The main interface consists of three sections. The first section is where the stations you wish to add to the study are defined. Station parameters for stations not contained in the FCC database can be entered manually or loaded from a files saved by Probe. These transmitters should be added in the section of the window labeled "User Transmitters". The "checked" transmitter in this section represents which transmitter is used as the reference station. You may also tell the program to use a different station that is already in the FCC's database as the reference station.
Below the user transmitter section is where the user can tell the program to remove stations that currently exist in the FCC database. Use the "Find" button in this section to search for the file numbers of stations that might conflict with the transmitters that are being added to the study.
The "Server Settings" section is where the server-oriented information is entered. The "Internet Server" input field contains the internet address of the SunDTV server used to process the jobs (this should be set to "sundtv.com"). A user name and password are required. The email address that is specified as 'Notify Email' is the email address where notification of job completion is sent.
The final section is where you specify the options for the current job:
Consider Applications - The "Consider Applications" switch can be used to specify whether or not applications should be considered in the study (we were informed that the FCC runs studies without considering applications, and if they pass then they re-run the studies with the "Consider Applications" switch on in order to identify any mutually exclusive situations).
This is a channel change - Runs the study the special case of a channel change. Enter the previous channel in the text box on the right.
Census Data - Choose to run the study using either 1990 or 2000 census data.
Set to FCC Default Buttons - These buttons will set the cell size, profile spacing, and census database to use the default values used when the FCC analyzes either full service or low power stations.
Cell Size - This is the distance between the center of each cell in the grid used for calculating Longley/Rice field strength data. A cell size of 2 km is commonly used for full service studies and 1 km is common for low power studies.
Profile Spacing - This is the distance between each sample point on the profile used for calculating field strengths at each cell. The FCC typically uses a value of 1 km for this (note that smaller values dramatically increase computation time required for the study).
Job Name - The job name is used to create the output files generated by the program (so you should use a valid file name, but don't add a file extension). After entering a job name, the job can be sent to the server using the "Send Job to Server" button. Once the job has been processed the user will be notified by email where they can use a web browser to download the results.