¶ Wireless Surveys for Low Voltage Techs
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So if your company's core values are educate , encourage and enrich the lives of people in the industry , reach out to me on one of the social media platforms . Help join the team to make this industry a little bit better . So today we're talking about wireless surveys , and you know , it's one of those funny things , because customers don't understand wireless .
They think , oh , it's wireless , it doesn't need any cables . Yes , it does . You still got to run cable to those wireless access points . But those wireless access points get affected by the environment that surrounds them . They lose signal when they go through walls . They lose signal when they go through people . They lose signal when they go through glass .
That's why it's important to do a wireless survey . Now , how do you do a wireless survey ? What tool should you use . Well , I've got just a guest for you . I came across this individual at an event just a couple of weeks ago .
He's a fellow instructor and you know , as an instructor myself , it takes a lot to impress me as an instructor Not that I'm so great , but I'm very critical of other instructors . This guy's absolutely fantastic . He is a wealth of knowledge .
So let's bring him on and let's talk about wireless surveys , what tools you should use and what things you need to consider . So , dan , welcome to the show . For those who may not know you , who are you and why should we listen to you ?
My name is Dan Critch and I am with Cable and Connections and I have been selling tools for over 25 years and I'm a specialist on networking tools , wireless tools , fiber , copper and that's what I've been . I train people how to use them and I support them as they if they have any issues and problems . So I know all about these tools .
that local contractors use Long time . No see , it's been what ? A whole week and a half , two weeks , something like that .
Yeah , we're at the TechFest together .
TechSkipping , techskipping , yes , yes , so I became aware of you at TechSkipping . You're probably at TechFest too , but that was my first event , so I was kind of overwhelmed . So I met a lot of people and I couldn't even tell you half the people I met . So I probably met you at TechFest too .
But I got to sit in your training session , I mean as from one instructor to another instructor . Let me just tell you , you are top notch , absolutely top notch as an instructor , and you probably do this yourself . When I sit in other people's classes .
I'm actually there taking two classes , right , the content that you're delivering and then I'm also watching the instructor to see what are they doing really good that I can take back and use in my classes , right ?
You do the same thing ? Yeah , I do . I see how I can help people learn about these tools that we sell , and I sell lots of different products and so if they have a different way of presenting or a different way of reaching the people , it just helps me sell the product even more and train them how to use it .
Absolutely so . Today I'm going to talk about wireless site surveys . Right , you know wireless the thing that needs wires , that people always joke about . Well , let's just put wireless everywhere . Well , wireless has a lot of nuances to it and it's something that a low voltage contractor who's currently doing cable and can easily do .
But there are some things that they've got to learn , some things they've got to do . So first , can you start off telling us what exactly is a wireless site survey and why would that be important to a low voltage tech ?
So wireless site survey is when you're deploying access points and you want to know what the coverage is . So it's changed a lot over the years . But I used to carry a laptop around . Now we have these little tools and you would walk around after you deploy the access points . Say ubiquity and you want to know what the coverage is and why is it important ?
So , like behind me , you know , I have my green screen . This is material that signal penetrates very well . But what if it's cement walls ? You lose about 12 dB through cement glass , 3 dB elevator shaft it's like almost kills the entire signal .
So each building is unique , right , and so we're putting up these access points and we're thinking the coverage will go through these walls in the different mediums and a lot of times it doesn't . So you have to get multiple access points to make good coverage in these buildings .
Like a school , schools are horrible , they're built like a bunker and you need access points in the hallway , you need access points in the classroom , and so with the site survey , when you're walking around with these tools , it's going to tell you where you have good coverage , bad coverage , interference , right , and it puts it on a floor plan and it shows you
that coverage so you can easily tell the customer what's going on right . And there's a couple of different . There's the theoretical site survey and the real time site survey , which we're going to talk about today .
