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  »  New  Antenna solutions for FM..  Hurricane Irene ibn Oz in Boston...  Off Air Audio Forum     27  193513  02-21-2008
  »  New  FM and live real-time broadcast experience...  There is something else with FM...  Off Air Audio Forum     2  29295  05-13-2008
07-05-2008 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,049
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 1
Post ID: 7749
Reply to: 7749
FMFool – a truly useful tool
The scan below, is courtesy to http://www.fmfool.com/

Radar-FM.png

    Callsign

These are the call letters that the FCC uses to uniquely identify broadcasters.  Many broadcasters will have multiple entries for their call sign (for translator and booster stations).

Channel

This is the broadcast channel for the station.

Xmit(kW)

This is the amount of power (in kilowatts) that the broadcaster is transmitting in your direction.  Since many broadcasters use directional antennas to focus most of their broadcast energy into populated areas, this power level may be different than the raw power level shown by the FCC.  This value has already been adjusted for your location according to the radiation pattern registered with the FCC.

Rx(dBm)

This is the predicted receiver signal strength of each channel at your location, specified in dBm.

Path

This indicates the path travelled by the signal to get from the transmitter to your location.

LOS: Line-of-sight
1Edge: Single edge diffraction
2Edge: Double edge diffraction
Tropo: Tropospheric scatter

Dist(mi)

Distance from your location to the transmitter, specified in statute miles.

Azimuth

Azimuth direction for the transmitter (0=North), relative to true north.  The numbers have been color coded according to the transmitter direction for easier identification of channel clusters.  Transmitters coming from approximately the same direction will have similar colors, matching the colors in the outer ring of the radar plot.

Magnetic north readings are also provided for easy compass pointing.  When using a compass for orientation, the "North" end of the needle should point to the red colored "N" on the radar plot.  You can use the magnetic north azimuth values (in parentheses) to aim your antenna via compass.

LOS

This is the estimated height necessary (at the given coordinates) in order to reach the line-of-sight path of the transmitter.  This can be used to judge the severity of a terrain obstruction.  This height is specified in feet above ground level.  Note that it is possible to have excellent reception even without line-of-sight access to the transmitter.  This column is provided for informational purposes only.



"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
04-01-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,049
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 2
Post ID: 15914
Reply to: 7749
Another phenomenal tool!
fiogf49gjkf0d

This tool allow you to position your antenna at very high precision at your properly, vertically to climb up at very top and to visualize what the tip of your antenna will see in direct line of site. The tool gives 360° panoramic sketch labeled with the elevations of the hills and other obstacles.

http://www.heywhatsthat.com/

Did I tell you that it works around the World?

The Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
04-01-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
oxric
Posts 194
Joined on 02-12-2010

Post #: 3
Post ID: 15915
Reply to: 15914
Another piece of the FM reception puzzle? Excellent
fiogf49gjkf0d
 Romy the Cat wrote:

This tool allow you to position your antenna at very high precision at your properly, vertically to climb up at very top and to visualize what the tip of your antenna will see in direct line of site. The tool gives 360° panoramic sketch labeled with the elevations of the hills and other obstacles.

http://www.heywhatsthat.com/

Did I tell you that it works around the World?

The Cat


Romy,

This looks very good indeed. It would be great if you could select different transmitters as you can do with this website but unfortunately it works only in France. See:

http://www.brume.org/radios/commune.php?mode=searchville&insee=68269

This gives you also an idea of the signal strength you can expect. I am sure there must be something like this available for North America. What I find frustrating is that although you have a fair number of interesting German stations (I seem to remember some interesting broadcasting stations) from just across the border, these are not covered.

I will try the site you refer to above as I think it's potentially more powerful than the one at www.brume.org. I imagine I need to locate the altitude and longitude of the transmitters I have in mind, my own location and work from there. It is of course a shame that there is no possibility to run the analysis knowing the strength of the transmitting antenna and the gain of one's receiving antenna.

Regards
Rakesh
Page 1 of 1 (3 items) Select Pages: 
   Target    Threads for related reading   Most recent post in related threads   Forum  Replies   Views   Started 
  »  New  Antenna solutions for FM..  Hurricane Irene ibn Oz in Boston...  Off Air Audio Forum     27  193513  02-21-2008
  »  New  FM and live real-time broadcast experience...  There is something else with FM...  Off Air Audio Forum     2  29295  05-13-2008
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