Real answers on your
in-building public-safety radio.
PCTEL Certified third-party ERCES surveys and code consulting for general contractors, electrical contractors, property owners, and developers across eight states. We don't sell installs — so the data you get is the data your AHJ needs.
An installer who surveys their own system isn't running a survey. It's a sales pitch.
Clear As A Belle is a third-party firm — we don't design, install, or maintain the systems we measure. Contractors get unbiased data, AHJs get documentation they trust, and owners keep their leverage when it's time to competitively bid the install.
No skin in the install
We don't sell BDAs, DAS heads, fiber runs, or any of the hardware. If coverage passes, we tell you. If it fails, we tell you. Nothing changes our recommendation.
You pick the installer
Get independent coverage data first, then bid the install to two or three trusted integrators. Instead of being locked into whoever surveyed the building, you control the scope, schedule, and price.
Documentation AHJs trust
PCTEL + SeeHawk Touch reports — floor-plan heatmaps, grid-test pass/fail with GPS-pinned points, photo logs, code citations, and an executive summary. Reports that get signed, not questions-back emails that stall construction.
Does IFC 510 apply to your building?
IFC 510 and NFPA 1225 don't publish a single size threshold — ERCES is required when a building fails the coverage test, with certain occupancies and high-rises triggering mandatory testing regardless. Answer seven questions and we'll tell you which trigger (if any) your building hits, plus a benchmark-survey budget range.
Do I need an ERCES?
What's the primary occupancy?
IBC occupancy classification. Institutional and assembly occupancies often trigger mandatory testing on their own.
Total above-grade square footage?
Gross area across all floors. Most AHJs carry an IFC 510.1 exception for small buildings under ~12,000 sq ft.
What phase is the project in?
Surveying an empty new build is much faster and cheaper than working around occupied finishes — pricing reflects it.
How many stories above grade?
Buildings 75 ft or higher are classified "high-rise" under IFC and almost always require ERCES regardless of coverage.
Any below-grade area?
Subgrade parking and multi-level basements almost never pass coverage without an ERCES.
Primary construction?
RF attenuation per material. Low-e and reflective glass coatings behave like concrete at 700/800 MHz.
Project state?
So we can cite the right IFC edition and local AHJ amendments in the result.
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Survey, certify, maintain — all from the same neutral corner.
Benchmark Survey
Measure existing public-safety radio coverage before finishes go up. Determine whether an ERCES will be required under IFC 510 / NFPA 1225 — and get the data to argue either way.
- Calibrated PCTEL IBflex measurements on local PS frequencies
- Coverage mapped against 95% general / 99% critical thresholds
- Clear recommendation: required, not required, or borderline
- Design-ready deliverable — any RF designer can build from it directly
Acceptance & Commissioning Survey
After the BDA or DAS is installed, we grid-test the building to verify the installer delivered. AHJ-ready acceptance documentation for sign-off.
- Full grid test — typically 20 ft × 20 ft cells for critical areas
- SeeHawk Touch pass/fail per cell with photo & GPS pinning
- Upload & downlink signal measurements
- Battery-backup, monitoring, and survivability verification
- Design-ready formatting — RF designers and AHJs both accept on sight
Annual Recertification
NFPA requires annual ERCES testing for as long as the system exists. We build a recurring calendar with your property team so compliance never slips.
- Annual functional test per NFPA 1225
- Battery-backup and 24/7 monitoring verification
- AHJ-ready re-certification report
- Change-condition re-test if the building was remodeled
Consulting & Code Interpretation
Not every project needs a full survey yet. Sometimes you need someone to read the plans, call the AHJ, and tell you where the landmines are.
- IFC 510 & NFPA 1225 interpretation for your AHJ
- Design-phase ERCES risk review
- Proposal / installer-bid review for owners
- Litigation support & expert opinion
What independence looks like on a real project.
Project details anonymized at client request. Numbers are real.
Outpatient medical campus, benchmark survey before TI
Developer needed a compliance answer before tenant-improvement drawings went out. Two installers had already quoted a $300k+ BDA without running a survey.
Benchmark showed marginal coverage on L1 / L4 only — a targeted DAS scope replaced the full BDA, cut install budget to ~$110k, kept the CO date.
Historic masonry tower converted to mixed-use
AHJ required a benchmark before occupancy. Masonry walls + basement meant the original install proposal assumed worst-case and spec'd a full DAS across all 14 floors.