But the theoretical one is you could be at your computer and have a special software on your computer and you put the floor plan in and you draw the walls in or you tell what the walls are made out of and you can estimate how many access points you need . But it's an estimate and it doesn't . It's not always right .
So the real time site surveys the better tool to verify what your coverage really is going to be .
So you said that you would do this after you install the access point . Yes , why would you not want to survey before you put any access points , so that way you don't have to move access points if you find that there's a coverage area ? That's not good .
So well , you're saying there's certain there has to be access points in there to do the survey , right ? So well , don't , don't don't don't .
And look , you're the wireless expert , not me , so I'll default to your judgment here . But if I was doing a , if a customer came to me and said , look , I want to put wireless in right , and I didn't know that , I didn't know all the DB losses that you just mentioned I'm kind of new doing wireless .
I might just take a wireless access point , put it like maybe on a tripod , and Then just put it where I think I'm want to put the access point and then do measurements on that , and then that way I don't have to move it after I install it .
That's the old school method was actually some guy had a stick and they would walk around and do a survey that way , really , and you have to have access points in there to do a survey . There's nothing there , there's no signal to read . But you know , if you wanted to put a couple access points up and then take some readings , you could do that as well .
I you know , because you it's line of sight a lot of times with these access points , depending what you get , ubiquity has , or Cisco , whoever you're gonna be using , rubah , they have different antennas . You're gonna put on different power settings . How high is it gonna be ? And that all affects the , the way the signal is broadcast in the environment , right ?
So in that theoretical survey we said earlier , you can put all that detail in the type of antennas that's being used , the height it's being put up on the wall and the intent is using of the directional or is it a , you know , an army , whatever ? It is lots of different options for you and then you .
But again , it's , it's an estimate with the software it's it's close , you get it , you know how many access points you need , but there's nothing that will replace doing a real-time survey .
Yeah , nothing beats real-time data . I mean it's kind of like when you look at fiber optic testing , right , the O2 dr is really just calculating the loss , but an optical loss test that is measuring the actual yes , it's not same kind of thing with the theoretical would be like the the O2 yard doing Measuring what it thinks it would be .
But you , like you said you know you might have a wall there and it might seem like it's a gypsum board wall , but if it's like an old landmark , you never know that might there might be that wire mesh behind that wall , which I would imagine that would kill the signal .
A little bit more than , yes , regular gypsum board wall ? Yes , definitely , metal is definitely a problem and newer construction they're using metal that I'll definitely reflect the signal , sometimes a lighting on glass to water .
So if you do a survey and there's no people there and and then you do a survey with people , people absorb Signal and that can adjust or change your survey as well .
Oh , I never even thought about . Yeah , about people . And that makes absolute sense because you know the church I used to go to a long time ago I was on the tech team and it never fail . We'd have the audio set up perfect during practice .
But as soon as you put bodies in the room it affected the audio , right , I never thought about that affecting wireless signals . You're absolutely right , because we're filled with water . Filled with water , water absorbed signal . Absolutely , that makes a lot of sense . I see I learned something new today . Yes , that's why I said you're a great instructor .
Yeah , you're great instructor .
¶ Wireless Survey and Signal Strength Requirements
So when you said the DB laws , you know what , if just what , would be a good DB range For an access point to be working ? What kind of numbers should the tech be looking for ?
so so like a negative , it's in the negative . So negative DB , so negative five . Let's say you're like touching that access point , you're right there , and then as you get low , you know a negative 100 is far away , right . So those are your , your different ranges . So we want to be and again I Want to say , negative , what I see ?
Negative 30 , negative 40 , negative 50 . You know those ranges there . You have good signals that we're doing high speed stuff . We're talking Wi-Fi 6e speeds . You know , which I just had installed in our office , we're getting like over a hundred to 200 Meg transfers here , compared to with older B and G stuff which is doing maybe 20 to 50 .
