V-Soft Communications Newsletter: August 28, 2006

In this Newsletter:

Vernier to Speak on Digital Radio at NAB Radio Show

V-Soft Attending the NAB Radio Show in Dallas

AM-Pro 2 to be Unveiled at NAB

FMCommander Update Now Available

Broadcasters' Clinic Calls on Vernier

V-Soft is the Cover Story of August Radio World Engineering Extra

Probe Feature Additions since June

Vernier to Speak at Dallas NAB Radio Show

V-Soft's Doug Vernier will be speaking at this Fall's NAB show technical session. Vernier's presentation, entitled "HD Radio Coverage and Interference Issues" will be on the second day of the show (September 21) from 4:45PM - 5:30PM. Some of the questions that will be addressed include: "Where will my coverage go?", "Will my analog station receive interference?", "What new research is being done and where will it take us?". Vernier serves as the primary engineering consultant to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s HD Radio conversion program, which, to date, has supported the conversion to digital broadcasting of 472 public radio AM and FM stations. Top

Also, V-Soft will be exhibiting at the NAB Radio Show. This year's show, held September 20-22, will be hosted at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, TX. The V-Soft booth (#523) will be represented by Kate Michler, Technical Consultant, John Gray, V-Soft's Director of Research, and Doug Vernier, President.

Use our free courtesy Exhibits Pass to attend the NAB Radio Exhibits. Register on line and use our code # RD1050 to receive your courtesy pass.

The link that follows will take you to the NAB Radio web site where you can register for free.

https://registration.expoexchange.com/ShowNAB062/DefaultFull.aspx

Come to the booth and say hello! Top

AM-Pro 2 to be Unveiled at NAB

The much anticipated AM-Pro 2 is nearing completion and you can get a sneak peek at the V-Soft booth at the NAB Radio Show. AM-Pro 2 is a major upgrade to V-Soft's already powerful AM allocation and coverage mapping platform. In addition to numerous powerful upgrades, this new version supports "grid style" calculation of ground wave and sky wave field strengths and interference. Daytime allocation studies are enhanced by the ability to remove overlap area over water and accommodation for the existing facility. Night allocation studies now support full 'clipping' studies. Among the new features of AM-Pro 2 are the following:

Cancel Button for initial night and day allocation studies (so the user can go back to the ‘wizard’ and change a setting if a mistake was made)
Enhanced equivalent distance methodology for quick limit and point location field strength calculation.
New database searching system where a table of ‘matches’ is reported (like in Probe 3)
Ability to edit the AM database (and/or create custom databases)
Ability to add a special radial or radials at a non-integer number of degrees.
User definable border color and width specification for contour display.
Ability to ‘fill’ contours with a user specified color.
Revamped and advanced pattern editor for quicker response and flexibility. Also includes the ability to resize the advanced editor window and zoom in on a specific part of the graph.
Interference areas over water can be eliminated from calculated interference areas and maps.
Enhanced contour plotting for daytime allocation to show only the reference station contours that are relevant to the currently selected station(s).
Ability to plot and ‘highlight’ the existing facility station contours in daytime allocation studies.
Handles class C stations where power has been reduced from 1 kW (with increased efficiency).
Daytime radiation limit calculation speed has been significantly increased.
Ability to determine contour overlap areas and include polygons in those areas.
Ability to move city names to desired location, set populations, or remove.
For day studies added ability to change the channel of the reference station without rerunning the study.
Remove day time limits that are at ‘water’ points for interactive pattern editor (option).
Support for full “clipping” studies for nighttime studies.
Addition of a user defined “point protection” for night allocation.
Ability to specify a user defined boundary for clipping purposes on nighttime studies
If the “existing facility” for a class D station is picked up it will be now included as a contributor in an RSS study.
Provide the ability to calculate “grid style” ground wave and skywave coverages.
Added a ‘default’ setting for single station RSS studies (for station selection).
Added quick NIF contour level calculation to coverage study.
Ability to calculate/plot "grid style" interference. (similar to Probe 3)
Automatic calculation of critical hour radiation limits.
(More)

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New FMCommander Update Available

V-Soft has released a new FMCommander Update. You may have noticed that in previous versions the USGS 03 sec terrain and SRTM 03 second shuttle terrain paths shared the same input statement and the NED 03 sec terrain and NED 30 meter terrain shared the same file path name on the "Settings/Defaults" screen. The latest update has a separate file path input for each terrain database. Also, build 86 allows the user to move and or delete arrows placed on the program's map screens.