Actual coverage failed only on floors 7 – 10 and basement. Scoped a 6-zone BDA + 4-antenna DAS hybrid — $420k less than the first proposal.
Tilt-up distribution center, donor-site suspicion
Local AHJ historically required ERCES on all tilt-up over 100k sf regardless of coverage. Contractor budgeted $180k for a BDA before a survey.
Benchmark documented 97.4% general / 100% critical coverage — above thresholds on all public-safety channels. AHJ accepted the report. No install needed.
The instrumentation AHJs recognize — because we're trained on it.
PCTEL IBflex Scanner
The industry reference for in-building public-safety radio measurement. Multi-band, multi-technology, calibrated for the actual frequencies your AHJ cares about — 700/800 MHz public-safety, VHF, UHF, and digital trunked systems.
- Accepted as primary measurement device by AHJs nationwide
- Captures DAQ, RSSI, and simulcast delay in one pass
- Factory-calibrated annually — every report ties to traceable instrumentation
SeeHawk Touch
Point-of-measurement floor-plan mapping and post-processing. Walk the building, tap-to-record at each grid point, auto-generate the heatmap. Reports export directly to AHJ-ready PDF with GPS tags, photos, and pass/fail per cell.
- Grid-test recording with GPS-pinned photo logs
- Auto-generated heatmaps against code thresholds (95% / 99%)
- AHJ-ready PDF export with code citations baked in
Why it matters: AHJs in our region recognize PCTEL + SeeHawk output on sight. Every report we produce is design-ready for any RF designer — floor-plan heatmaps, grid-test data, donor-signal measurements, and photo logs all formatted so a BDA or DAS designer can go straight to system design without a re-walk or data reformat.
Your building is measured against all of these. So are we.
The specific edition your AHJ enforces may differ. We work around your jurisdiction's amendments, not some generic national model.
IFC §510
The International Fire Code section that triggers ERCES requirements on new and existing buildings. Defines general-area and critical-area coverage thresholds.
NFPA 1225
The consolidated NFPA standard (replaces NFPA 1221) covering ERCES performance, testing, maintenance, and documentation. Your survey report references this.
NFPA 72
Fire-alarm code governing supervision and monitoring of ERCES equipment — signal loss, antenna failure, battery status, donor antenna isolation.
UL 2524
The UL listing for In-Building 2-Way Emergency Radio Communication Enhancement Systems — the BDA / DAS head-end equipment itself.
Eight states. One neutral surveyor.
Click a state on the map for local AHJ notes, typical amendments, and the cities we work in most.
A process that doesn't blow up your schedule.
Most ERCES surprises hit at the worst possible moment — right before CO. We front-load the work so your AHJ inspection isn't where you find out.
Discovery call
30 minutes. Building type, size, AHJ, timeline, and whether any installer has already swung through. Free and no-obligation.
On-site survey
We show up with the PCTEL IBflex, walk the floors against a SeeHawk Touch grid, and collect measurements on the actual local public-safety channels. Preliminary findings same day.
Clear report
AHJ-ready PDF with floor-plan heatmaps, pass/fail logic, code citations, and an executive summary your PM can read on a phone. Design-ready output — any RF designer can go straight to system design from it. Usually 2 – 3 business days.
Next steps
If a system is required, we point you toward trusted installers (without a kickback). If it isn't, the report is everything you need for your AHJ submittal.
Lauren
Woman-owned. Field-built. Actually independent.
Clear As A Belle was founded because the ERCES market in the central US had a conflict-of-interest problem: the same companies who install the systems were the ones deciding whether a system was required in the first place.
We fix that by being categorically unable to install one. Every survey we run, every consult we deliver, every report we sign — the conclusion is the conclusion. No upsell attached.
That's why we've become a trusted reference for AHJs, GCs, and electrical contractors across Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. The data is the deliverable.
Talk to LaurenQuestions we hear on every first call.
What is an ERCES survey, in plain English?
Why hire a third-party surveyor instead of the installer?
What does "PCTEL Certified" actually mean?
Which codes apply to my building?
When should I bring you in on a project?
How long does a survey take, start to finish?
What does the final report look like?
Do you work directly with building owners, or only through contractors?
Tell us what you're building — we'll tell you what you need.
Every first call is free. We'll scope the survey, flag any AHJ concerns, and give you a number before we put a truck on the road.