And your speeds , you know you want to have good signal strength . If you don't have good signal strength it's gonna cause problems . You , you get more retries . You don't have a strong enough signal . You have a lot of retries . It slows the network down , right , and that can also . We didn't even talk about noise yet .
Lots of different noise emitters out there too , microwave ovens . So I'm in my home office now and upstairs we have a microwave . We turn that microwave on . It'll come up and be shown on these devices . Well , microwave is there and it kills the signal a lot of times . Right , it slows my performance down .
But microwaves , bluetooth devices , cordless phones , spy cameras , gaming consoles like Xbox and PlayStation , wireless security systems , jammers that you can . You know you're not not that you're gonna buy a jammer on purpose , but people do buy jammers and cause problems . Spy cameras are really bad too , and they all can affect the performance of the wireless network .
Now these devices Like this one here , will show that type of stuff . It'll say , oh , microwaves running , expecting to show you the duty cycle . It'll show you the channels it's affecting , and it's intermittent , though the noise is not always on right . So what's nice about these tools ?
They could be left running for hours looking for these noise emitters , which is great , you already anticipated my next question .
I was just gonna ask you is there a way that you could leave it there to catch those Intermittent signals ? And when you , when you said , the cameras , I've got , I've got blink , wireless cameras literally surrounding my house , yeah , yeah , because we have a farm , so I would imagine that that would that would affect a wireless survey . Yes , yes .
So what are some of the key objectives that a technician is going to be trying to achieve that wireless survey ?
All right , so when doing a wireless survey With a handheld tool like this . This is the air check from net ally and this is the third generation one . I've been selling them from the beginning , when it was fluke right and they sold it off . Now that ally owns this .
So what you want to do is you put the floor plan in which I can actually want to share my screen . Okay , so , absolutely that , let me go to share screen . You should see on your screen the , the net ally tool that we're talking about , and it has this , has this air mapper feature which we're going to click . And now you see a floor plan .
So the floor plan , it could be entered in you , it could be a autocad , it could be a picture . You could draw it in a and some app and then put it in . So it's just something to give reference . And then there is some actual additional settings where you put in scale so it knows how big this drawing is . But what ? What we do here ?
When you start to serve , you're going to tell it where you're starting . So I'm going to hit start . I'm just take my finger and hit that cubicle there and I get a circle . So what you want to do , wherever you're starting the building is .
You tell it where you are and you hit that area and then walk to the edge of the circle and when it turns green , then you hit another area . I'm going to do this quickly . You cannot do this quickly in real life when doing a survey . You're going to walk very slowly through the environment . All right , I'm just going to show you highlight .
I'm putting these circles in and you're going to cover the whole floor with circles . Hopefully you can see that on your screen . Yep , and what you're doing it's scanning all the channels that are available for Wi-Fi . All right , as you're walking through this environment and there's no GPS right in the building .
So that's why I'm telling it where I'm going through the environment and once you've covered the whole floor , right , you cover this whole floor plan , which is going to take you hours and you can't do it in just 30 minutes unless it's a tiny space , but something in this space is going to take you , I would think , a couple hours .
Then it's going to be able to give you that heat map and showing you where you get good signal , bad signal , interference and so on . So , mike , the competitors out there , that I don't think they're as easy as this product is , I sell the software too . I've been selling that for 18 years . Air Magnet Survey or Pro , which was again , was Fluke .
Now it's that ally , way more complicated than this . You had to do a whole bunch of things before you got to this point . This is way simpler to use for a low voltage contractor . So they can add this . You know they're installing the cabling , they're installing the access points . Now they can do a survey .
Right , anyone could use this product to do this survey and the cost is a lot less than buying a software that you know . Software is like five grand , five to six grand , plus you had to buy a good laptop or tablet , let's say running Windows . And there's licensing fees too . With software my competitors they charge heavy licensing fees .
