Pathloss 5 - Revision history
Pathloss 5 - revision date March 2, 2010
Antenna beamwidth - downtilt
The multipath - reflections design section uses the elevation antenna 3 dB beamwidth and the antenna mechanical downtilt parameters in the analysis. Previously, copies of these variables were initially taken from the transmission analysis section and were not updated. The values are now the same in both design sections.
Antenna orientation calculations
These calculations are now continuously updated for all data entries and changes.
CSV reports
The delimiter selection (comma, tab, semicolon or other) now works. The text qualifier now allows a delimiter in an expression.
Pathloss 5 - revision date February 23, 2010
Create PTP/PTMP links - Design links - Edit modify links
The windows hierarchy in these functions could result in the current window being hidden.
Terrain data section
The survey angles function returns an error message if the cursor is on site 1 - the first point in the profile.
The single structure dialog warning message "Structure exists at this location" has been removed from the dialog. An error message will be generated if the user attempts to add a structure at a location where one already exists.
Multipath - Reflections
Under certain non line of sight conditions, the program would crash when the define plane function was called.
GIS configuration - Indexing NED bil files
This can now be carried out for complete folders and sub folders. In the File index display, click Files - Import index - bil, hdr, blw folder- subfolder. Select the top folder containing these files to create the index.
Pathloss 5 - revision date February 8, 2010
Google Earth Export
Local and area studies are now reprojected from the network display projection to the Google Earth plat carree projection. This improves the positioning within Google Earth, especially for large areas.
Local and Area Studies
If the variables "show local study" or "show area study" are changed in the site list, the changes did not take effect until the local or area study was regenerated. In this program build the changes will take effect immediately when the site list is closed.
Interference case detail report
The delete case and delete subcase buttons in the case detail report would cause a crash whenever all subcases associated with a receiver were deleted
Radio Lookup table
The second time the radio lookup table was accessed, the radio data would not be added if the design section had changed between accesses.
Local studies did not export to Google Earth unless all options were selected
Pathloss 5 - revision date January 20, 2010
Diffraction
If the diffraction algorithm was set in the PL50L program options, the tool bar in the the diffraction section was not reset.
Switching diffraction algorithms in the diffraction section, did not completely reset the calculations resulting in some interaction between algorithms.
Fixed bug in ray trace and reference plane analysis which would not show colors when printed in a batch report.
Pathloss 5 - revision date January 13, 2010
Diffraction loss
Reflective plane definition for Longley and Rice algorithm revised for line of sight applications.
Interactions between the diffraction loss calculations carried out in the transmission analysis section and the diffraction section have been eliminated
Pathloss 5 - revision date January 4, 2010
Some stability problems have been corrected in the link text import. If a file could not be saved, an error report is written and displayed at the end of the import.
Reflection plane report crash.
Import text files
The settings and column definitions can be saved and loaded. This makes it possible to handle any number of column definition formats for a particular import.
Pathloss 5 - revision date December 23, 2009
New menu item Assign Thematics under the Operations menu in PL50 allows thematics (site Type, site Status, link type, link status and los status) to be assigned to a selection or group.
Exporting to Google Earth now allows the local studies to be exported as a single image rather than an image for each base station. This option is shown on the export dialog.
Exporting PL5 to PL4 was missing the traffic code. This has been fixed
Pathloss 5 - revision date December 17, 2009
Fixed bug which caused local studies to have erroneous loss if clutter files could not be found.
Fixed some minor visibility problems regarding local studies.
GIS configuration
If a vector file (MapInfo or Shapefile) with building elevations was entered in the vector tab file list, then the program would crash when the file list was opened and the vector file was not at the specified location.
Grid ASCII conversion
Improved error detection in grid ascii file
3D terrain view
The user interface has been redesigned.
Update pl5 files
This function in the site data list will set the profile end point elevations to the values specified in the site list.
Automatic OHLOSS calculations in an interference calculation
If the "Calculate OHLOSS automatically" option was checked in an interference calculation, the program calculated the OHLOSS for each case. If the addition of the OHLOSS resulted in an interfering signal less than the objective minus the margin, the interference case was discarded. In all other cases the reports showed the OHLOSS being included twice.
