Digital radio: coverage prediction and measurements of location variability

Terrestrial digital radio networks are being implemented in the UK and elsewhere using the DAB (digital audio broadcasting) standard developed by the Eureka 147 Project. DAB allows the transmission of audio services with data and multimedia content to mobile and portable receivers. UK DAB networks are currently implemented using transmit frequencies around 220 MHz (Band III) with a bandwidth of 1.5 MHz. This paper discusses some methods used for predicting coverage for DAB single frequency networks. A major factor in these calculations is the assumptions about local variation in the received field strength. Measurements of the standard deviation of this variation are presented and discussed