RF Delusions

• Coverage contours -- a convenient fiction?

• • FCC coverage contours have been a convenient way to illustrate coverage since the start of TV broadcasting, but can you trust them?
  • Terrain over 16.1 km from the transmitter site is ignored, allowing contours to show service where none exists if there is a mountain range over 16.1 km away!
  • Shadowed areas are shown as receiving coverage
  • Simplifications used to speed contour creation for DTV studies can distort antenna patterns (more on this later...)