RF coverage verification issues in public safety communications

The impact of data collection and analysis methods are shown in coverage acceptance testing for land mobile radio systems. The impact of equipment sensitivity on the statistics is demonstrated. Alternative analysis methods and the impact of selecting a second sample in failed tiles are examined. An approach to understanding the underlying statistical distributions is presented. By taking several median signal levels in each tile and using the mean or median of that population for each tile to determine its pass/fail status, the central value of the pass rate distribution is obtained. This is more robust and is preferable. These approaches could improve the consistency of the results of coverage acceptance testing in civilian, Federal and military radio installations.