Radio coverage testing: a measured answer on whether your building passes.
Before anyone can tell you what your building needs, it has to be measured. A grid test gives you a written, defensible answer — and if the building already passes, that is the end of it.
- Testing that tells you whether you even need a system
- Design and installation by our own crew
- Yearly testing after, so you stay compliant
Ask us about your building
Tell us where it is and what it is. We’ll tell you what’s required and what testing costs. No obligation.
A measurement, not an opinion
A radio coverage test measures whether a handheld radio works everywhere inside your building. It is done against a grid, with calibrated equipment, and it produces a document. The point is that nobody has to take anyone’s word for it — including ours.
Signal strength
Measured in dBm. There is a floor below which a radio simply will not hold a usable connection, inbound from the tower and outbound back to it. Both directions are tested.
Intelligibility
Signal alone is not enough — the audio has to be understandable under stress. This is scored, and a building can have signal and still fail here.
The grid
The floor plan is divided into roughly equal areas and each one is measured. Coverage is a percentage of areas passed, not an average, so one dead stairwell cannot be hidden by a strong lobby.
Critical areas are held to a higher bar
Most of a building is judged on general coverage. A short list of places is judged more strictly, because they are where responders work when things go wrong.
General areas
The bulk of the building — offices, corridors, tenant space. Judged on overall coverage across the grid.
Critical areas
Fire command centre, exit stairs, elevators and lobbies, pump and generator rooms, and areas below grade. Held to a higher percentage.
The places that fail
Basements, parking structures, concrete cores, lift shafts and anything surrounded by earth or steel. If a building fails, it usually fails here first.
A report you can hand to the fire official
The deliverable is a document, not a phone call. It states what was measured, where, and whether it passes.
Grid results
Every measured area with its readings, so a fail can be located rather than argued about.
Pass or fail, stated plainly
Against the benchmark your jurisdiction applies. If the building passes, that is the end of it — there is nothing to install and nothing to buy.
If it fails, what it would take
The same data that shows the failure shows the fix: how much gain, and roughly where the antennas need to go. That becomes the design.
Timing advice
Test before the inspection is booked, not the week of it. A failed test discovered late is the expensive version of this problem.
Tell us about the building.
We’ll tell you what’s required and what it costs to find out. No obligation.
What people ask us about this
Most buildings are measured in a day; large or complex ones take longer. The written report usually follows within a few days.
The same measurements that show the failure show the fix — how much gain is needed and roughly where antennas have to go. That data becomes the system design, so a failed test is not wasted money.
Yes, annual testing is generally required once a system is in, and it is the building owner’s responsibility rather than the installer’s. We do the yearly test, replace batteries when due and keep the records ready for the fire official.
Before the inspection is booked. Testing during construction tells you whether you need to budget for a system at all, and avoids finding out the week your certificate of occupancy is due.
Grid-by-grid readings, signal strength in both directions, intelligibility scoring, and a plain pass or fail against the benchmark your jurisdiction applies — in a form you can hand to the fire official.
It depends what changes. A move to different channels can mean a channelised system needs re-tuning; a wider change can mean more than that. This is one of the practical reasons the annual test matters — a system that has quietly stopped matching the network it is amplifying turns up at the yearly test rather than during an emergency.