BEFORE THE EUGENE, OREGON HEARINGS OFFICIAL <br />Application of New Cingular Wireless PCS, <br />LLC (AT&T) for a Conditional Use Permit <br />and related Variance for a 75-foot tall <br />"mono-pine" telecommunications facility FILE NUMBER: <br />at 4060 Amazon Drive, Crossfire Ministries <br />CU 14-3 <br />DECLARATION OF THOMAS GORTON, <br />REGISTERED ELECTRICAL ENGINEER AND RADIO FREQUENCY EXPERT <br />This document has been prepared by the undersigned to provide additional testimony in <br />support of AT&T's application for a new cellular base station at Crossfire church at the <br />intersection of Fox Hollow and Amazon in Eugene, and in particular, to address issues <br />raised by William Collinge in his written testimony. <br />Mr. Collinge's testimony includes the results of a "Drive Test" he conducted at select <br />locations by observing the number of "bars" of signal strength displayed on an AT&T <br />phone. This approach is problematic for several reasons, itemized below. <br />Lack of calibration data <br />The "bars" displayed can not be used to determine actual received signal power, often <br />referred to as signal strength or (incorrectly) field strength, which in the wireless <br />communications field is almost universally expressed in dBm (decibels above or below <br />one milliwatt). Because there is no data included to indicate how many bars correspond <br />to a particular received signal power level (in dBm), no conclusion as to the accuracy of <br />AT&T's coverage prediction maps can be reached from this data. Furthermore, the <br />comparison of AT&T's coverage to that of other carriers is meaningless for several <br />Declaration of Thomas Gorton 1 <br />CU 14-3 <br />