Offsite RF Coordination

[Brad Harris]

I've done a few events over the past year, where I have done a pre coordination from the warehouse for a local event in town (anywhere from 30-120 channels of UHF, usually in the 50-70 channel range). Usually it is done in advance when task loading is high for the time available at the event, or shear number of units (in the case of >50ch)

Sometimes, there will be some differences where ~2-3 units would need to be changed due to slight differences in the RF environment from the warehouse to the event site (so far happened twice of the half dozen times so far). Also customary for ~3% of the units to exhibit some system interference (equivalent to ~2 led hash [UHFR]) requiring changing of the operating frequency.

The sites have all been within 15km of the warehouse (very little UHF RF, aside from CB and UHF radio usage), usually on the other side of downtown (with heavy RF usage observed during 10-4 during work days ... lots of conference rooms/event spaces in close proximity). Every time, it has been on a non work day, and with minimal outside RF usage.

Am I just getting lucky? or is this a handy way to tackle the workload of larger RF systems to just troubleshoot a few issues on setup (when in the same geographic area)? I haven't had too much luck lately with other pre done coordinations from other RF coordinators (usually from out of town/province).

Thoughts?


BRad

 

[Scott Helmke]

Re: Offsite RF Coordination

There's nothing like knowing your own locale, especially if you can save some scans (with WWB6 or whatever) to look at later.

One very useful thing about coordinating ahead of time is finding out how crowded things are going to be. You might end up deciding you need to spread out into more bands, even at the cost of having to rent more gear.

The other useful thing is being able to set up the whole system (or as much as you are providing) in the shop to tune, test, and if necessary change.

 

[Jason Glass]

Re: Offsite RF Coordination

Am I just getting lucky?

Nope! You're using a logical, methodical procedure to get ahead of the game and put yourself in the best possible situation, without having on-site scan data available.