Determine preliminary access point locations. Keep in mind that you might get by with fewer access points and lower equipment costs if you can limit the roaming areas.Ħ. Also, identifying where users will not wireless coverage is important to avoid wasting time surveying unnecessary areas. On the facility diagram or city map, indicate all areas where coverage is needed, such as offices, hallways, stairwells, utility rooms, bathrooms, break rooms, patios, parking garages, and elevators. This will aid designers later on in the deployment when defining the architecture and bill of materials for the wireless network.ĥ. Check on how much of the existing networks can be made available for supporting the wireless network. Most buildings have Ethernet and in some cases optical fiber networks. Determine the capacity of any existing wired networks that can interface the access points or mesh nodes. These actions will make the later testing efforts go much more smoothly.Ĥ. For outdoor city environments, you should carefully assess the locations and availability of street lights and water towers for mounting mesh nodes and backhaul equipment. Also, note possible locations for mounting access points, such as above ceiling tiles or on pillars. For example, a visual inspection will uncover obstacles to signals such as metal racks and partitions, items that blueprints generally don’t show. This is a good time to note any potential attenuation barriers that may affect the propagation of RF signals. Walk through the facility before performing any testing to verify the accuracy of the facility diagram. If all else fails for in-building surveys, consider taking a digital photograph of the fire escape diagram, which is usually present on hallway walls.ģ.
#Rf site survey tools software#
Of course mapping software is a good source for outdoor city surveys. Site survey tools import diagrams in various image formats. If none are available, prepare a drawing that depicts the location of walls, walkways, etc.
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Before getting too far with the site survey, locate a set of building blueprints or city maps. Also, client devices may have relatively low transmit power, which must be taken into consideration when using most site survey tools.īe sure to identify the technologies that the network will implement, suchĢ. Thus, you need to know the target data rates (and throughput) to correctly interpret survey results. For example, maximum range between a client device and the access point decreases as data rate and resulting performance increases. In order to identify optimum locations for access points or mesh nodes, you must have a good understanding of specific requirements for the network that impacts signal coverage. When conducting a wireless site survey, consider the following:ġ. Without a survey, users will probably end up with inadequate coverage and suffer from low performance in some areas. If the access point encounters RF interference from another nearby wireless LAN, you can likely choose a different channel and eliminate the problem.Ī larger facility, such as an office complex, airport, hospital, or warehouse, or an outdoor area like a city, generally requires an extensive wireless site survey. This scenario can probably get by with a single Wi-Fi access point (or router) located anywhere within the office and still maintain adequate coverage. For example, a small three room office may not require a site survey. The need and complexity of a wireless site survey will vary depending on the facility.
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RF interference coming from other sources that could degrade the performance of the wireless LAN. A wireless site survey also detects the presence of In order to perform a successful survey, you’ll need to relate the required performance to a value that survey tools measure, such as SNR.
![rf site survey tools rf site survey tools](https://www.pcwdld.com/wp-content/uploads/acrylic.png)
With most implementations, “adequate coverage” means support of a minimum data rate or throughput. The ultimate goal of a wireless site survey is to determine the number and placement of access points (or mesh nodes) that provides adequate signal coverage throughout a facility or city area. (also called RF site survey) to fully understand the behavior of radio waves within the operating environment before installing access points. As a result, it’s absolutely necessary to perform a wireless site survey Instead walls, doors, elevator shafts, people, and other obstacles offer varying degrees of attenuation, causing the RF (radio frequency) radiation pattern to be irregular and unpredictable. Even if the system implements omni-directional antennas, radio waves don’t really travel the same distance in all directions. With wireless systems, it’s very difficult to predict the propagation of radio waves and detect the presence of interfering signals without the use of test equipment.