Heuristic approach in modeling radio path loss inside residences for fixed and portable digital terrestrial television at 677 MHZ

• Main Author: Dela Cruz, Jennifer Chua
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2012
• Subjects: Radio—Transmitters and transmission—Fading; Engineering
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/333
• Institution: De La Salle University

In analog TV transmission, a strong to snowy signal can still be captured by analog TV receivers as one goes farther away from the transmitter. In digital TV, blank screen or no signal will appear on the TV receiver at spots located at the outskirts of the coverage area. DTV signal coverage further improved by using Single Frequency Networks or SFN‟s. However, this increase in coverage area does not necessarily mean increase in signal strength inside the residences of the subscribers or viewers. “Dead spots" can exist where the signal is virtually non-existent particularly beyond the coverage area. It was also observed that a model to better estimate the coverage and network planning of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) in our country is lacking. The new empirical model designed specifically for UHF digital TV (DTV) in the Philippine environment or terrain using our tropical climate was developed. This prediction model can estimate path loss at the exact location of TV inside four residential categories namely Class A, Class B, Class C and Class D. Furthermore, to help increase the accuracy of the model, heuristic approach in predicting the amount of path loss inside viewers‟ residences was used to calibrate the model coefficients. Neural network combined with multiple regressions was proven to increase the accuracy of the model when validated with actual measurements and other commonly used path loss models like Okumura Hata, Cost 231 and ITU Indoor model.