I for one agree with what he is saying, and using the right tools can make a difference between being successful and being out of business in a year or so?. Look at how many posters here start asking questions, buy gear based on what they read as a good idea because it worked for Polk5 or whoever, and then they are gone in a year with no trace?. IMHO, one of the main reasons is lack of the proper tools and the lack of training and skill. The combination of this usually equals failure. Hopefully a lot of new people will read this and take the proper measures to make sure it doesn't happen to them?
cmaenginsb:
Every WISP I've worked with has had some level test equipment but their is a huge difference depending on budget. The "funded" WISP had access to an HP SpecA and professional RF exposure meter that kept us from making mistakes on more than 1 site.
I went toe to toe with the Head Engineer of the CBS affliate and won, that never would happen if I showed up with Netstumbler or even WiSpy.
It's way too easy in this business to invest less than $10k to try to startup a WISP with very little knowledge and no support. It's like starting a mechanic's shop having never worked on cars, yes you can own it but you need professional mechanics to do the day to day work.
AMD Phreak:
We're looking at an Anritsu or Agilent tool to help us with site work. We already own plenty of service monitors and an Anritsu unit, however they only work up to 999MHz, not the GHz ranges that most gear operates at. Currently, the Motorola service monitors work for troubleshooting our 900 system, which is the most problematic thus far for us. The microwave equipment from Canopy works well as is.
What it comes down to other than equipment is that your staff is properly trained in the use of their tools. If you cannot run your tools, then you cannot perform your job right. You might as well pack up and quit.
In my opinion, if you are doing ANYTHING with RF, you should have on hand the proper engineering staff and techs to install and maintain the system, or at least have access to these resources. You cannot just expect to throw up some AP's and antenna systems and expect that your stuff will work.
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