Radio and antenna lookup tables
For antenna, the model and gain are the minimum requirements For radio lookup tables, the model transmit power and receive sensitivity are the minimum requirements. Minor reformatting changes were carried out to these tables.
Import link text file
A csv file with more than 2048 characters per line would cause a program crash. Any line length can now be used.
Pathloss 5 - revision date December 02, 2009
Visibility of ungrouped sites and links is saved in the gr5 file.
Export to shapefile and mapinfo mid/mif now allows export of groups or selections. More information exported to shapefile and mapinfo mid/mif databases.
3D Display now only shows visible network.
Fixed error exporting studies to google earth from certain datums.
Refinements to google earth export: More information in description, links now shown above ground at antenna height.
Pathloss 5 - revision date November 25, 2009
Export to google earth now allows export of groups or selection.
Maximum receive signal exceeded has been added to the trasmission analysis warnings.
More information is exported to mapinfo mid/mif format.
Pathloss 5 - revision date November 17, 2009
Profile displays now show the arrow on top of any structure or clutter at the selected point.
The excess clearance display in the antenna heights design section showed the longitude hemisphere incorrectly.
Erroneous base station circulator branching loss values could be generated if the Cancel (red X) button was clicked in the antenna coupling unit data entry form.
Create P2P links. Joining a group (or selection) to all sites now works as it should. Previously, some links between group members were omitted.
Pathloss 5 - revision date November 10, 2009
Create P2P links
Joining a group (or selection) to all sites now works as it should. Previously, some links between group members were ommited.
Hot keys have been added to switch between the link design sections.
Manual site linking direction Manual links were created in west to east direction. Links which were exactly north - south were created in a south to north direction. Using this convention, all profile displays had the westerly site on the left side.
This has been changed so that the first site selected is always on left side of profile displays.
Link text file import If the design frequency is not available in the import, the average channel assignments are now used.
Print profile options
The print profile options were not saved on exiting the report printing dialog.
Pathloss 5 - revision date October 20, 2009
Fixed crash involving Ohloss and Diffraction Loss Reports.
Pathloss 5 - revision date October 15, 2009
GIS Configuration
ESRI header files used for indexing BIL files with out a corresponding prj file are now supported. The projection information is contained in the hdr file. The user must set the projection.
CSV Import
The duplicate column assignments error message now identifies the specific column numbers and in the case of the "Site text file" import, the field name is specified.
The link text import loads the antenna code if available.
Pathloss 5 - revision date October 5, 2009
Rain data files
City rain data files have been added to the program. These are non proprietary rain files for US and Canadian cities.
Provision has been made to use the Proprietary ATT radio data files; however these are not supplied with the program. These files must be located in the directory geo_data\rain\alu_rain.
Radio and Antenna Code Index
Improved functionality for the find control.
Pathloss 5 - revision date September 29, 2009
Link Text Import
Coordinates using separate columns for degrees, minutes and seconds were not importing correctly.
Station, owner and operator codes
These site specific parameters can be used for alternate data storage and status information. These parameters can be excluded from the network
- pl5 file discrepancy checking. Click Configure - PL50 Program options
- Network link data checks to set these options.
Link design rules
Field margin has been added to the link design rules. The data entry is in the reliability parameters section of the design rules dialog.
Radio and antenna code data entry.
These can now be entered directly and deleted in the respective data entry forms.
Tooltips have been added to the radio and antenna indexes.
Antenna clearance report
If the controlling clearance criteria included a fixed height, the clearance report did not included this fixed height.
GIS Configuration
If the vector tab included shapefile definitions, and the shapefiles were not present, the program could crash on startup.
Pathloss 5 - revision date September 24, 2009
Backdrops
The Import Index - Mapinfo tab file option now supports bmp, jpg, and png in addition to tif as image formats. One bit black and white tif files are now supported.
Link text file import
Multiple links between the same two sites can now be carried out in the link text file import
Pathloss 5 - revision date September 22, 2009
Vertical Mapper Clutter files (gcd files)
Clutter data in the MapInfo vertical mapper format may include a clutter definition table in the file. If this exists the data will be automatically entered into the clutter definition table.
