OTA (over-the-air) testing provides field technicians with the ability to monitor hard-to-reach pole-top base stations. Traditionally, the repair process for pole-top base stations entailed pulling down the failed base station, then installing a new one. The failed base station was then returned to the manufacturer or repair depot for service. If a base station was determined to be healthy (a no trouble found (NTF) event), then the cost of the process was incurred unnecessarily. OTA testing provides information about the health of the base station, thereby improving the likelihood that a correct decision will be made with regard to the base station. The result is fewer NTFs and elimination of their associated costs.
If you choose to measure EVDO performance over the air with an antenna, then additional setup is required, as explained in the setup section. The instrument needs a timing reference in order to determine PN Offset and timing errors. This reference comes from the base station GPS when it is connected to the instrument, or it can be recovered from GPS when a GPS antenna is connected.
From the OTA menu, press the
Pilot Scan submenu key to display the nine strongest pilots, the PN codes, Ec/Io, Tau, Pilot Power, Channel Power, and Pilot dominance (
Figure: “EVDO OTA Pilot Scan”).
From the OTA menu, press the
Multipath submenu key to display six channels of multipath parameters, including Ec/Io, Tau, Channel Power, and Multipath Power (
Figure: “EVDO OTA Multipath”).