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Can someone tell me what type of equipment is used to measure RF power levels transmitted by a cellular LTE base station? I would like to gain some insight into how the follow data was obtained.

Cellular RF power level

Back Story: The local company wants to install a cellular base station in our neighborhood. They have shared the above data set indicating that the cellular coverage is poor in a certain area. But cellular service provider's web site indicate excellent coverage. Information doesn't tally up.

706Astor
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user7083
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  • Related question by OP: http://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/10665/technical-analysis-to-determine-optimal-cellular-to-transmitter-location – Wasabi Aug 02 '16 at 00:45

1 Answers1

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On iPhones the signal strength indicator can be changed to a numerical value as indicated by the image below.

enter image description here

The above can be done by dialing *3001#12345#*. The phone will enter into field test mode. The value indicated is in dBm. Lower dbm value indicates a poor signal. A dBm value closer to 0 is a strong signal.

Similarly on a Android phone the same infomation can be found at About device -> Status (Kit Kat) depending the Android version.

enter image description here

References

Mahendra Gunawardena
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