Note that clutter elevations do not exist in this file format. All clutter elevations have been set to a default value of zero. It is the users responsibility to assign the clutter heights. The clutter cross reference categories have been set to an "open land" default value. For local and area studies, the user must assign the cross references
GIS Configuration
The Philippine reference system 1992 datum has been added. This is effectively the same definition as the existing Luzon datum, however the transformation to WGS84 utilizes the 7 parameter algorithm for the entire country, whereas the the Luzon definition uses a 3 parameter transformation and two regions (Philippines excluding Mindanao and Mindanao) The Philippine transverse mercator projection for the five zones has been added for this datum
The clutter definition table now shows the clutter elevations in the units currently selected (feet or meters). Previously units were always in meters
Interference case detail report
Headers in the performance degradation did not line up with the actual data.
PL50L Options
The automatic diffraction algorithm selection (Pathloss, Tirem or NSMA) was not included in the PL50L option settings
Obstruction Fading (transmission analysis section) The diffraction loss iterations could fail under certain conditions and return a critical value of K of 1.33. The results were completely unrealistic
Pathloss 5 - revision date September 15, 2009
Passive repeaters
Passive repeaters created in the network display had stability problems.
Vectors
Added support for displaying ESRI shapefiles of type SHPT_ARCZ and SHPT_POLYGONZ.
Backdrop Files
MapInfo tab files can be loaded directly in to the Backdrop index. This is a multiselect operation. If the list is empty, then the first file added sets the projection. All successive files must match this projection. If the index contains any entries, then the existing projection determines if the file can be accepted.
Update PL5 file in the network display only updated one site in a link if the YES button was clicked. The Yes to all button operated correctly.
GRIDASCII
Converting a GRIDASCII resulted in a "File format error" on UNIX files. The program incorrectly interpreted the 0xA end of line character.
Pathloss 5 - revision date September 8, 2009
Set GIS configuration The MapInfo derived projection could cause a program crash if it was manually selected from the projection drop down list.
The ERP values in watts and dBm were reversed in land mobile applications in the transmission analysis display.
Diffraction loss
The diffraction loss calculation failed on line of sight paths with more than 6 terrain incursions into the 60% Fresnel zone radius.
Pathloss 5 - revision date September 2, 2009
Vertical mapper grd DEM files using 16 bit integers were not correctly read.
Pathloss 5 - revision date September 1, 2009
Link text file import
If the design frequency is not specified, and channel frequency assignments are in the file, then the design frequency will be set to the average of the channel frequencies.
Define plane
The define plane caused a crash when switching between the manual and automatic generation methods
The network file consisted of two files with the suffixes gr5 and gr5ids. The gr5ids contains the site and link ids and is intended to be used on a shared file basis. The gr5ids file has been removed in this program build due to potential data synchronization problems.
Rain errors were reported even when the rain calculation was switched off.
The free space loss formula gave results which were 0.02 dB different than the version 4.0 results. This small difference created difficulties in comparing availability results which are formatted to five decimal places. This release changes the free space loss to the version 4 formula.
Pathloss 5 - revision date August 26, 2009
Minor fixes to radio and antenna lookup tables.
Pathloss 5 - revision date August 25, 2009
Pl50 Options
Site Attributes, Site Label, Link Attributes and Link Labels can now be applied to a group or selection.
Set GIS Configuration
The File index for NLCD2001 clutter did not show the clutter name on the caption
PL40 radome loss
When a pl4 file containing a valid antenna code was opened in the standalone PL50L application, the antenna data was reloaded. This caused the radome loss to reset.
Space diversity - IF combining - corrected.
Changed gr5 save routine to guard against header errors.
Pathloss 5 - revision date August 17, 2009
Transmission summary report when invoked from the transmission analysis menu bar always showed the distance and elevation in Miles / feet
Network to PL5 discrepancy dialog. Direction arrow buttons did not function.
Pathloss 5 - revision date August 13, 2009
Network display - Map crossings
The map crossing function has been implemented. This is only valid for the default network projection. First set the axis to correspond to the desired maps (Click configure - PL50 options - axis-map grid). Then right click on the link and select map crossings. If the US 1:24,000 7.5 minute map scale has been selected, the report will show the actual map names.