There's no licensing fee with this when you buy the product . You buy this tool , here it will . It's just you get the airmapper and you just start using it you know we would change your users . How much is that tool ? All right , so you're talking list price for the airmapper , excuse me , for the air check . It's like 4,500 bucks , 45 bucks . That's the list .
And that's a lifetime investment . That's not , like you said , a yearly you know licensing fee , like a lot of the software companies like to do nowadays .
Yes . Now I will say this you should get the extended warranty . Anything new that comes out you're covered . You know you would be able to download that and it would be updated . And firmware two is covered . So the extended warranty , yes , you are paying a little bit each year for that and I believe you can get a three year extended warranty on this .
You're not paying it every if you don't want to do that , but it covers every breaks , it swapped out , any problems , any additional features that come out for it . Also , I will say one other thing too . There are additional features that they give you with the extended warranty up in the cloud for filtering in these surveys .
So if you want all the bells and whistles , then you would want the extended warranty for additional filtering in link live . You don't have to have it , but it's nicer to have all those extra features .
So , looking back at our screen where we got the floor plan , do you know how many square feet that floor plan is that you've got there currently ?
No , I actually got this from Net Ally Engineering because I said give me a floor plan . I was doing a meeting so I didn't generate this floor plan on my own . But when I went through training , the guy that originally made all the network testers for Fluke developed this product right and he did .
When they released it they did this training and they took a picture of the . He went to Walmart and took a picture of that . There's like a map when you go in the Walmart for like exits and everything for fires . And he used that for his survey and training . All the salespeople right , okay , for this product , and you could just use a picture like that .
And he walked around and there was . There's an amazing thing there was a lots of access points in Walmart , also a lot of Bluetooth .
This can do Bluetooth site surveying as well , so I haven't run into it that much , but for a lot of stores they use Bluetooth and so this can do that as well , yeah , I used to do that a lot with when I used to be an estimator .
If the customer didn't have a floor plan , all you do is find the fire evacuation floor plan and then I would . This is back before . Everybody had , you know , smartphones on them all the time . So I would take that go , take it to the Xerox machine , copy it , put the original one back on .
I used to use that as my floor plan to do the estimate with them . So that's actually , you know , that's a great idea that you can take that , input it into the device and then do your survey based on that device . That's pretty slick .
Yeah .
So , after you've done the floor and you've done all your green circles right , yes , yes , what's the next step ?
Oh , so you would upload it to link live . So if I go back here , go back to airmapper , and I hit stop and it has that little square box upper right corner and I can go and I could save it locally . I could save it to the software that you could still the survey or pro but I could store it up to the cloud .
So if I go , let me go share that screen . So this is link live , if I share it correctly . All right , do you see that it says link live on your screen ?
It's coming up there . It is yes , it's up now . All right , all right .
So this is the free web portal where all the reports would go to All right and and you would see the heat map here Also , what I have on this screen , before I find the heat map , it does topology , so I love showing this off . So , after you did your survey , it actually will do a topology . Have everything's connected on the wireless network too .
So that's sweet . So I could drill into it and look at these devices that found and show what access points are hooked up to . So that's and that's part of this . You know you get a survey , but this is an extra right and you could drill into these devices and see more on these devices that you found during the survey .
So is this what they call the heat map , or is that a different map ?
It's topology . This is not the heat map . Let me find All right , you should see a floor plan . Yes , with blue circles . Good , I've just turned on all these options here . Let's just make it simpler . I'll turn to all these . Let's show path . You see the arrows as you're walking . It shows the direction the technician was walking .
Again , you're going to walk very slow and go in each cubicle , go in each room . This was just a little one and they stopped it . It gives you signal strength , shows the dimensions .
After you did your scale and heat map , the circles are showing signal strength and I could sort by noise signal noise ratio , co-channel interference , adjacent channel interference , transfer rates , things like that . So the different ways I can look at stuff .
Right , so much I understand this , Dan . Anything inside that circle would mean that if I had a device , a wireless device , it would work .
