@gstefanick wrote:
Just got off the phone with a fellow engineer in the UK. It was a conversation around what survey model are engineers leading with today. I thought this was a great topic for a forum post to get a sense what everyone is using ?
Active Survey - Whereby mapping wifi coverage with an ap on a stick approach, which is very labor intensive, but much more accurate.
Blue Print Survey (predictive) - Whereby you take a floor plan and use software to map the planed area of coverage and then follow up with a passive survey when deployed.
Personally I use a hybrid of both. All depends on the need. If its voice, I almost always do active, I just don't want any surprises. I do predictive if the budget can't justify the cost of active or the area of coverage is needed for data only.
What do you lead with and why?
If you get no replies, that is probably because everyone absolutely agrees with you.
The most important tool on your side is experience. There are plenty of times, where the device(s) that you use to collect information malfunctions and you need to make a decision about whether to collect again because of an anomaly or use a separate device to confirm what you are seeing. You also need to know ballpark numbers that you would expect so you can make adjustments.
Site surveys in general are time consuming. You don't want to spend all of that time just to collect useless data...