Terrain data module
The reverse profile did not reverse the site names on the status bar.
Fixed google earth datum transformation.
Fixed minor bugs related to the no data entries in clutter databases.
Pathloss 5 - revision date August 6, 2009
Group manager
The visibility display rules have been changed to allow a group containing only links to be displayed. Some fixes have been made involving operations where some sites and links are hidden.
Antenna heights section
The graphical antenna heights display now does not show the minimum clearance criteria. Previously this was show as a modification to the Fresnel zone radius. Although the results were correct, this display was somewhat confusing.
The minimum clearance criteria is intended to provide clearance for close in obstructions where K and the Fresnel zone radius are very small and can lead to a grazing path. Note that when this is specified, the antenna heights cannot be less than this value.
Radio data entry form (Adaptive modulation)
Clicking the blue button to access the adaptive modulation table, could bring up a second instance of the table which could cause a program crash.
Update PL5 files has been added. This function is available on the site list menu bar. The procedure checks all associated pl5 files and compares the site data to the data in the site list. If there are any differences the user is prompted to modify the pl5 file. This is a one direction change - Network site data to pl5 file.
Pathloss 5 - revision date July 31, 2009
NLCD2001 and NCLD2002 clutter data downloads in BIL format from the USGS site are now working. These files can be used with the July 31, 2009 program build.
NED and SRTM elevation data downloads in BIL format are now in a 32 bit floating point format. We believe that this is an error as the definition of the BIL format on the USGS site states that the elevations are in a signed 16 bit integer format. The new float files are twice the size of the integer files.
The July 31, 2009 program build will read the floating point files.
The Group manager operation has been revised so that links can exist in a group without the associated sites being in the group. This allows the user to create a group with links only or with sites only. Combinations of sites and links in a group are still possible. In this arrangement, links can now be hidden without hiding the sites.
Printing and copying the network display with backdrops produced black ares where the backdrop was missing.
Pathloss 5 - revision date July 29, 2009
Site list does not reset display unless coordinates are changed.
Set GIS Configuration correctly recognizes when the projection of the display has changed.
Pl5 Link Files deleted by Pathloss are now sent to the recycle bin rather than being permanently deleted.
Reports
Fixed bugs causing columns to be out of sync and filenames to not be displayed in some cases.
Antenna Usage is shown next to the antenna model in the transmission detail and transmission summary reports.
Point to point link design
The antenna coupling unit (ACU) data entry form in the base station definition did not match up with the ACU data entry in the Link Design Rules. These are now exactly the same interface
Pathloss 5 - revision date July 24, 2009
The addition of new fields to site data caused a crash in the site data entry forms.
Fixed error in which a group could become corrupted when importing from site text files.
Pathloss 5 - revision date July 22, 2009
Obstruction Fading
A preliminary implementation is available in the transmission analysis design section. Click Operations - Obstruction fading. The next program build will include the documentation and the obstruction fading will be incorporated into the reports
Local and area studies
The receive at base station option cause an error.
CSV link report
The antenna usage field has been added. This will only appear if the antenna model is checked.
Import text links
Quotation marks were not automatically removed.
A preliminary request for frequency coordination CSV report has been added. Click Operations - Frequency Coordination report. The report format may change based on discussions with Alcatel and Comsearch. The following fields have been added to the site data structure for this report.
- Antenna registration number char[16]
- Zip code char[16]
- Tower height with Appurtenances
Under some circumstances - distance, azimuth and projected coordinates were not automatically calculated from the site coordinates.
Pathloss 5 - revision date July 9, 2009
ASTER GeoTiff Data
Support for the ASTER geotiff terrain elevation data has been added. This is a one arc second data base with global coverage over the latitude range 83N to 83S. This has been implemented as a BIL geographic DEM.
Radio and Antenna Cross Reference
The radio and antenna cross reference in the link text file import has been implemented. Note that at this time there is no check on the code validity and the codes are not expanded to complete missing data entries.
Antenna lookup tables
The default antenna lookup table was not loaded on startup.
Pathloss 5 - revision date July 3, 2009
Site text import
Site elevation values were corrupted in the import procedure.
