Emergency Communications Deficiency Locator

by Austin Collins

Submitted : Spring 2020

            The Bi-Directional Amplifier (BDA) is the newest edition to Life Safety in the state of Florida. The Florida Fire Prevention Code (NFPA 1) section 11.10.1 states that “In all new and existing buildings, minimum radio signal strength for fire department communications shall be maintained at a level determined by the authority having jurisdiction. Problems faced include, most building owners have no idea about updated fire prevention codes and will not know until their business is shut down for not having the building up to date. Furthermore, the largest issue for the Life Safety Industry today, is being able to decisively determine which buildings are not within code at a fast-enough rate. From an engineering aspect, when a new project is being drawn up, engineers must list out a set of specifications required to be implemented in the building design by hired contractors. Now, the new radio communications code can be tricky to decipher when it comes to new construction. In an existing building, the building owner can hire an FCC (Federal Communications Commission) licensed company to take radio strength readings to the determine if the building has sufficient emergency communication signal strength. But for new construction, there is no building to do these readings in! And sure, one may take readings from the ground level where construction will take place but that leaves out too many uncalculated variables like radio wave diffraction, decibel dissipation, and the effect of decibel gain from initial transmission. The "Emergency Communications Deficiency Locator" project uses derivation/integration techniques to investigate, analyze, and illustrate weak transmission levels in the Tampa Bay area all while proving the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus at its foundation.

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