Re: [Repeater-Builder] Using SPLAT or RM to reverse plot a repeater?
On Tue, 31 Jul 2007, Bill Powell wrote: Looking for experience and advice in using SPLAT or RM to reverse plot a repeater. What I'd like to do is identify holes in the current coverage and run a plot with SPLAT or RM with the holes as the center point to identify potential repeater sites. Do I use mobile parameters (antenna height) at the hole or do I use an estimated height of 100' assuming that I'll have a 100' tower at the new site? Restated - how do I insure that reciprocal results are reliable? You're gonna need a lot of computing power. A LOT of computing power. -- Kris Kirby, KE4AHR [EMAIL PROTECTED] * WAR IS PEACE * FREEDOM IS SLAVERY * * IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH * KETCHUP IS * * A VEGETABLE *
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Using SPLAT or RM to reverse plot a repeater?
* Bill Powell [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2007 Jul 30 20:34 -0500]: Looking for experience and advice in using SPLAT or RM to reverse plot a repeater. What I'd like to do is identify holes in the current coverage and run a plot with SPLAT or RM with the holes as the center point to identify potential repeater sites. Do I use mobile parameters (antenna height) at the hole or do I use an estimated height of 100' assuming that I'll have a 100' tower at the new site? I would start with mobile parameters and the hole as the center point and do a coverage plat to an antenna at 100' AGL. With most versions of SPLAT! this will show theoretical line of sight. You should clearly see the results of earth elevation changes. You can also tell later versions of SPLAT! to use a Longley-Rice model that more approximates an RF path than line of sight. Restated - how do I insure that reciprocal results are reliable? That is tough to do as the computer programs can't account for foliage and man made structures that will cause further path loss. Up until the last release or so SPLAT! only calculated line of sight. Now it includes a longley-Rice model option I think John is working on other algorithms for the current version. Have you sent John an email about this? He is quite responsive and would know as well as any one how you might approach your problem with SPLAT!. - Nate -- Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB | Successfully Microsoft Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @ | free since January 1998. http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/ | Debian, the choice of My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @| a GNU generation! http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/ | http://www.debian.org
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Using SPLAT or RM to reverse plot a repeater?
* Kris Kirby [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2007 Jul 31 04:41 -0500]: On Tue, 31 Jul 2007, Bill Powell wrote: Looking for experience and advice in using SPLAT or RM to reverse plot a repeater. What I'd like to do is identify holes in the current coverage and run a plot with SPLAT or RM with the holes as the center point to identify potential repeater sites. Do I use mobile parameters (antenna height) at the hole or do I use an estimated height of 100' assuming that I'll have a 100' tower at the new site? Restated - how do I insure that reciprocal results are reliable? You're gonna need a lot of computing power. A LOT of computing power. As compared to? I routinely run SPLAT! coverage plots on my trusty 1.333 GHz Pentium III based T23 laptop. Yes, it may take a couple of minutes to chew through some of the more demanding plots. For SPLAT! purposes, enough computing power is available on the used market for even the most frugal ham. Even in the case of SPLAT!, memory is more important than CPU speed. I have 768 MiB in the laptop and a full GiB wouldn't hurt, but it really isn't worth tossing a 256 MiB chip for a 512 MiB one. Opening the PPM files generated by GNU Plot in the Gimp is no problem for my T23 either. I do this work on a Slackware partition which is quite a bit leaner than my Debian partition which I have set up for as a rich desktop. 73, de Nate -- Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB | Successfully Microsoft Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @ | free since January 1998. http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/ | Debian, the choice of My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @| a GNU generation! http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/ | http://www.debian.org
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Using SPLAT or RM to reverse plot a repeater?
Nate Bargmann wrote: * Kris Kirby [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2007 Jul 31 04:41 -0500]: On Tue, 31 Jul 2007, Bill Powell wrote: Looking for experience and advice in using SPLAT or RM to reverse plot a repeater. What I'd like to do is identify holes in the current coverage and run a plot with SPLAT or RM with the holes as the center point to identify potential repeater sites. Do I use mobile parameters (antenna height) at the hole or do I use an estimated height of 100' assuming that I'll have a 100' tower at the new site? Restated - how do I insure that reciprocal results are reliable? You're gonna need a lot of computing power. A LOT of computing power. As compared to? I routinely run SPLAT! coverage plots on my trusty 1.333 GHz Pentium III based T23 laptop. Yes, it may take a couple of minutes to chew through some of the more demanding plots. For SPLAT! purposes, enough computing power is available on the used market for even the most frugal ham. Even in the case of SPLAT!, memory is more important than CPU speed. I have 768 MiB in the laptop and a full GiB wouldn't hurt, but it really isn't worth tossing a 256 MiB chip for a 512 MiB one. Opening the PPM files generated by GNU Plot in the Gimp is no problem for my T23 either. I do this work on a Slackware partition which is quite a bit leaner than my Debian partition which I have set up for as a rich desktop. 73, de Nate Oh, duh, missed your OS...;cP -- Jim Barbour WD8CHL
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Using SPLAT or RM to reverse plot a repeater?
Nate Bargmann wrote: Even in the case of SPLAT!, memory is more important than CPU speed. I have 768 MiB in the laptop and a full GiB wouldn't hurt, but it really isn't worth tossing a 256 MiB chip for a 512 MiB one. Opening the PPM files generated by GNU Plot in the Gimp is no problem for my T23 either. I do this work on a Slackware partition which is quite a bit leaner than my Debian partition which I have set up for as a rich desktop. 73, de Nate Especially since I remember seeing somewhere that Win98 won't correctly allocate more then 512M of RAM. -- Jim Barbour WD8CHL