Anything within that circle and it wasn't a full survey showing what our signal strength is and what we're getting from the access point . So , yeah , we're getting signal . It should work . We're getting really strong signal , negative 19 . So it is really good signal . Access point location too .
After you did your survey , it'll show you where all the access points are .
It locates them Can you use this to figure out where to put the access points .
So yes and no . So let me stop sharing a second . So let me go back to you so I can see you , so you can put access points up and then see what your coverage is after doing it and then if you need more Right .
¶ Wireless Access Point Coverage and Surveys
So for me , if I didn't want to spend the money on the theoretical survey software , that's what I would do . I'd put access points up , see what my coverage is and I don't have a good enough coverage , then add more access points .
If you want to save time , you could spend a couple thousand dollars the theoretical survey software and get a better estimate where to place access points . Then put them up . Then you can come back with doing the real-time survey and see if that's correct and if you have to add any more .
The smaller contractor is probably going to go with the first way Put access points up , seeing where he thinks they will work , then walk around with a tool like this and then , if we don't have enough coverage , add more , because then he doesn't want to spend another two thousand dollars on application software which he's going to have to pay license fees on top
of that .
Right , I would have to imagine that if somebody does wireless as one of their , one of the things that they offer as a company , there's got to be some skills that they've built up from doing that , so they should be able to . Kind of well , we should .
I would think if they said we need a wireless access point there and one over in the kitchen and one over the hallway , that they're going to be probably 95% right . They might find a little spot where they didn't think about because maybe there might have been , like I said , some unusual circumstance .
But I would think most time you have to do the survey they're probably going to be adding very little if their skills are doing wireless surveys .
Now , believe it or not , you're supposed to do a survey a couple of times a year in these buildings that you're installing it because it's dynamic , things change . I added a bookshelf here with paper . Paper is horrible , it blocks signal . So when buildings , things move , things change , you should go offer doing another survey .
That's your charging billable time walking doing that survey . And do we still have the good coverage ? So this is a residual service . Yes , yeah , and that's nothing new . It's been like that forever . Most guys don't know about it or don't do it , and so it's recommended highly to do it , especially in hospitals too .
Oh , yes , like I deal a lot with memorial stone catering over the years , I sold them a lot of equipment and other hospitals and they have all these wireless devices and they come in , they take your temperature , they take your blood pressure , they do all these different things in different rooms and that's all going up into their network .
And a lot of times , if we don't have good signal , it's not getting transferred over or there's a problem . It's sticking to the access point all the way down at the hall . For some reason I'm not getting out the data . Well , why is that ? Well , we can verify these things . This actually can mimic other devices .
I could put the I forget the name of it off top of my head , but we can mimic , like , an iPhone 14 or a Samsung Note or a medical device , and that you put those settings into this box and mimicking those devices and we can see how we're transferring from one access point to the other , all right .
And if we're not working , well , if we're sticking taxes points down at the end of the hall , well , we have problems . Right Now . Is that something most contractors can fix ? It's usually the IT guy because he has to adjust settings in the network right , increase or decrease signal strength .
But we can verify we have issues and problems and show them and give them reports .
So this will save detailed reports Would you use this to measure a wireless access point that , let's say , you're doing an office building somewhere ? Right , I'll use the Pentagon as an example , because I've done a lot of work in the Pentagon over the year . Okay , so in the very center of the Pentagon , there used to be this cafe .
It used to be called Ground Zero Cafe , but I think it's gone now . Okay , but let's say that they want to have wireless . People have access to their wireless devices in that courtyard . Right , because you mentioned that it can be affected during different times of the year . Right ? Foilage would that affect it ? Like trees with leaves ?
