Radio Mobile

Finally got around to playing with Radio Mobile. Very cool. Overlaying MapQuest on the terrain is very powerful

I know, I know, what took me so long…Finally had a need to plot coverage from a proposed tower location

good to hear we use it alot for installs and tower to tower shots if there is fog smoke somtimes you can’t see your tower i just get my gps out put in the spot and do a test shot from my towers works really well its a pain to setup somtimes. but once its installed its very good :smiley:

Anyone out there have some tips for using it? I think I’m doing it right but just want to see how everyone else uses it.

I use it for 900 tower coverage and here’s how I set the network up:

Mode of variability: Broadcast at 90%
Additional loss: Forest at 5%
Climate: Continental Temperate (we’re in lower michigan)
Transmit power: 0.4 Watt
Receiver threshold: .25
Line loss: 0
Antenna gain: 7dbi (we use integrated 900 APs)

Does this all look right?

Transmit power on the 900AP is 1W and the integrated antenna is 12dB integrated. (EIRP is 4W). Receiver Threshold is -90dB

I would suspect that you might want to add more loss for the forest

I’ll give that a try, thanks Jerry.

Hey guys… what is Radio Mobile ? i’m feeling left out…

Radio Mobile is a radio link/coverage tool that overlays on terrain data.

You can get frequency and pattern specific coverage plots that look like this:
http://aircloud.com.googlepages.com/radiomobileimages

download it here: http://www.cplus.org/rmw/english1.html - Install the extra files for unzipping and conversion

Use these instructions to install, they are much clearer: http://www.pizon.org/radio-mobile-tutorial/index.html

looks cool…

gonna check it out… thanks… I was doing a similar thing using google earth

this has a slight advantage over google earth, if you are doing any none line of sight though hills, say a orthogon backhaul, it will tell you if it is going to work or not, just have to know what exactly you are shooting through.

ac_babitzke wrote:
this has a slight advantage over google earth, if you are doing any none line of sight though hills, say a orthogon backhaul, it will tell you if it is going to work or not, just have to know what exactly you are shooting through.
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that is why we use google earth and radio moblie so you can see what is there with out going there

I need to play with it radio mobile… but normally I use the link estimator to add in obstructions to see if I will get the signal or not…

google earth is good, but alot of the areas where I shoot at are fairly rural and remote in western Canada, and it does not give you any clear pictures, as to what is there ( hills, trees, buildings ), I usually still have to go to the sites and actually take a look to see what it there and along the path. Had a 2 lane highway go through one of my orthogon links once and it would drop from 9/9 down to 9/6 meg when there was a lot of traffic on the highway.

NOTE TO SELF :? do not shoot through hills again with highways on them when link is already 16 miles :?

Has anyone ever used any other Topographical Software Like SWTAP?

yea we use topomaps

Hi, From Venezuela, im using 5,7 BHS, also i use Radio Mobile, but i have some doubts, what type of radio pattern do you guys use? radio mobile, just give you 5 options: Yagi, Cardio, Omni,Corner and Ellipse.

thanks

Canopy Fan from Venezuela.

For AP’s I’ve been using cardio forced to 60deg.

Based on what i know my network actually does it seems accurate.

We generated a reasonably comprehensive radiosys.dat file some time ago that we have found quite useful in modelling coverage using the most popular types of canopy radios. If there is interest I will post to the forum.

Cheers

Paul

Love to see them!

Jerry

Hi Jerry

Here is the text content of our radiosys.dat file. You will need to save your old radiosys.dat and paste this text into the new file. It helps if you use the right antenna pattern files - I uploaded two files that we generated for 120 deg and 60 deg sectors to the Radio Mobile forum some time back.

2.4GHz 19dBi 17° beam
5.011872E-02
11.22
0
19
8 0
2.4GHz 8dBi 60° sector
0.6309574
11.22
0
8
7 0
900MHz 12dBi 60° sector
6.309573E-02
7.08
0
12
6 0
5.7GHz 7dBi 60° sector
0.7943282
11.22
0
7
6 0
900MHz 7dBi 110° sector
0.19952623
11.22
0
7
6 0
18GHz 38.6dBi beam
0.05011872
11.22
0
38.6
6 0
5.7GHz 14dBi 120° sector
0.15848932
15.85
0
14
6 0
2.4GHz 15dBi omni
0.1258925
15.85
0
15
6 0
5.7GHz 10dBi omni
0.39810717
15.85
0
10
6 0
5.7GHz 24dBi 6° beam LP
0.01258925
11.22
0
25
6 0
900MHz 9dBi omni
0.12589254
7.08
0
9
6 0
5.7GHz 24dBi 6° beam
0.19952623
11.22
0
25
6 0
5.7GHz 12dBi omni
0.25118864
15.85
0
12
6 0

We have obtained good (conservative) predictive results with RadioMobile for 900MHz using 70% spot and 25% forest cover, based on the particular style of vegetation we have here. For 5.7GHz it also yields good results provided that there is LOS available.

Feel free to use anyway you want, but I don’t warrant the use of this information for any commercial purposes. :smiley:

All the best

Paul

Thanks alot!

I’ll paste it in now…