Cell Center Location; Covering Outdoor Areas - Nortel Meridian Companion Reference Manual

Page 26 of 102 Site planning basics

Cell center location

Covering outdoor areas

Steps for outdoor planning
553-3601-106 Standard 2.00 September 1996
Note: The customer decides whether the site requires outdoor coverage.
Cover outdoor areas before covering indoor areas.
Use the CDT to determine the outdoor coverage provided by a Base Station
located indoors. Because you cannot use the CDT transceiver outside, use
Table 6 on page 28 to estimate the coverage of outdoor external antennas.
For each cell center requiring outdoor external antennas, it is best to plan for
two, four, six or eight outdoor external antennas. Connect each pair of outdoor
external antennas at a cell center to the same Base Station. If you only connect
one radio to an external antenna serving the same cell center, it is best to
disconnect the other radio. If you use external antennas and you have the two
radios in the same Base Station serving different cells, users in the area could
have poor audio quality links and they could drop their calls.
1. Note each of the critical points that you want to reach.
2. Position the CDT transceiver indoors at the potential location for a cell
center that is closest to the critical point (preferably next to a window).
3. Take your portable outdoors and determine if the critical point is within
the cell boundary.
If the critical point is within the cell boundary, your cell center is at the
position of the CDT transceiver. Determine and record the cell boundary
for the cell center (both indoors and outdoors) on the floor plan (see
"Cell center location" on page 26).
If the critical point is not within the cell boundary, determine and record
on the floor plan the cell boundary that you did reach.
4. For each critical point that cannot be reached, determine a potential
location for outdoor external antennas using the following criteria:
— Is it outdoors?
— Is it as close as possible to the critical point you need to reach?