Blog 20: Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question and answers? What is your best answer and why?

My essential question is how can an RF Field Engineer best troubleshoot cellular coverage in a city?, following up with three answers, the first one being, identifying whether a power outage is an external or internal issue in a Radio Base Station. My a second way, is by analyzing and replacing a damaged hardware component within a Radio Base Station, and my final answer is by troubleshooting the internal software within a Radio Base Station. My best answer to this question, corresponds to my first answers, by identifying a power outage, because over my months of experience with issues in an RBS, with my mentor, we have encountered power issues being the most common issues. Sure the other two answers are issues that can be fixed as well but if their isn't any power within the RBS, then none of the equipment within the RBS will work properly.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

I came up with this answer through my mentorship experience. On November 18, I was first exposed to a power issue, more significantly an external power source issue, and the power wasn't working within the RBS due to the station being vandalized, meaning that the power cables from the main power source had been completely stolen. Now dealing with an internal power issue, I had my first encounter on November as well, where my mentor discovered that the 2G system was down due to a power issue. To solve this issue we found the control unit had defective cable within the internal compartment of the radio. These encounters were one of my first times that I did mentorship, and overtime, I came up with my first answer through more power issues that I encountered.

(3) What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

Most of the problems that I faced, were power issues, hardware issues, or software issues. When it came down to power issues, we needed to locate the Local Power Issue within the Radio Base Station. We had to first check the power that comes from the mainline that comes from the transformer and that goes through the power meter. Usually when that’s the issue transformer has to be replaced. If that isn't the problem then you must check the power panel in the site because their could be a bad fuse, loose cable, or a breaker that tripped off which needs to be replaced. If the power issue is not an external issue, then it would most likely be an internal issue. In this case, you have a device that has burned out and is damaged within the inside. Usually those devices are radios, transmitters, or even the Power Source Unit, this becomes into a hardware issue. When it's a hardware issue, we needed to replace the damaged equipment's with one that is working and upgraded. And I also encountered software issues, where if the base was out-of-date, then we need to load a new up-to-date software so it has more capacity, and its faster.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

The most significant sources is my mentor, because through the opportunity to be able to mentorship with him and have first hand experience with Radio Base Stations, he has allowed me to come up with all of my answers and my EQ.
My second most significant source, is a book called, Ericsson WCDMA System Overview, because it has a good explanation of how the cellular network works, and what are the different types of issues within a Radio Base Station. It explains those issues in a very detailed manner.