Local studies
The climate region was was not being updated in both local and area studies. A continental temperate climate was used in all cases.
Network
The move site operation did not update the azimuths in any associated pl5 files. Move site can be potentially dangerous. Additional work is underway to advise users of the full impact of the site move operation.
Pathloss 5 - revision date July 2, 2009
The options dialog in the transmission analysis section was missing. This dialog allows the entry of water vapor density in microwave - adaptive modulation applications and the location selection for land mobile applications
Time variability was not being updated in both local and area studies. A constant time variability of 50% was being used.
Auto link design on PTMP links using all sites within a specified radius, did not consider the visibility state of the sites.
Pathloss 5 - revision date June 30, 2009
Group manager
The user interface for editing groups as a list has been completely revised. The group visibility interface has also been revised.
Adaptive modulation
The percent of time in mode is now show for the total annual throughput.
CSV Link Report
The options for Transmission detail and Transmission summary were reversed. Site coordinates were only exported in degrees minutes and seconds format. The decimal degree option now works.
Reflective plane definition
Continued resetting and redefining a reflective plane could cause a program crash.
Pathloss 5 - revision date June 22, 2009
Assigned antenna height
The import site text file (csv) now includes an assigned antenna height field. The value is not displayed in the site list display. Click Edit - Edit item to view all fields in the site list including the assigned antenna height. This field is used in the following auto-design operations:
create PTP links create PTMP links design links (PTP and PTMP)
The Link design rules includes the option "Use assigned antenna heights" in the Antenna heights - tx lines setting. When this option is checked, the assigned value for a site will be used in all links from that site. If there is no value for the assigned antenna height, the tower height will be used. If both the assigned antenna height and tower height are not available, the site will not be used in the design operation.
Use the "Clearance" display criteria to display the results of the design operation using the assigned antenna heights.
PL4 files can be exported using group or selection directly from the Network display.
The clearance criteria used in the link design rules were not saved once the session was closed.
Radio and antenna lookup tables
If the default lookup table file cannot be found, the program would crash. The antenna lookup table high and low frequency values did not sort correctly.
GIS setup
Clutter index for was not saved correctly under certain conditions.
Pathloss 5 - revision date June 15, 2009
Set GIS Configuration
The default directory specification has been changed from a single directory to individual file directories when importing an index.
Some procedures involving lookup tables and code indexes, could cause the data entry form to loose focus and go behind the network display.
Import link text file
This procedure has been revised to include 3 antennas and 12 TX channel entries. Still outstanding are the cross references between the radio and antenna codes in the csv file and the actual codes to be used.
Pathloss 5 - revision date May 26, 2009
The Design link function has been completely revised and divided into two functions. The Design links function only operates on links without a pl5 file association. The Edit-Modify links function only operates on links with an existing pl5 file association.
Network Operations
The following side effects introduced in the due to the May 19 build have been corrected The Performance function caused a program crash The Add site and Move site dialogs sizes were not usable
Rain calculations
The ITU-R P.837-5 rain data base has been added to the program. The original 837-3 has not been removed. It should be noted that the difference can be significant between the two data bases.
ATT rain data files for the United States are not distributed with the program. The directory geo_data\rain\rain_usa contains Canadian rain data files in the ATT file format. The file naming convention is CURVEXX.CSV where XX is a one or two digit number. If the USA files are located in this directory, then they will be automatically used for the Crane rain algorithm
Antenna Lookup Tables
Radome loss and antenna diameter have been added to the lookup table
Radio and antenna data lookup files could cause a program crash if an arbitrary file was loaded.
Ant_rad.exe - radio data files
If a binary radio data file was saved several times in a row, the calculated curves - TX emission mask, RX selectivity mask and the RX selectivity curver used in calculations would be duplicated.
Pathloss 5 - revision date May 19, 2009
Design Links - Network Display
This has been completely revised. The operation is similar to the Create PTP / PTMP links feature.
It is possible simply to view the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the network links using either the original design rules or the current design rules.
A group selection criteria is provided to move the links into different groups based on these KPIs.
Transmission line lengths on PTMP link designs have been corrected
Data integrity checks between PL5 files and the network display. When a pl5 file was saved, the network display data was automatically updated to the PL5 data. This has been changed. If differences between the two data sets are present, the user is prompted to select the correct data.
