RSSI in Motorola trunked digital system

[SCPD]

In a motorola trunked digital 800 system, using Astro XTS5000 portables, can anyone tell me what a good, fair, poor and critically poor RSSI value would be? I'm told 100 and above is good, but 70 might still work well. I'm looking for a citable source on this material, can't find one on the internet yet.

My testing has revealed that I can actually get some reception with the RSSI as low as the high 30's, but the quality is somewhat garbled.

Also, what exactly is the RSSI? I know it's a reference number, but how do you convert it to dB's?

Thanks in advance...

Tom in Florida.

 

[SCPD]

RSSI is Received Signal Strength Indicator

A more appropriate measure for digital signals is BER or Basic Error Rate.

BER takes into account interference and other factors.

For example, you could have a high RSSI caused by a nearby transmitting site that is actually interfering the with desired (but weak) signal.

-rick

 

[N_Jay]

In a motorola trunked digital 800 system, using Astro XTS5000 portables, can anyone tell me what a good, fair, poor and critically poor RSSI value would be? I'm told 100 and above is good, but 70 might still work well. I'm looking for a citable source on this material, can't find one on the internet yet.

My testing has revealed that I can actually get some reception with the RSSI as low as the high 30's, but the quality is somewhat garbled.

Also, what exactly is the RSSI? I know it's a reference number, but how do you convert it to dB's?

Thanks in advance...

Tom in Florida.

Tom,

Now you have me worried.

It sounds like you have been assigned to a noble but misguided endever.

I would take the time to learn enough to explain to your managment why they need to contract this task to someone with the tools and experiance to prove what you suspect.

I am guessing this is about the transition of the State of Florida system from Mot to M/A-COM. I would not hazard a guess as to which you are trying to prove is better or worse, but would hate to be the one to submit "eveidence" that is going to be shreaded by the experts on one side or the other.

 

[SCPD]

Nope, not at all. Read the other post in the M/A-COM trunked forum and it explains it all. We have an unusual situation of being smack-dab in the middle of two trunked systems, one M/A-COM (Ericsson) and one Motorola. I am NOT doing a side-by-side comparison. Just checking one's reading and then the other's at the same locations. I realize that RSSI is a reference number and not dB's. I'm not gonna be interpreting the data, I was just wondering about RSSI vs dB's, that's all.

So, please don't worry...

Tom

 

[SCPD]

Oh, forgot one thing: Friday, our administrative Deputy Chief told me that the folks that did the outside drive-by study of the M/A-COM system (referenced earlier in that topic area) were told what we're doing and acually want to see our numbers... I'll let you know what they say. If they or anyone else blows us off, then "bon débarras" as the french say...

Tom B.