V-Soft Communications Newsletter: 02/07/05
In this Newsletter:
V-Soft
Communication’s Hosts Engineering Seminar in
Probe 3 Adds
Audemat Import Function and Blending Capability
Reminder of
Probe 3 Time Delay Module
FMCommander
Now Includes FMOver and Built-in updating
Billing and
Price Changes for Technical Support Users
V-Soft
Communications Engineering Seminar to be Held
V-Soft Communications will
hold its 3rd annual engineering training seminar immediately prior to
the NAB. The seminar is scheduled for Saturday, April 16, from
The seminar will focus on
specific broadcast engineering projects such as station upgrading, translators,
single frequency networks and boosters, interference analysis, and move-ins.
V-Soft Communications will be highlighting it’s newly released comprehensive frequency search
program, FMCommander, and will focus on numerous new features in the Probe 3
propagation prediction program.
The cost for the seminar is
$495 per attendee. For clients on our professional technical support, the cost
is $450. If you are interested in attending, to insure your space please contact
us immediately. Breakfast and lunch will be provided for attendees on both days.
For additional
A full house at one of our past
training seminars.
New Mapping Boundary Datasets for Probe 3 Available
V-Soft
Communications now has year 2000
The
2000
The 2000 U.S. Census urban areas dataset is typically used for studies involving moving a commercial FM station’s city of license. The dataset is useful in analyzing the new market of the station and to determine whether it becomes a part of the major urban area or not. If the new station is going to be licensed to a smaller city that borders a larger urban area, the FCC wants a showing of the new station's coverage of the urban area. If the coverage is at least 50% of the urban area, competing applications not serving the urban area will have the edge due to the fact that they are serving a "true" first service area. Below is a map showing the difference between the new urban areas and the 2000 Tiger metropolitan boundaries.
The 1999 MSA boundaries are used for cellular and PCS studies typically.
These
datasets are being sold as a package set. The cost for all of the datasets is
$950. If
you would like to order the new datasets, or have any additional questions,
please contact us at (800) 743-3684 or info@v-soft.com.
Probe
3 Now Includes Measured Data Import Capabilities
The
ever expanding capabilities of Probe 3 have taken another step with our new
implementation of the Audemat-Aztec
measured data importer. The new “Measured Data” importation module allows
measured field strength data points and their locations to
be viewed on the map in the presence of the
Longley-Rice calculated signal. The map will show the “snail trail” of the
measured data (shown below). Measured data can also be integrated with predicted
data to provide coverage maps of utmost accuracy. This new Probe 3 module
uniquely integrates actual measured data with predicted data, so that if the
signal of interest were measured only along major highways the signal between
the highways would be filled in using interpolation methods and Longley-Rice
predictions. This optional feature is priced at $950.
Time
Delay Module for Booster Studies in Probe 3
The Probe “Time Delay
Module” is designed to determine interference areas when multiple transmitters
containing single-frequency systems or on-channel boosters are in use.
The module allows the user to examine the effect that different time delays
have on the both the coverage and interference areas. Tabulations of populations
in these areas can produced using the reports generator.
The December
V-Soft Communications newsletter included a detailed explanation of how this
module works. The price for the new “Time Delay” module is $1,500. Please
contact us at (800)743-3684 or info@v-soft.com
with any questions you may have.
FMOver
Feature Available in FMCommander
FMCommander
now includes the FMOver feature. The FMOver printout checks the incoming signal
of a potentially interfering station at user specified azimuth increments along
a station's protected contour. This feature can be found in the ‘Find Station
Information’ screen of FMCommander by going to ‘Print’ and ‘FMOver
Report’. There you can choose to send it to the printer or the word processor.
(Shown below)
The
program produces an FCC style FMOver report for both the reference station and
the database station in the same report. If an interfering signal value along a
protected contour exceeds the allowable U/D for the given channel relationship
the program places an asterisk next to the troubled signal in the far right hand
column. A lack of an asterisk is a
sign that no overlap has been detected. To see a print out of the FMOver click
here.
FMCommander’s
built-in updating:
FMCommander
now features built-in updating for both program and data.
Simply click the “Help” menu and then click the menu items for either
updating the program or updating your database. The program will use its
built-in Internet browser to surf to the V-Soft Communications FMCommander
update site. Here you can view the readme and download the latest program
update. Note that both the date of
your program on your hard drive and the date of the available update are shown
as you enter the FMCommander update web page. (Shown below)
When you have downloaded a zipped program update you need to close
FMCommander before you extract the new program executable. This is not required
when updating the FM database.
Other
FMCommander new features:
Additional
new features in FMCommander include an antenna center AGL
converter that with the input of the antenna height above ground will derive
the base elevation from the terrain database and then calculate the COR AMSL and
the resulting HAAT. This tool
can be found on the “Reference
screen.”
FMCommander
also provides the option to start without loading the last study.
When the new default screen check box labeled Auto Load is checked, the
program will function as usual, however un-checking this box will cause the
program to start without a study being loaded.
There
are a number of smaller updates and features that have been added to the program
which makes downloading your updates on a regular basis well worth the effort.
Technical
Support Changes Made
It has been several years
since we made any substantive changes to the costs for technical support. To
counter the impact of inflation, the new prices adjust the cost of support by
five percent. Billing schedules have also been changed. Below you will find
information regarding both of these changes.
Billing
Schedule Changes
V-Soft Communications will
be switching to a standard quarterly/annual billing schedule. Bill dates are:
Invoicing Date
Due Date
Quarter
Dec
1
within 10 days
Jan, Feb, Mar
March
1 of receipt
April, May, June
June
1
July, Aug, Sept
Sept
1
Oct, Nov, Dec
Dec
1
Jan 1 – Dec 31
To move everyone to
standard quarters, the next quarterly invoice will be prorated to the end of the
announced quarter. For example –
if your next bill is generated Feb. 24th for March, April and May. We
will prorate this invoice to cover one month only, March. Another invoice will
be generated on March 1 for April, May and June. A note will be enclosed in each
prorated invoice, explaining the new procedure.
Technical Support rates:
The
new rates are as follows:
Professional
tech support (with any database) Quarter
$482
Standard
tech support – Quarter
$272
Professional
tech support – Annual
$1,735
Standard
tech support – Annual
$1,050
Additional Databases, AM, FM, or TV with
subscription
to professional technical support.
$158
Professional
support includes unlimited toll-free telephone support, daily access to selected
databases, all qualified program upgrades. New
features, including changes to accommodate FCC rules changes, are added to the
programs through-out the year. Also,
with professional support, you receive substantial discounts that can be used to
purchase new program versions, modules and training.
Standard
support includes toll-free support, bi-monthly access to the V-Soft FCC
database, some discounts on the purchase of upgrades and training.
For
questions concerning the technical support contact us at info@v-soft.com
or (800) 743-3684.
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