RM Batch Files

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An additional feature added to Radio Mobile is the ability to generate command line Batch Files that enable a sequence of radial Combined Cartesian plots to be performed from a listing of requirements.

· These files are in Tab separated text format, and run by opening with your rmw***.exe language file.

· They are designed to be used for frequency coordination of radio repeaters, and are based on a maximum radial range plot performed over a square map.

· The maps are created at a specified pixel resolution in metres over a radial range in km.

· A path to your SRTM data has to be specified, and Land cover can also be incorporated if a path to the data is also defined.

· The output files are pictures which are placed in a specified folder, and available with all support files in klm and png format.

· If a coverage file name already exists in the specified folder the plot will be skipped – so you can keep the particular plot job in a list and only new plots are processed when opening a modified text file with Radio Mobile.

· You have to calculate and enter the Radio System gain including line losses and antenna gain.

· System Gain = Tx Power (dBm) – Tx Line Loss (dB) + Tx Ant Gain (dBi) + Rx Ant Gain (dBi) – Rx Line Loss (dB) – Rx Threshold (dBm)

· Antenna height and pattern files have to be specified for the fixed unit with Azimuth and Tilt, and also the mobile antenna height.

· Setting the fixed unit ‘Elevation ASL’ to 0 metres as shown causes its elevation to be extracted from the SRTM data.

· The plots are performed in Combined Cartesian or Polar mode, both at 1x1 pixel resolution using a defined colour pallet for each job. The new Polar plot feature produces plots in a much shorter time.

· Land coverage data can be incorporated in the plot if required.

· ‘Tx Power for Sig file’ entry if set to 0 watts disables Signal file generation, otherwise enter transmitter power to generate Signal data in dBm as an additional plot.

· Batch file processing is independent of all your personal settings in Radio Mobile.

· Note that a 100 metre resolution plot with 100km radial range will generate a 2000x2000 pixel plot picture!

· There is no protection afforded to the batch files, so it is just possible that your computer could hang during processing!

As an illustration of the required format I have generated the following text file designed to generate coverage plots for the three units in my ‘BaseU-3B’ network consisting of three base units and the mobile selected as a Hand Held unit.

This picture shows my text file displayed with word wrap enabled which doesn’t allow the correspondence of the data to headings to be seen.

By importing the text file into Excel the data is shown with all my folder paths including the local path to my Land cover data.

As an alternative where Geodata and Land cover data are saved on separate computer drives rather than in the Radio Mobile folder, the paths can be seen below.

The data can then be exported from Excel as a Tab separated text file after entry into the correct columns.

Data for the plots consists of tab separated entries in a text (.txt) file under the following 24 headings:

Picture file	Destination folder and path plus the file name to be used for the coverage plot files.
System Gain	End to end system gain (as above)
Antenna file	Radio Mobile antenna file name to be used for the plots.
Antenna azimuth	Required transmit antenna azimuth in degrees.
Antenna tilt	Required transmit antenna physical tilt in degrees.
Antenna height	Transmit antenna height above ground level.
Elevation ASL	Centre unit ground elevation above sea level - setting 0m uses map elevation.
Mobile antenna height	Mobile antenna height above ground level.
Frequency	Operating frequency in MHz.
Latitude	Centre unit Latitude in WGS-84 datum.
Longitude	Centre unit Longitude in WGS-84 datum.
Map resolution	Required map resolution in metres per pixel.
Maximum range	Plot maximum radial range in kilometres.
Colour	Required plot colour in BGR Hexadecimal code.
SRTM path	Path to local SRTM data.
Landcover path	Path to local Land coverage data.
Tx Power for SIG file	Transmitter power in watts if a SIG (signal level) file is to be generated with the picture – this has to be set to ‘0’ if no SIGnal file is required.
Landheight.dat	Path to the used version of Landheight**.dat in the root of the RM folder.
Percentage Variability	Required percentage of Situations to be used with the Spot mode of variability used.
Rainbow colour file	*Location of your required Colours.dat file for the plot.**
Rainbow range dB	Set the decibel signal range required for the plot.
Azimuth from	If you enter a value here the plot is performed in Polar mode, but plot increment is calculated to produce a 1 pixel resolution as with Combined Cartesian but at a much higher speed.
Azimuth to	If you enter a value here the plot is performed in polar mode, but plot increment is calculated to produce a 1 pixel resolution as with Combined Cartesian but at a much higher speed.
Line Of Sight Mode (LOS)	Enter 0 for Two Rays normal. Enter 1 for Two Rays - optimistic for interference. Enter 2 for no Two Ray.

Notes:

The System gain is calculated from:

System Gain = Tx Power (dBm) – Tx Line Loss (dB) + Tx Ant Gain (dBi)

+ Rx Ant Gain (dBi) – Rx Line Loss (dB) – Rx Threshold (dBm)

Where Tx and Rx refer to Transmit and Receive data respectively.

Elevation ASL:

Fixed unit elevation Above Sea Level – however if the elevation value entered is below map ground elevation this will be substituted from the interpolated SRTM data. Thus entering 0 metres will cause the map elevation to be used.

Map resolution and plot range:

Selecting a Map resolution of 30m per pixel with a Range of 60km would produce a radial plot on a 4000x4000 pixels picture covering a 120km x 120km square area.

Colour:

The Hexadecimal codes in Blue-Green-Red order (as the required format for entry into the Batch file) for 15 basic colours are:-

000000 800000 FF0000 008000

808000 00FF00 FFFF00 000080

800080 008080 808080 C0C0C0

0000FF FF00FF 00FFFF

SRTM path:

This has to be the path to your own SRTM data. When using my installer for 3-arcsecond data this resides in the folder located at C:\Radio Mobile\SRTM3, or if 1-arcsecond data is being used at C:\Radio Mobile\SRTM1.

As an example when using another drive for Geodata this could be P:\Geodata\SRTM1.

Land coverage path:

Once more this has to be the path to your own Landcover folder and also reflect the format of the data in use. The .img data used before was lower resolution and has been superseded. With my installer the folder location is at C:\Radio Mobile\Landcover\*.lcv, but on an alternate Geodata drive where .lcv data is to be stored in tiled format this could be shown as P:\Geodata\Landcover\*.lcv

Percentage Variability:

The percentage of situations range of variability – nominally 70% but can be used as a fine adjustment for coverage plot calibration.

Rainbow colour file:

Enter the path to your own required colours*.dat file. With my installer this will lie in the root of the Radio Mobile folder at C:\Radio Mobile\colours*.dat

Rainbow range dB:

Enter the decibel range to be displayed in the plots.

Azimuth from:

Enter the start azimuth to be displayed in the plots. If you enter a value here the plot is performed in polar mode, but the plot increment is calculated to produce a 1 pixel resolution as with Combined Cartesian but at a much higher speed.

Azimuth to:

Enter the finish azimuth to be displayed in the plots. If you enter a value here the plot is performed in polar mode, but the plot increment is calculated to produce a 1 pixel resolution as with Combined Cartesian but at a much higher speed.

LOS mode:

Line Of Sight path settings:

'0' generates a plot using the normal Two Ray method,

'1' generates a plot where the Two Ray calculation is optimistic for interference,

'2' generates a plot which uses no Two Ray calculations in LOS.

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