Determination of a Suitable Correction Factor to a Radio Propagation Model for Cellular Wireless Network Analysis

One of the major concerns during radio propagation modelling is to develop an improved path loss prediction models which can produce consistent prediction results. This paper outlines the results of determining and application of a correction factor of a propagation model by comparison between predicted and measured signal power for a base station transmitter. Measurement data provided by a Telecommunication service provider, Telecom Namibia for a base station transmitter at Hidas in the Windhoek area on 949.6 MHz were used as base for comparison against the predicted signal power. The Erickson propagation model was found to have the best fit to the measurement data. The correction factor was determined and the fitted corrected Erickson propagation model with measured received signal power curve showed a very good correlation for the distances and transmitter parameters considered. This procedure can be easily implemented, and allows the estimation of the received signal power from a Transmitter.