ERRCS (Radio Repeater for new building)

jeepinmatt

jeepinmatt

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Company I work for is building a new 22k sqft tilt wall warehouse and code requires sufficient radio coverage for emergency responders. The contractor had one company come and do the testing, and they just so happen to also sell and install repeater systems, so much to (not) my surprise, the building failed the test. The solution of course is a $45k system.

I know alot of you guys know a lot more about this kinda stuff than I do, so I guess I am asking for advice. Should we get another test by a more independent party? Is there another/better/different option? Does the price sound ridiculous? Can we just sign a waiver that says it'll be aight?
@LBZ_Duramax @CLRracer @JSJJ388 @HANO et al

Here's the test results if that is helpful:

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How far along is the building? Could someone from the FD/EM/inspections come and test their radios? I know we have walked through buildings under construction before testing signal, but I don't know any of the technical stuff behind it. As a skeptical person in general I would get another test/quote, but as a FF anything that can make interior communication better is worth its weight in gold.

Duane
 
But I have a stupid question now.... Say the building is on fire. FD comes and is poking around in a smoky building, and the the power blows out....and the repeater dies cause there's no electricity, or it's comprised/damaged in said fire. In an emergency, they are depending on the infrastructure (repeater) in a damaged/burning/whatever building that just might lose power. What then?
 
jeepinmatt said:
I know alot of you guys know a lot more about this kinda stuff than I do, so I guess I am asking for advice. Should we get another test by a more independent party? Is there another/better/different option? Does the price sound ridiculous? Can we just sign a waiver that says it'll be aight?
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They're pretty much all going to fail. That's why the test is required - because 90% of the time there's no coverage. The price doesn't sound out of line. I would have guessed $25-50k.
 
kaiser715 said:
But I have a stupid question now.... Say the building is on fire. FD comes and is poking around in a smoky building, and the the power blows out....and the repeater dies cause there's no electricity, or it's comprised/damaged in said fire.
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Rated shafts, rooms, backup power, etc
 
I've never heard of this. And what system is required depends on what band is in use. Pretty much all of your urban and suburban areas at least using P25 VIPER PHASE 1 systems, but a lot ore using PHASE 2 trunked systems. I would think it would be up to the EM agency to ensure they have coverage. But 45k for a P25P2 system is cheap IMHO.
 
My Fire Marshal said he ran into the same thing not too long ago with a giant indoor personal storage building. Communication company came and tested and the whole building failed the test. We brought our radios in and tested throughout the building and we didn’t have any noticeable loss of performance. Our Fire Marshal approved it and signed off on the structure. He stated it was retroactively added to the code sometime around 2015. Our FM also states Horry County, the giant county just above us, does the same thing. They don’t go by the testing company, they just test it themselves using their own radios…If it works they pass it, if it doesn’t, then they make them add it. It can be done after the fact pretty easily in some of these large commercial occupancies. If your local inspector seems a bit sus about it, let me know and I can put him in touch with our guy so he can give him his interpretation of the code.

I’ll send it to my comms vendor to see if your pricing is in range.
 
This brings up a question I have, on Comms. I keep seeing a commercial on TV by Verizon. O, they show all these fire trucks responding to a large fire, & fireman running around. They have a Command post set up, & they keep talking about how they depend on their Comms & 5G ! What has happened in the past 20 years since I was in the Fire Service? Every thing we used was Motorola. And as far as I knew it was Nationwide. We did have the trunked system, which was pretty New, then. The Verizon commercial, makes out like all the communication goes through their 5G system.
 
Motorola and Kenwood are the big players in PS coms now with most everyone going to P25. What you are seeing now is several telco providers trying to interface cell phones into PS Coms using their systems and software.