MapInfo grc files (one byte data files) were not read correctly. These files were being used as clutter data.
Pathloss 5 - revision date May 7, 2009
Create PTP and PTMP links
Clearance has been added as a rejection criteria. This is the clearance relative to the clearance criteria. A value of 0 means that the clearance criteria has been exactly met. A positive value is the excess clearance over the clearance criteria. A negative value is the additional clearance required to meet the clearance criteria.
A minimum and maximum value can be specified for each rejection criteria. In addition, the current link display can be saved to a group. This makes it possible to save the analysis into multiple groups. For example the group names could be as follows:
clearance OK clearance within 10 meters clearance over 10 meters
The links can be saved with the original color legend.
Point to point equipment parameters now used the same standard data entry forms used in the transmission analysis section and include both lookup tables and the radio - antenna indexes.
Automatic Link Design
Diffraction loss is calculated at three values of K (4/3, the minimum expected value of K and a K of infinity). The infinity value was used in the transmission analysis under the assumption that heavy multipath fading is coincident with high values of K.
In this program build, the 4/3 value is used. Future program builds will expand on this and provide the probability of obstruction fading.
Lookup tables
Various data entry and conversion problems with antenna and radio data lookup tables were corrected dbm to microvolt conversion on the land mobile radio data entry form did not operate.
Pathloss 5 - revision date April 22, 2009
Multipath - reflection
Variable parameters calculations using ray tracing did not correctly save in the pl5 file.
Variable parameters calculations using ray tracing on paths which were blocked at the lowest value of the earth radius factor K could cause a program crash.
Transmission analysis
The vertical angle and azimuth were expressed as degrees minutes and seconds in report. The vertical angles were reported as positive values. These are now expressed as decimal degrees with the correct sign
The report format options for microwave total time below level showed the annual rain unavailability and the total annual rain + multipath unavailability in expressed in seconds. The actual report expresses the value in minutes. This provides compatibility with ITU conventions of expressing unavailability in minutes.
Loading a radio data file could could change several of the calculations options. These changes have been inhibited for the time being. The radio data files contain calculation methods such as selective outage and performance calculations in accordance with G826. A future release will prompt the user to make these changes and the changes will be immediately reflected in the radio data entry form.
FCC EIRP warnings were based on dBm instead of dBW
Vectors
A side effect of continuing development on shapefile features resulted in program crash when using vector shapefiles
Network display link list
If the link list was closed with the last row selected, the program would crash
Pathloss 5 - revision date March 26, 2009
Site list
Corrections made to the import/export CSV files operations.
Corrections made to column sorting.
Automatic link design
Antenna height greater than the tower height link rejection criteria has been added.
Tower heights have been added to the CSV report.
Finalize links did not correctly limit antenna heights to the tower heights
Diffraction module
Under some circumstances Fresnel zones could not be displayed.
Reports
This section is now under revision. The version 4 print profile report has been added.
Pathloss 5 - revision date March 10, 2009
Radio lookup tables can load version 4 microwave (mrd) and VHF-UHF (vrd) lookup files.
CSV Link reports have been added. They can be found under the Operations menu in the network display. The report can be customized by clicking the 'Edit' button and selecting CSV Link report from the dropdown list in the report settings window. (More report settings are available in the tree list on the left.)
Pathloss 5 - revision date February 24, 2009
Radio lookup tables
This has been added as an option to using the radio code index. If a code exists in the table, the, lookup table functions the same as the radio code index.
Other fixes
Loading pl4 files which contained Fresnel references became corrupted when saved as PL5 files.
Interference calculations for base stations without associated links has been implemented.
Pathloss 5 - revision date February 12, 2009
Base station sector frequency assignments
The TX channel table and frequency plan files are now used for frequency assignments.
Point to multipoint design
The base antenna height is not considered in the rejection criteria.
Google Earth kml export
General improvements to the overall display. Local and area studies are now exported as separate entities for each signal level.
Other fixes
Metric conversion problems - (feet and miles only).
Error in transmission line unit loss in ptmp link design corrected.
Error in tower heights corrected.
