A Monitoring Upgrade Is Not a Replacement Project There’s no reason to upgrade a public-safety radio system just to get a better view of what’s going on. There are many other reasons to monitor an existing public-safety radio system. All of your antennas, cable, and amplifier equipment should be inspected, tested and evaluated based upon
Installation Readiness Begins on the Ground Discovering a damaged connector, incorrect setting, or unresolved test result after equipment is mounted complicates a job that was supposed to be an installation. Preinstallation RF testing moves those questions to the workbench, where components remain accessible and the configuration can be examined before tower work begins. TX RX
Everyday Maintenance Habits That Prevent Long Public Safety Radio Outages Public safety radio outages can occur due to many factors such as a malfunctioning power source, broken feed line, environmental alert, or network issues. The length of time for the outage is typically caused by something much less dramatic then what initially started the outage;
Coverage Can Change Between Formal Tests After formal acceptance and certification of an indoor public safety radio coverage system, there are several ways that radio frequency (RF) conditions can be altered. Some of the common causes for changes include tenant improvements; new walls constructed; moving equipment, damaging cables; changing antennas; adjusting amplifiers; and altering the
Annual Testing Has Become A Continuity Requirement For Emergency Responder Communication Enhancement Systems (ERCES) Public safety radio coverage is now considered a continuous maintenance requirement and not a “one-and-done” installation that gets forgotten about until something goes wrong. According to the 2024 International Fire Code (IFC), there is an obligation to maintain the functionality of
Incident broadband load becomes the receive path problem Incident scenes today have more transmitters than there are frequency slots in the static LMR plans. In addition to P25 portable repeaters and interoperability gateways, incident scenes have vehicular routers, body camera docks, unmanned aircraft controllers, broadband modems, satellite terminals, temporary LTE or 5g cells, etc. In
Satellite Access Moves to a Public Safety Coverage Layer The new FCC framework for supplemental coverage from space (SCS) allows satellite and terrestrial operators to utilize terrestrial mobile spectrum via defined authorizations and interference protection. This framework utilizes FirstNet licensed 700 MHz public safety BroadBand spectrum, often referred to as Band 14, for SCS purposes
Band 14 Growth Changes the Receiver Protection Problem The growth of public safety broadband isn’t eliminating LMR from critical communications architecture. Rather, it’s moving broadband systems closer to narrowband P25 receivers that were designed for earlier assumptions regarding rf density. FirstNet will continue to utilize Band 14 spectrum for public safety broadband purposes as part
LMR Feedline Moisture Intrusion and Hidden Coverage Loss in Aging Public Safety Tower Infrastructure Moisture intrusion into feedlines is typically treated as a maintenance-related failure of the Feedline itself; however, in public safety lmr systems, it has evolved into a systematic coverage degradation process. Water entering coaxial transmission lines, jumper assemblies, weather sealing transition areas,
Co-located (and) Broadband Pressure Inside Public Safety RF Sites In today’s growing public safety communications environment, many densely populated public safety communications sites will house both P25 LMR transmit and receive infrastructure and mission-critical broadband systems. For example, there could be commercial LTE carriers; public safety broadband equipment; microwave backhaul systems; and in-building coverage
Useful DAS Monitoring Starts With the Right Alarm Settings A public safety radio monitoring system should help building staff recognize
Public Safety BDA Shutdown Controls Belong in the Building Readiness Plan A bidirectional amplifier (BDA) helps improve public safety radio
A Monitoring Upgrade Is Not a Replacement Project There’s no reason to upgrade a public-safety radio system just to get
Installation Readiness Begins on the Ground Discovering a damaged connector, incorrect setting, or unresolved test result after equipment is mounted
A Site Expansion Does Not Always Need Another Receive Antenna When a radio system upgrade begins with expanding additional receivers