You move an arrow in the same way that you move a label. In the "add lines" mode (click the pencil icon to start the mode) right-click the existing arrow head and the entire arrow will turn magenta as in the screen capture shown above. Once the the arrow has changed colors you can drag it to a new location... (while holding down the right-clicked mouse button.) If while the arrow is magenta (while still holding down the right mouse button) you hit the "Delete" key on your keyboard, the arrow will be deleted. This same procedure works with lines without arrow heads and when the "labels" icon is clicked labels can be moved or deleted in the same manner.

FMCommander will also find a newly organized "GeoFeatures" menu item which contains sub menu items for all geographic features available. The Overlay menu now contains only overlays of data places, such as airports, towers and AM stations. All GeoFeatures and overlays are now permanent, meaning once turned on they will stay on until turned off. (The only exception to this is the "All Cities" menu, which remains non-persistent.) There are numerous additional enhancements that were add in recent versions. Existing FMCommander users should refer to the last few FMCommander readmes for the complete explanation.

FMCommander's new reverse plate setup. The map below shows FMCommander with a black background. Since many of the lines drawn by FMCommander, FMCont and SearchFM were black, these had to be given logic to turn a shade of white when a black background was selected. The coding to make this possible was added to build 86 of FMCommander, FMCont and SearchFM. Download the latest program to keep up to date.

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Vernier to Deliver Presentation at the Midwest Broadcasters Clinic;

Doug Vernier will be in Madison, Wisconsin for the Midwest Broadcasters Clinic 2006. He will present his paper on IBOC Coverage and Interference Issues on Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 at 10 AM. Included in the presentation will be information on IBOC coverage testing and some real-life cases of IBOC to analog interference with an explanation as to why the interference is being caused.

V-Soft's Adam Puls will be on hand as an exhibitor at the V-Soft booth. He and Doug will be demonstrating new V-Soft software including AM-Pro version 2.0. Top

V-Soft Article Seen as Front Page Cover Story of RWEE

V-Soft & Doug Vernier appear as the "Consultant Interview" cover story of the August 23, 2006 issue of Radio World Engineering Extra (RWEE). The interview, conducted by Boston University's Steve Callahan focuses on numerous topics including Vernier's broadcasting background, the development of V-Soft Communications, and Vernier's angle on various propagation algorithms. Included in the three page spread are samples of Longley-Rice and PTP propagation coverage maps, and a picture of the V-Soft Team. The August 23rd issue is available now. Click Here to subscribe to RWEE! Top

Probe additions since June

If you are on the V-Soft Technical Support Program, it's always wise to stay up-to-date by downloading the latest program. If you are a Probe 3 user and have not downloaded an updated program since June, here's what you have missed:

Probe 3 Version 3.43 ( 7-27-06 )
Updated to allow up to 18 characters for FM file number loaded from the
database (previously there was a limit of 16).
Added CDBS application ID and facility ID to transmitter record (can
be seen on the "Info" TAB of the transmitter editor).
Added transmitter variable access to app and facility ID using the variable
names "CDBSApplicationID" and "CDBSFacilityID".
Added the transmitter location as a POINT when exporting data to a MIF file.
Made some changes to speed up "Build Overlap Regions" on contour overlap
windows and add some information to the progress window.
Added a "distance" column to the database cull feature that shows
the distance (only appears when 'distance' is one of the search
criteria).
Added "text report" button to DB cull window which will generate a text
based report of items shown in the table.
Added "Station List" option to the "Report" menu. This generates a
text based summary table of all stations in the study.
Added Interference Free Coverage to time delay interference report.
Added checking for existence of "names.inf" to 'Data Test' feature.
Added the ability to specify the transmitter and receive elevation
in the profile editor (under antenna properties).
Added "database cull" functionality to the study edit window.
Added option to "Misc Options 1" tab of the "Study Defaults" window
to "Use transmitter color for new contours".
Added option to Transmitter Token settings to draw tokens and call signs
using the transmitter color (as an alternative to plotting them all
using the same color).
Changed vertical antenna pattern for low power TV stations to use the
2X OET 69 pattern for both analog and digital LP stations.
Added the ability to calculate contours that are adjusted using the
transmitters vertical antenna pattern. This uses a methodology
similar to the one in the OET 69 DTV processing program.
Added the ability to calculate a "shadow depth" buffer as part of the line
of sight propagation method (see the 'Line of Sight' TAB in the
transmitter editor). The shadow depth sets the 'signal' buffer to
be terrain clearance height above LOS (negative means blocked).
Added data export for time delay interference area (outputs interference points
to a CSV format with latitude, longitude, and maximum time delay).
Added information to TV interference reports about the broadcast type
and service code of the reference station. Top