My county is on the state P25 system for fire dispatch (simulcast on UHF) and fireground but because it's owned by the Highway Patrol and subject to their whims in addition to the fragility of the tower system, we still have the low band backup as well as working on a conventional UHF system that we can rely on when a tower goes down (which is more often than Motorola will tell you).
 
rodney eppes said:
This brings up a question I have, on Comms. I keep seeing a commercial on TV by Verizon. O, they show all these fire trucks responding to a large fire, & fireman running around. They have a Command post set up, & they keep talking about how they depend on their Comms & 5G ! What has happened in the past 20 years since I was in the Fire Service? Every thing we used was Motorola. And as far as I knew it was Nationwide. We did have the trunked system, which was pretty New, then. The Verizon commercial, makes out like all the communication goes through their 5G system.
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Biggest thing with cellular comms is AT&T has firstnet (with Band 14, provided by our govt.) which provides access to a band mainly for first responders, so when other networks are jammed up, because of major events or disasters, you have a band you can overflow to for communication that the general public cant use. While still having access to all other commercial bands.

Verizon has Frontline which gives priority routing, access and preemption to public safety agencies and users. Verizon operates on Band 13, and you’re kind of integrated into their commercial traffic, but if you’re number is in the system during a major event when the lines are jammed it will give you preferential access. What they wont tell you is there are tiers of access to the front of the line. I think as a Chief and local emergency manager, I’m in a second tier. State lawmakers, elected officials are all tier one if they’re utilizing the service. I have to register my number with the state and feds as well.

I use Verizon for our Dept. just because their network and 5G is the most robust, and if we have a major storm here on the coast where towers are knocked out, I can request THOR and THORS Hammer, or their mobile trailers for network access. But now with Starlink etc. We’ve got a number of options out there for communication. But even during our worst storms I haven’t lost comms with Verizon. While transparent to the end user, I can tell you Myrtle Beach Bike Week and Country Music Fest, priority access, routing and preemption works.



Portable and Mobile Radio wise, we’re on Palmetto 800, a P25 Phase II system



(THOR & THORS Hammer)


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Additional context that I just received today:
"...had a conversation with the Fire Marshal today. She advised that they do not perform the Radio Repeater Test, they do not possess the equipment. Per the attached Manual from Mecklenburg County’s Fire Marshal’s Office, the building owner is responsible for demonstrating that the “existing radio signal levels inside the building meet the minimum criteria”. She needs to see documentation that the signals are better than -95db inside the building or else she will not allow the building to be occupied."
 
....looks like they're going to go the hard route on it. I knew ultimately it was going to be up to the AHJ, and you never know which way they're going to go on it. Frustrating, I know.
 
HANO said:
....looks like they're going to go the hard route on it. I knew ultimately it was going to be up to the AHJ, and you never know which way they're going to go on it. Frustrating, I know.
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Oh...in Mecklenburg County you KNOW alright...
 
Dang it man! When I was in the VFD, Mecklenburg county was on Motorola used Lo band, then moved up to High band, then 800. The County VFD's needed more compatibility with Charlotte Fire, Police, Medic, & statewide, it became Trunked. I did figure that out, being I was my Department's Equipment Officer. Twenty years into the future, & I'm like "WTF"?
God Of War Reaction GIF by MOODMAN
 
Ron said:
Oh...in Mecklenburg County you KNOW alright...
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This explains it all lol. Great State of Mecklenburg. I know when we built our new central high school and career and technical education building, it wasn't discovered that there was no radio service in the building until well after it was constructed. IIRC they did end up buying repeaters, and I want to say it was some sort of grant that purchased it? I wasn't part of that stuff.

I haven't been active on this forum for a long time. Fun fact, I quit my stupid county job like 4 years ago. I'm a paramedic now, also serve on the town's fire department. 99.9% of the buildings we go into here don't have radio service, including new ones. We generally get along fine.
 
Macdaddy4738 said:
I haven't been active on this forum for a long time. Fun fact, I quit my stupid county job like 4 years ago. I'm a paramedic now, also serve on the town's fire department. 99.9% of the buildings we go into here don't have radio service, including new ones. We generally get along fine.
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Welcome back old timer
 
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