Yes , yeah , I mean foil . If metal is being hung in the building or some type of something's changed in the building some fabric , that's metal , you know something's different it can definitely affect the quality of service , right ? No ?
no , what I meant was I didn't mean aluminum foil . I meant , let's say , I do two surveys . Right , I do one survey in the middle of the summer , the trees have all kinds of leaves and stuff on , but then I do another one in the middle of the winter , because all the leaves are falling on the ground , right , wouldn't that be ?
So you would get a different reading .
It's possible . I work with the Parks Department in New York City . They never said anything about the leaves causing issues . They said more about water . Getting near water adjusts or affects the signal . I don't know about leaves on pine needles or maple leaves or whatever .
It is water in there I would think it could block signal , but I haven't had experience with that .
So , after the technician's done their survey with your scanner , what documentation would they give to the customer and what would be a good way to explain to the customer ? Here's what you're looking at Because test results with regular testers .
Technicians can understand it pretty easily , but if you hand that to a customer they don't understand the red line and the gap and all that other stuff .
So what would be some . It is a detailed report . It is a multiple page report and you could have how you walk through it . That heat map will be on there . You could have topology on there . You could make it as detailed as you want . That's all done on that link live page that we were looking at before . It's not . They give it to just anyone .
They're not going to understand it . So it's something that you could . We have to talk to them about and show them what you found in the report and why you have to make more adjustments , tweak things , maybe get different antennas or add access points to it , because they might not understand it . It's not as simple as pass-fail .
The one engineer from Fluke said Wi-Fi is the wild west . There is no standard . We talk standards . We says cable certifiers . I have a cable certifier over there that tests with standard when talking Wi-Fi . The original Fluke engineers who actually still make this product and they work with Net Ally . They set up parameters here for pass , fail or warnings .
Let's say you can adjust them , but there is no standard with this stuff . There's recommendations on what levels you should be at . It's based on what the customer is trying to do . It might take help . If there is issues , I could help explain a report or we can get Net Ally engineers to help explain a report .
But just giving to someone might be difficult for them to understand .
Right , that makes sense Because it's like the cable certification results . They can be confusing to the person who's not well versed in nearing cross-talking , foreign cross-talking .
But it does say pass fail , though .
Yes , keep it simple , something I don't remember . The other S stands for Right , but you're right , that's what customers want to see . They want to see the big green check or the big green pass . They don't want to see that X or the fail and stuff like that Right .
Let me ask you a question about wireless access points , because , again , you're the wireless expert , not me . I know this is probably going to vary by manufacturing , by model . Generally speaking , for a commercial office , how much area does one access point cover ?
An access point without any obstruction go like 300 feet . There's no 300 feet unless you're in a big factory or something . We're in a building , we're in my office or whatever . If you have walls all over and upstairs . Again , it depends on the medium how far that signal will go .
If you have a long range , I like the long range access points , it gives you more signal , stronger signal . It depends , again , what access points you're deploying too .
What makes it a long range , is that the power .
It is . It's a stronger- .
Is it the antenna ?
It is a stronger unit . The charger , the AC adapter for it is a much more robust product . It gets hotter . It's definitely a beast compared to the older units that we were selling . They're out there .
¶ Tips for Conducting a Wireless Survey
The reason I ask that question is because , being a former estimator , I'm always crunching numbers in my head . It drives my wife crazy . We'll go to the movie theater and I will count the ceiling tiles and figure out the square footage of the room . Then I'll count the number of seats in the room and I'll divide the number of seats into .
I'm OCD , I get it . But the reason I ask that question is because I can see somebody new listening to this show , wanting to know okay , what's a good baseline to start at .
If I got a floor plan that's 10,000 square feet and you said on average , and I know that it depends on what all those stuff is around but if it can serve 300 square feet , that's going to give you at least a minimal number to start off with . You might need more . If it's an industrial plan , you got a lot of steel .
You might need more because it's got concrete walls . But at least it gives you a starting point .
Yeah , it's each building's unique . It depends when it was made with brick , brick and stone or it's made with just metal and sheet rock . It depends .
