Comparative study of field strength prediction methods in medium wave band

Recently developed digital radio systems for the medium wave band require accurate field strength prediction algorithms for coverage estimation. Presented is a comparison of estimation accuracy provided by the most relevant field strength prediction methods employed for ground-wave propagation at this band. Moreover, a field strength prediction method recently developed by the authors, has been considered in the analysis. Empirical values from measurement campaigns carried out in three different broadcasting networks have been used to analyse the accuracy of the prediction methods. Comparison between predicted and measured values allows objective evaluation of the estimation accuracy of each method under different reception conditions. The proposed method provides the most accurate results on field strength predictions, consequently it is a suitable method for the coverage estimation of the new digital radio systems.