Preparing to Make CDMA Over Air Measurements
An important consideration when making CDMA over air measurements is your location relative to the base station. There must be no obstructions between your location and the base station antennas. Also, the GPS antenna must be able to "see" the satellites to obtain lock. Using internal GPS for the time reference has the same advantages mentioned for CDMA Tx Analyzer measurements ("island cell" detection).
You must know the channel or frequency and the PN offset of the CDMA signal to be analyzed. Each base station sector has a unique PN offset. For more information on PN offsets refer to the "Metrics Provided by CDMA Over Air Measurements"
Once you have connected the proper antenna to the test set, chosen a stationary location, and verified that you have a clear view of the base station antennas, you can perform CDMA over air measurements.
If this is the first CDMA over air measurement for this base station, you must find a location that meets the criteria for making a valid measurement. Your location must have a dominant pilot and very low multipath power. If you have made CDMA over air measurements at this location before and know it provides valid measurements, skip to "Performing a Basic CDMA Over Air Measurement"