What about ? Because we talked about metal , we talked about gypsum board . Yeah , what kind of signal loss could we expect in a building that's wood , stud and maybe has plywood instead of gypsum board ? Is that going to be the same kind of loss as gypsum board ? It's going to be close .
It's going to be a little more loss . It's a little denser material , I think . But sheet rock is like 3 dB . But I'm trying to think back with the software . When you do the theoretical software surveys , it actually has a list of all these materials in there . So you pick sheet rock , it's 3 dB .
If it's wood , it's something else , a metal door , something else . What's interesting you're able to on the software , not on this product , if it's not listed some material . Let's say you can actually add a metal door . Let's say you could put an X point here , take a reading and add that number and then it'll have it as a default .
Let's say , the next time you do it . So you're able with software , you're able to add values if it's not listed .
So I mean I'm always thinking about safety because I was a safety officer for many years and I lost an uncle to a safety ax on the job site ax . So safety is always very close to my heart and I know a lot of people are probably hearing this , thinking oh , this is pretty simple , pretty easy , but we always got to be thinking about safety .
Is there any kind of special safety things that they may need to keep in the back of their head when they're going to go do a wireless survey ?
So the only thing that comes to mind is you're looking at this thing . You're walking through a building like Costco or a big warehouse and there's other machines running around you . You know , maybe have a safety vest on . You're not doing anything crazy , you're not climbing up high or anything . You're just walking through the corridors . You're taking these readings .
So just be aware of where you are and what's around you while you're doing it , because I know you're looking here . You're hitting the circles . You don't want to walk out in front of a forklift or something or a moving vehicle . If you're in a tarmac doing an airport , let's say so . Just got to use common sense .
And that makes sense too , because you want to measure it at the level where somebody's going to be interacting with the network . So that makes absolute sense , absolutely . So yeah , high visibility vest , maybe even have a spotter , if you can get the customer to pay extra , that's for like a busy environment , like you said , like a Costco or something like that .
You know , because people in shopping centers they're not paying attention to where they're walking .
One other thing I just remembered . So the battery on these things are great , they're great batteries , but it may take you more than a couple hours to get it done , so I would recommend having a battery backup .
They sell we have a part number , I don't know , off top of my head it's like a battery you'd use for your laptop or your phone and that could plug into the USB-C connection on the side here and charge this thing as you're going .
So if you're going low on battery for whatever reason , you know it's taking longer , just because you don't want to stop , you know , and then plug this in to get a charge . You want to keep going . So your battery , your battery , is not a lot of money at all .
How long does one battery charge last so ?
it should last . It should last about two to three hours , right , two to three hours , but it might take you longer depending on how big it is . So having a battery backup , just to plug it in and give you more juice , is definitely recommended .
So , going back , think about that brand new technician walking around this doing his first wireless survey . What are some common challenges that that person may come encounter ?
Well , you want to walk slow , right . You want to have the floor planted here . You might not be able to get into rooms , which is fine , you can come back . So you can skip those rooms , do what you can and come back when they're empty . But you want to be able to hit everything so you get a complete survey . You know you want to walking in a .
If you're in an office environment , you know again , people are like what are you doing here ? You know you're doing a survey . They might not want to ask .
Where that vest , where that yellow vest ? They won't ask , they won't just assume you're there . Where that yellow safety vest ? They'll assume you belong there .
That's true , being a little , they're using the product there . Maybe they're not . You know they're not sure what they're doing , so they're a little uncomfortable with it . So you know , we let me actually I didn't tell you this the website is fantastic . There's lots of webinars and lots of training videos on these types of products .
Plus , besides having , if you were a , buy it from my company cable and connections we would train you so you know it really well and lots of webinars on different scenarios too , on doing industrial sites or other enterprise commercial sites on there too . It's a very , very intense . They're usually an hour long . They're very good and they're all free .
