Case Study - Radio Site
Radio customers with base stations on top of a popular council block of flats were suffering interference from other base stations on the same block of flats.
The council, who owned the block of flats, were not being helpful, and were not interested in resolving the interference issues. The seperate owners of the radio equipment could not agree on any form of a solution, and the interference was affecting Blue Light services.
The Maxxwave Solution
Maxxwave were initially approached by one of the Blue Light services, and attended site to investigate. What we found was a number of base stations, all located within different rooms on the building. Some were in lift motor rooms, others in plant rooms, and others in outdoor cabins on the roof. All the base stations used different antennas, which had obviously been placed such that they were as far apart from each other as possible. The equipment was all relatively modern.
We first performed an audit of all equipment on site. It was identified that there were three main, competing, radio dealers with equipment on top of the building. The next stage therefore was to contact these radio dealers to make them aware of our intentions and to try to arrange a meeting with all parties on site.
The technical solution was simple - install a Maxxwave 15m Heavy Duty Slimline mast on the roof of the building, with separated transmit and recieve antennas. For the transmitters, install a multicombining system, and for the recieve antennas, install a communal recieve amplifier system. However, the hard part was convincing the dealers to invest in such a system.
At the initial meeting, only two of the three dealers attended. One was very co-operative, and the second was somewhat reluctant. However, both agreed that there was interference both being generated and recieved by their equipment. It was decided to erect a temporary mast, which both dealers would use, to demonstrate the benefits. Within hours, we had two of the three dealers convinced, and interference was considerably reduced.
The third radio dealer, however, was not prepared to co-operate. We then arranged a meeting with the local council, who owned the site, who were sympathetic to the problems, and simply wanted a resolution. It was agreed that Maxxwave would become managing agents of the site, and that the third company would have to either co-operate or vacate the site.
Maxxwave therefore installed the permenant mast, along with an equipment cabin on the roof large enough to accommodate all base stations. This made the installation tidy and organised. The interference was fully resolved, and eventually the third radio dealer accepted that this was a good choice.
Through our marketing campaigns, we managed to secure additional site sharers for the council, thereby increasing their annual income from the site by over £15k.
Because we had been made managing agents of the site, we managed to fund all the improvements from the revenue generated by the new site sharers. Therefore in the end none of the existing site sharers had to pay a single penny for any of the work carried out.