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"BDA Commissioning Tests: Ensuring BDA Performance and Compliance with FCC and Radio System Requirements"

Thursday, June 20, 2024 2:00 PM EDT

The critical communications industry faces a growing need for accurate and efficient testing of Bi-Directional Amplifiers (BDAs) to ensure reliable in-building and outdoor coverage. While most commercial and educational buildings do not naturally provide sufficient coverage for the typical Public Safety and private LMR networks used by First Responders, an Emergency Responder Communication Enhancement System (ERCES) can solve the problem. BDAs, also known as signal boosters, are by far the most common ERCES solutions installed in North America today.

BDAs are tremendous assets, but they can also cause severe problems by disrupting the use of public safety and private radio networks outside of buildings and inside other buildings. In addition to good design and installation practices, testing during BDA commissioning is crucial for avoiding these problems. However, traditional approaches to testing can be costly, time consuming, and confusing.

In this webinar, you'll learn common problems that BDAs can cause and best practices for testing and monitoring BDAs radio performance to ensure proper operation with public safety and private wireless networks.

Topics include:

• Basics of BDA and DAS for in-building coverage and Emergency Responder Communication Enhancement Systems (ERCES)
• Problems that BDAs can cause
• FCC regulatory, local code, and radio system requirements for BDA performance
• Challenges of traditional approaches to BDA commissioning testing
• Best practices for testing RF performance during the BDA commissioning process
• Real-world examples of effective testing and monitoring

Speakers:
David Adams
Director of Market Development – PCTEL, and President, Board of Directors – Safer Buildings Coalition
David Adams is a leading expert in Service Quality and Performance Management of Mobile Networks, with a recent focus on public safety and critical communications networks, including P25, TETRA, DMR, and broadband cellular technologies. As a solutions architect and product manager, he has managed the design and deployment of innovative approaches, including PCTEL’s widely adopted, award-winning public safety network testing solution. In addition to his work at PCTEL, David is President of the Board of Directors at the Safer Buildings Coalition, a nonprofit organization focused on improving awareness of the critical nature of properly performing indoor communications. In over 3 years of service on the SBC's Board, David has provided expertise in radio coverage testing methods for public safety and wireless industries through educational and outreach efforts such as the SBC's Complete ERCES Handbook.

Tom Warfield
Training Manager
Fiplex by Honeywell
Tom has been in the RF/Electronics field since graduation. Tom’s first position was as an electronics technician for companies that manufactured surveillance receivers for the military. He taught Associate degree program in electronics at ITT Technical Institute. He held RF Engineer positions in the commercial cellular industry with both Nortel and Verizon Wireless. At PCTEL, Tom received invaluable field experience in the iDAS and oDAS fields performing commissioning, CW testing, and drive testing. For the last 7 years he is combining his knowledge and love of teaching as a Training Manager delivering certification classes, both instructor-led and online, with SOLiD and currently Fiplex/Honeywell. He is a contributor to the Safer Buildings Coalition’s “The Complete ERCES Handbook with NICET In-Building Public Safety Communications (IB-PSC) Study Guide”. He has received NICET IB-PSC certificates Levels 1, 2, 3 and Designer.

Donny Jackson - Moderator
Director, Content,
IWCE's Urgent Communications
Donny Jackson is director of content for IWCE's Urgent Communications. Before joining IWCE UC in 2002, he covered telecommunications for four years as a freelance writer and as news editor for Telephony magazine. Prior to that, he worked for suburban newspapers in the Dallas area, serving as editor-in-chief for the Irving News and the Las Colinas Business News.​​​​​​​

Offered Free by: PCTEL
See All Resources from: PCTEL