INTERDLG map data is drawn from the, all digital, USGS line-graph database and includes the following selectable overlays: state borders, cities, major roads, minor roads, railroads, rivers and streams, county names and boundaries, lakes and shorelines plus over 32,000 US cities.

For FCC showings INTERDLG will plot the equally spaced cardinal radials , and include a radial line through the city of license. INTERDLG's optional population database will overlay population clusters from the US Census, towers from the FCC's antennas survey database and airport runways from the Department of Transportation's database of US airports. Using the census module the program will automatically calculate the total population and area within any signal contour you wish.

INTERDLG is the perfect tool to use to construct special showings, allowing you to place as many signal contours over a map as you want. You can prepare professional looking coverage maps to be used as sales tools, produce reduced scale coverage maps showing translators station coverage or show an area as large as several states. The coverage prediction method INTERDLG uses easily meets all FCC guidelines so you can confidently submit your maps to the FCC.

The colorful screen maps which INTERDLG produces can be sent to a standard dot-matrix or LaserJet printer or multi-pen plotter. Drivers are included for more than 50 standard printer types.

INTERDLG will produce up to 200 frames each with a different map. The frames are indexed and stored on your hard drive for future use. At any time, an existing frame can be recalled to be printed, edited or to have new information added.

Place US cities on your map from the database of over 32,000. A powerful edit function allows you to change the location, size or direction of any of the map's labels. Use a mouse to move labels around for the best possible appearance or to add lines of text.

Try the population scattergram feature and then zoom in to see the actual population group block counts printed on your screen. Or zoom in to read the coordinates and the heights of the towers you plot from the tower database. Or zoom in to see if your predicted coverage area reaches a point of interest.

INTERDLG is easy to operate. For example, when doing a map, you can call up a station from the FCC database simply by typing its call letters and state. Choose a signal contour level to plot and select the map overlays you want and INTERDLG will quickly show the station's coverage, self-scaled and centered in the middle of your map.

Since terrain elevation data is required to project FM and TV signal contours , INTERDLG makes it easy for you by transparently acquiring terrain elevation data from the NGDC three or 30 arc-second digital database. As we mentioned above, we use the FCC's own TVFMINT FORTRAN subroutine to generate the distance to contours so INTERDLG maps will match perfectly with those the FCC produces in Washington.

But there is more, INTERDLG will also plot F(50-10) interference contours. In this example, INTERDLG plots the relevant arc of the interfering station's 54 dBu contour. It slightly overlaps the 60 dBu protected contour of the protected station showing an interference situation. The reverse contours are also shown, however they do not touch.

Operating in the "Interference Mode", INTERDLG will produce an accurate screen centered plot of the protected and interference signal contours of the reference station and the interfering station. The contours will be plotted for a total of 110 degrees, at one degree increments, along the relevant arc between the stations.

The program also prints out a tabular report of the incoming undesired signal level at points along a station's protected contour using azimuth intervals of between one and ten degrees. This feature produces a print-out nearly identical to the FCC's FMOVER print-out and it instantly flags contour overlaps which would cause interference.

INTERDLG accepts antenna patterns from user files or from the FCC database. Patterns can be created using INTERDLG's Pattern functions and then saved to disk to be called up at a later date. INTERDLG allows the user to change the pattern values and instantly see the results in the form of a graph of the changing azimuth pattern. All patterns can be rotated or otherwise adjusted to affect a better fit. The program also checks for illegal FM patterns having more than a two dB rise or fall per ten degrees of azimuth change.

In addition to using either the FCC's F(50-50) and F(50-10)  curves for plotting signal contours INTERDLG now plots station contours using the FCC's digital television F(50-90) tables.

The program may be acquired with several available options: These include, the Duopoly Module option which allows the user to perform duopoly studies or multi-station coverage analysis of AM, FM and TV. This same module allows the user to plot AM, FM and TV stations individually or as a special multi-station market group. The Tower module allows the overlay of towers from the FCC towers database or the NOAA obstruction database. The census module allows the user to overlap population scattergrams that can be filtered by race. This same module also provides a service area calculations and a population count of any signal contour placed on a map. The optional Airport module will overlay the FCC or the Bureau of Transportation Services airport databases. Finally, the "Options Module" allows the user to type in distances to contours of any station and to plot such contours to screen using a smooth spline fit. This module also allows the importation of numerous distance to contour files from other V-Soft Communications applications.

INTERDLG comes complete with the USGS digital line graph map database which, occupies some 18 megabytes of hard disk space. The program requires either our 49 megabyte NGDC, 30 arc-second or our 03 arc-second USGS CD ROM digital terrain elevation database. The FM and TV databases, provided as an option, each require approximately four megabytes.

INTERDLG is packaged with a large hypertext on-line manual complete with illustrations.

INTERDLG makes plotting broadcast station signal contours fast and easy with results that set the standard for map making accuracy.

For a price quote of for more information on V-Soft Communications broadcast engineering products and services, e-mail
 info@v-soft.com