User's Manual

Personnel Alert: Base Station
Area System Planning
Prior to configuring the base station, an area system plan
must be developed. To determine the particular requirements
of your system, complete the following sections:
Single or Multiple Stations
To determine if single or multiple base stations are required,
the overall area must be known. Each base station is
designed to accurately broadcast to a radius of 45 metres
(150 ft.). The base station can broadcast to a radius of
150 metres (500 ft.) across open terrain and flat areas.
Each base station can accurately broadcast to and track up
to 256 badges. Use the following guidelines to determine the
system requirements.
Area and Radio Frequency (RF) Coverage
It is necessary to initially determine how large of an area
each base station will be broadcasting to. The base station
operates on the
• 902-928 MHz unlicensed radio band, and
• is subject to federal regulations that restrict RF to
transmit power to a maximum of 1 Watt (30dBm) or less.
Note
Radio link and capacity can be affected and
reduced by radio interference from other wireless
sources outside of the Personnel Alert system, as
well as other base stations.
The base station transmitter default setting is set just below
the 1 Watt maximum limit. The badges transmit at a fixed RF
power level of approximately 50 mW (17 dBm).
Systems without a sufficient number of base stations can
experience “coverage holes” where communication between
the base station and the badges is not reliable, therefore
placing personnel at possible risk.
To resolve the challenge of adequate coverage, use a
honeycomb pattern system. Refer to Figure 19.
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