Make sure you send me the links . Make sure you send me the links after this , after this show , and I'll make sure I put those in the description and I want to watch them Because , like I said , I'm okay with wireless .
I'm not your wireless expert , I'm a knuckle dragon cable guy , but you know , yeah , I definitely want to watch those and I get asked questions about wireless all the time and I usually defer them to a subject matter expert , somebody you know , like you , because , yeah , I don't do that day in and day out right , it's got an Android operating system .
It's like using a phone , so it's very easy for everyone to use . And so many options and features in it . Right , this is strictly wireless we're talking today , but there's also a wired and Wi-Fi version . You see , it's a little bit thicker , right ? This does everything for an IT guy . Right , for a networking guy .
So it's just the breadth of product they have is really amazing . It's great product .
Let me go back to the example that you gave a moment ago when you talked about , let's say , you couldn't get into a room , right ? So for me , that tells me as a , when I'm talking to the customer , let them know look , I'm going to need access to every area .
So communicate to the customer , you need to access all these areas , so that way , if you have to get the keys or they have to make a range which you can get to them .
But my question is so let's say that I find one room that's locked for whatever reason , the person who got the email or the memo just ignored it and they locked in it because they went to lunch , right ?
So I'm doing my wire map everywhere else and , let's say , I finish up in the southeast corner , now walk all the way back to that room , but I'm not testing all the way back . Does the mapping program know that I'm in that spot or do I have to keep hitting the map till I work back to ?
that room . So yeah , it's does . There's no GPS in the building . It doesn't know where you are right , Because there's GPS doesn't work . So you got to tell it where you are as you're walking in that environment . So I would just say , keep the survey running and just walk back and try to get to that room . That's the best . That's a good question .
So if you say you're going to set the far end , can I just walk back and then scan that ? You probably can . You probably can . But it is nothing wrong with keeping it on just scanning as you go back to , but it does save time .
If you're not doing that , you can just you can jog back there and look at that and just take a scan of that room too and add it Right , it probably won't work , I don't see why it ?
wouldn't work . So those green circles that when you're hitting the button and it was when you scan in this frequency is what we were standing . How big is that circle ?
Yeah , so it's . I want to say it's probably like 10 , 15 feet at the most , okay , and you're walking slow and after you hit it you're going to walk to the edge of the circle , wait till it turns green and then keep moving . And that's what's the delay , because it's scanning all these channels . It doesn't scan all the channels in just one second .
It's going to take five or 10 seconds at least to scan all the channels . Right , and that's why it's going to take so long to cover a large building , because you got to walk very slow and take the scans .
That could help on the estimating side as well , because if you know that it's , every time you push a button it's going to scan a 15 square foot or 15th circumference circle .
Again , mathematically you can calculate the square footage of the floor that you're working on divided by the number each scan can do , and that's going to tell you how many times you got to push that button and then you can assign a labor value to that . If you said 15 seconds , I would probably do .
I would probably do one minute per push button because that gives me time to do it , let it do its thing and then walk slowly to the next spot . So that could help me build up my estimate that's pretty cool .
And then , when I was playing with this and got introduced to this , I did my office right and I learned how it worked that way . So anyone who would buy equipment like this , that's what I would tell them set up a floor plan in your office , your home , and then see how it is .
You cover that whole floor and you get an idea of how long it's going to take you Right .
Excellent , excellent Dan . What a great show man . You're just a wealth of knowledge man . I appreciate you coming on .
I enjoy selling , I enjoy talking about these tools . I feel like I've grown up with these tools . I feel I helped develop them to some extent because I had the engineers come in . We went through all different end users here where I am in the Northeast , and then they added more .
They said what they liked and what they didn't like and they added those features . So I felt in a little way I helped develop it . You have ownership .
Yeah , you have ownership In a little way . Absolutely , absolutely .
That's it for this episode of today's podcast . We hope you were able to learn something . Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content . Also , leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications . Until next time , be safe .