How-To by: Audio Engineer Justin McClellanOver the past couple weeks I have run into what seemed like a mystery to RF coordinators. This quandary came from trying to figure out how to coordinate production radios and incorporate their frequencies into the master RF coordination. This challenge has been presented to me on my upcoming show.
My personal experience with radio coordination has been that we depended on the radio vendor to take care of this. As with most of the techs I know, I like to have full control of my coordination so I contacted some of the top RF coordinators that I know for some assistance. It turns out that they always use the radio vendor to do the coordination for them. It looks like we are going to have to continue to give this part of the coordination to someone else.
Jason Eskew, one of the top technicians for Professional Wireless Systems, responded today with the proper process for this type of coordination. It’s pretty simple. You must have a Certified Part 90 FCC Coordinator do the coordination for you, then get a license for the frequencies given.
These coordinators are the only people allowed to do coordination in this 450mhz-470mhz spectrum for “Industrial Radios.” The FCC website also states that frequencies must be submitted 10 days before use. Something we need to be very cognizant of. Thankfully, our vendors usually take care of this for us. Not only can the vendors handle this for us but Jason recommended that we use PCIA. (www.pcia.com)
So what do we do once we have the frequencies? He gave me that answer as well. Within the Intermod Analysis Software (IAS) you can duplicate the HME System 800 model and rename it Motorola. Here are some Screenshots of the process. It is recommended that you put these in a separate zone from the rest of your wireless.
I hope that the mystery has been solved for coordinating with 2-way radios. Although we wont be doing the actual coordination for the radios ourselves, this gives us a lot more information to use going into shows in the future.
