System Manual

EkoTek System Installation and Configuration Manual

9261-8173 issue: 8 Page 18

floor above or below, giving an inaccurate location for the device. Careful

positioning of repeaters is therefore required when wooden or mezzanine floors

are in use if location is important.

In order to establish which floor the pager or call fob is on, it is important that

repeaters are placed at the entrances to the bottom and top of stairwells. The

actual placement of the repeater may not necessarily be in the stairwell itself,

but may be in a room leading to the stairwell, in order to provide sufficient radio

separation between repeaters.

Corridors

In long corridors it may be prudent to place a repeater in the middle of the

corridor as well as at the ends, to ensure robust radio connection in the mesh.

Room placements

If locating in individual rooms, place the repeater as central to the room as

practical. Placing it on the edge of the room may allow sufficient strength of

location signal to pass through the wall to be seen as a beacon by a pager or

call fob in the adjacent room or corridor.

It is however highly unlikely that the signal would pass through more than one

wall.

In large rooms such as warehouses, it will be necessary to place more than

one repeater to ensure adequate radio coverage.

Between buildings

If buildings are sufficiently close together, radio signals may pass between

them. However, if for example a vehicle passes between the buildings, it may

cause signal deterioration and the repeater to lose contact with its parent. For

this reason on a multi-storey building, it would be better to force the repeaters

on the first floor to form the link between buildings. This is achieved by setting

the downstream link of the parent on the first floor of one building to be a

specific channel and the upstream link of the repeater on the first floor of the

adjacent building to be also the same channel (unless using SERs).

Mesh structure

A repeater can only have one parent at a time; however, the principle of a

mesh network is that if a connection fails the repeater can search for an

alternative parent in order to rejoin the network. If it is unable to locate a

suitable new parent, its portion of the network will be broken. It is therefore

important to ensure that any repeater has multiple potential paths to the hub.

4. The survey unit

The survey unit is designed to assist in the placement of repeaters and aid in trouble

-shooting the network. It has several modes of operation, described below. The

▲▼buttons scroll through the menus. A long press on the button will switch the

survey pager on and off.

When taking measurements always hold the pager by the left hand side to avoid

masking the signal; the pager’s antenna is located on the right hand side. Also avoid

placing your body between the pager and the measured device, as this will attenuate

the signal.