Evaluation of a New Effective Antenna Height Definition in ITU-R Recommendation P. 1546-1

The International Telecommunication Union has recently developed a new recommendation on the method of point-to-area predictions for terrestrial services in the frequency range 30 MHz to 3000 MHz. It supersedes well-known recommendations such as P.370 and P.529 (modified Okumura-Hata method) used mainly for broadcasting and mobile services, respectively. The recommendation serves as a standard in areas of spectrum management and radio technology and is constantly under development. The work is undertaken by the ITU-R Working Party 3K followed by an extensive international approval process. At the moment, P.1546-1 incorporates an effective antenna height concept similar to that in the Okumura model. It is well known that this definition for certain scenarios produces negative transmitting/base antenna height values leading to unrealistic prediction results. Therefore, a widely accepted alternative method is called for. In this paper, an effective antenna height definition that overcomes this problem is investigated. The prediction results are compared with measurement data obtained by utilising the IS-95 pilot signal of a commercial CDMA mobile network in rural Australia