The best coverage area predictor in my mind is "Radio Mobile". It's a free
program available on the web. The guts of it is a public domain program, less
an interface you can work with, but Roger Coudé VE2DBE put together a great
interface that makes it work.
There is an up front learning curve to set it up for your particular system
but it's worth the effort. If you have a question or two I might be able to
help.
You can go to our club's website, http://www.w7lko.com/RESOURCES.HTML and
see some results. We're in some pretty mountainous terrain but have found the
coverage pattern to be amazingly accurate.
Dave, W7GK
Elko, NV
wd8chl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Keith, KB7M wrote:
> If by "down-and-dirty" you mean "simple", you can do a HAAT (Height Above
> Average Terrain) calculation. This is about as easy as it gets (
> http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/haat_calculator.html). This method is
> easy, but only accurate if the terrain is mostly flat. It doesn't do well
> in mountainous areas or with directional antennas because it assumes an omni
> directional pattern.
>
Like NE Ohio...maybe not "mountainous" by Colorado standards, but more
then enough to create HUGE coverage issues. I'm really seeing this on
the 900 paging system I maintain now!
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