The first portion of this session discussed a Wi-Fi survey performed at BYU Stadium in Utah using Sidos, Hamina, and Ekahau. The survey was physically demanding— roughly 13.3 km of walking and about five hours of survey time. The survey path was adapted to the stadium layout, generally moving horizontally across accessible seating rows and then changing levels rather than walking every individual row.

A significant observation from that survey was data reliability. According to the meeting discussion, the Ekahau survey experienced crashes that resulted in lost survey data and required portions to be walked again. Hamina experienced iPad crashes attributed to overheating, but when the app was reopened, the survey resumed from the last recorded point without losing the collected data. Sidos did not lose data during this particular survey.

The session was essentially about building an accurate physical model before doing the predictive Wi-Fi design. It covered floors, walls, windows, doors, attenuation objects, areas of interest, floor openings, vertical propagation and 3D visualization. The strongest technical lesson was that a Wi-Fi design needs to account not just for horizontal coverage but also for RF traveling vertically through floors and especially through open spaces such as atriums and mezzanines.
Hamina was regarded as more polished visually and easier for some building-modeling tasks, particularly complex structures such as stairs and slopes. Sidos, however, had several features —especially the multi-floor mini-map visualization and vertical RF propagation views. Even though its design interface was considered less polished than Hamina, the RF visualization capabilities were viewed as extremely useful.