5-day Instructor-led, 0900-1700

The course is an effective pathway for engineers and technical personnel from other backgrounds or technologies who want to come up to speed quickly in CDMA RF engineering.

This five-day course presents the core radio frequency engineering principles applicable to modern wireless RF systems and a thorough yet easy-to-follow introduction to CDMA technology with its unique RF considerations.

The course is an effective pathway for engineers and technical personnel from other backgrounds or technologies who want to come up to speed quickly in CDMA RF engineering.

At conclusion, participants should be familiar with the key principles of signal physics and interference principles, RF propagation in the wireless environment, antennas for wireless systems, traffic engineering and wireless capacity considerations, as well as the key operational and design issues of CDMA systems.

Basic technical mathematics; one to two years exposure to communications systems or general electronics.

Engineers and Technicians responsible for designing, maintaining, monitoring, and/or optimizing performance of CDMA systems.

Wireless Industry Background: Technologies and Current Deployment

Signal Principles: Modulation, Bandwidth, Interference, Performance

Multiple Access Methods and Comparative Capacities

Wireless System Architectures

RF Propagation Principles

• Physics and Propagation Mechanisms
• Propagation Models and Link Budgets
• Practical System Design Considerations: Margins, Penetration
• Propagation Prediction Tools and Measurement Tools

Antennas for Wireless Systems

• Antenna types, composition and operational principles
• Antenna gains, patterns, and selection principles
• Other RF devices used in transmission systems
• Antenna system testing

Traffic Engineering for Wireless Systems

• Terms, Principles and Units of Measurement
• Special considerations for wireless systems

CDMA Air Interface Overview

• CDMA Spread-Spectrum Basics and Signal RF Characteristics
• CDMA Spreading Sequences and Code Channels, forward and reverse links
• How it all works: decoding individual CDMA signals
• Capacity Implications of the Air Interface

Basic CDMA Network Architecture and Hardware Capacity Implications

Basic CDMA Handset Architecture

Key CDMA Performance Parameters and their Significance

• Ec/Io, FER, Eb/No, Receive Power, Transmit Power, Transmit Gain Adjust

Call Processing from Perspective of the Subscriber Handset

• RF Section, Digital Section, Correlators (“rake fingers”)
• Operation of the Pilot Searcher
• Operational States, from wakeup through end of a call

CDMA Handoffs

• CDMA Pilot Sets, number of members, promotion and demotion
• Handoff Parameters, Handoff Messaging
• How phone limitations and propagation delays affect handoff processing
• Hard handoff and inter-network considerations

Introduction to CDMA Layer 3 Messaging

Basic System Traffic Engineering and Design

System Growth Management

Brief view of actual CDMA call processing events playback