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HomeMy WebLinkAboutRESPONSE - RFP - P929 RADIO COMMUNICATION STUDY FOR UTILITIES (2)A. Description of the Firm Pericle Communications Company is a consulting engineering firm specializing in wireless communications. The company is named after Pericle Rock, a rock formation on Pikes Peak popular with climbers. We have five employees, four are electrical engineers. Founded in 1992, Pericle is a privately held corporation with headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The company provides consulting engineering services to local governments and to the cellular, PCS, broadcast, aviation, and utility industries. Our skills include the following: • Specifying performance standards and preparing requests for proposal (RFP) • Analyzing radio coverage using state-of-the-art computer modeling • Collecting radio signal measurements using drive-test equipment • Specifying, designing and managing indoor wireless projects, including IEEE 802.11 • Solving co-site radio frequency interference issues • Predicting and measuring radio frequency power densities to prevent personnel hazards • Designing point-to-point microwave links • Design and fabrication of specialized measurement systems Pericle owns a suite of software tools and test equipment to help perform these tasks. Test equipment includes an HP 8594E Spectrum Analyzer, HP 8920A Service Monitor, HP 8656A Signal Generator, Wandel & Goltermann EMR 300 Broadband Exposure Meter, and several Grayson Wireless Measurement Systems with 800 MHz SMR, Cellular and PCS receivers. In addition to our proprietary measurement software, we also own the following engineering software: EDX Shdmap, PathLoss, MININEC Broadcast Professional, ComsitePlus, ScanStar, Matlab, AutoCAD, and HP Bench Link. Resumes Following are brief resumes for the four electrical engineers who are employees of the company. Full resumes for Jacobsmeyer and Mieszala, the two engineers projected to work on this project, are found in Appendix XX to this proposal. Jay M. Jacobsmeyer, P.E. (President) holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech and Cornell University, respectively. He has over twenty years experience as a field engineer and researcher. Before co-founding Pericle Communications Company in 1992, Mr. Jacobsmeyer served for nine years with the United States Air Force and three years with ENSCO, Inc. As chief technical officer, he directs all engineering work of the company. His expertise includes indoor wireless design, co-site interference analysis, radio frequency hazard measurements, new facility design, radio propagation prediction and measurement, ground system design, and broadcast master antenna design. In addition to performing field work, he has served as the principal investigator on four mobile radio research projects, one for the U.S. Navy and three for the National Science Foundation. His technical papers have appeared in IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, and in ten IEEE conference proceedings. David L. McGinley (Director of Systems Engineering) holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland. He has over 12 years experience as a radio engineer and 8 years additional experience as a radio technician. He recently retired from the United States Air Force after 20 years of distinguished service. As an Air Force officer, he designed numerous microwave and high frequency (HF) radio links for the Department of Defense and other NATO military forces. At Offutt Air Force Base, he was responsible for integrating software and hardware modifications into the $ 50 million Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). As director of systems engineering at Pericle Communications Company, his duties involve planning and conducting wireless communications consulting projects. Dan Mieszala (Vice President) has over fifteen years experience in system design and radio frequency engineering. Prior to joining Pericle, Mr. Mieszala was the Director of System Performance and RF Engineering for Verizon Wireless in the Mountain Region. In this role, Dan managed a large engineering staff and capital budgets exceeding $100 million for a wireless network covering four states. Mr. Mieszala has held senior technical management positions for wireless carriers in increasingly responsible roles since 1990. Prior to his work in commercial wireless, Mr. Mieszala worked as a defense contractor on Electronic Warfare and Automatic Test Systems. He has also contributed to several publications including: Feed the Beast a Workbook for Effective Communications Planning (a response to the Columbine tragedy) and SANDAG Site and Zoning Considerations for Cellular Communications Facilities. Response to Scope of Service: Section 2.1 Radio Frequency Survey: The joint venture will conduct a propagation analysis of the selected frequency using XX program and using USGS NED Digital Elevations Models. The NED Digital Elevation Models are based on 1 second data, and their accuracy exceeds that of USGS 30 meter terrain data. 30 meter USGS Digital Elevation Models (terrain data) are also available for use at this location for comparison purposes. A sample propagation map is provided in Figure XX to demonstrates the output of program for a similar environment. While propagation modeling is a reasonable predictor of radio coverage, no computer program can predict all the variables associated with a real world environment. Radio testing will be done during the pilot portion of the program to determine actual coverage. The propagation coverage prediction will cover the 50 square miles of the City’s jurisdiction and extend past those boundaries to determine coverage and interference past the required area. If holes in coverage are identified based on signal strength, alternate sites will be identified using either city buildings, electrical poles or existing towers. If none of these are available then a suitable structure will be sought out. The joint venture will conduct a propagation analysis of the selected frequency using XX program and at a minimum 30 meter terrain data base. A sample propagation map is provided in Figure XX to demonstrates the output of program for a similar environment. While propagation modeling is a reasonable predictor of radio coverage, no computer program can predict all the variables associated with a real world environment. Radio testing will be done during the pilot portion of the program to determine actual coverage. The propagation coverage prediction will cover the 50 square miles of the City’s jurisdiction and extend past those boundaries to determine coverage and interference past the required area. If holes in coverage are identified based on signal strength, alternate sites will be identified using either city buildings, electrical poles or existing towers. If none of these are available then a suitable structure will be sought out. No radio coverage is 100% - so one of the problems is persistence in the mobile computer – without a persistence, the computer must reacquire when coverage is regained. Software will be provided (Net-Motion) to rectify this problem. Section 2.2 Existing Frequency Survey The Joint Venture will perform an Survey of existing frequencies using the FCC data base and a professional data base search tool. Licensed emitters identified by the survey in the target frequency band will be provided to the Utility in a spread sheet form and plotted on the City’s AutoCad drawing. A survey of existing frequencies in either the 900 MHz or 5.8 GHz frequency bands will be done using tools developed by Pericle Communications. This survey will be done directly on the AutoCad map files supplied by the city using software that has been developed by Pericle Communications. Measurements will be taken with either a Grayson test receiver for the 900 MHz band or a Orinoco 802.11 a/b/g card for the 5.8 GHz band. The survey will focus on the areas around the electrical substations and the Service Center specifically looking for unlicensed users (in the unlicensed spread spectrum bands) in the desired frequency band. If a received signal is suspected of being out of compliance with FCC rules we will use a spectrum analyzer to take a snap shot of the signal for future reference. (It could be time consuming to chase down every rogue signal so I hesitate to propose to do that.) As an option a drive test can be done of the whole city for the desired frequency. This option is priced out separately in the cost spread sheet. The extended drive test would cover street in the City’s jurisdiction and would have measurements every 300 feet on residential streets and at safe speeds on main through fares. The extended drive test is priced as a separate option in Appendix XX. Section 3 Proposal Response Requirements: Item 4. Description of how the 50 square miles that comprises the City’s jurisdiction will be within the boundaries of the proposed solution. Substations will be identified within the City’s jurisdiction that will provide coverage for the selected frequency band. Radio propagation will modeled from these substations to identify coverage. If coverage is inadequate, alternate sites will be identified with the priority placed on transmission line poles or other municipal properties that would provide the needed height for propagation. Links back to the substations on the fiber ring will then be provided with unlicensed microwave of 802.11 point to point solutions. (Sue do you concur?) Item 5. Detailed information of RF coverage utilizing key electrical substations located on a fiber ring. Propagation models will be run on a minimum of 30 meter data from key electrical substations on the fiber ring to be identified by Fort Collins Utilities. The Joint Venture will use XX program to predict coverage from these substations, and then do radio testing to verify coverage model assumptions.