A GIS-Aided frequency planning tool for terrestrial broadcasting and land mobile services

Abstract

Radio provides an important technology for emergency preparedness and emergency response. It not only offers rapid communication for emergency workers within the disaster area, but also affords the means of disseminating early warning of disasters and advice on how to respond to the public, and a means of monitoring of events and follow-up work in the wake of a disaster. Effective telecommunications are thus a vital part of emergency planning and response (Cate 1994, DHA 1995, Mulilis 1995, Zimmerman 1997). How well radio-based systems work, however, depends on a range of factors, including their geographic coverage, their population coverage, their field strength and their received power level. All these factors are highly dependent upon terrain. Moreover, due to the growing demands on the radio-frequency spectrum, there is a need to improve spectrum management techniques. The increase in the shared use of spectrum among administrations requires the use of more complex analysis methods. The efficient solution of spectrum managementproblems depends upon data storage and analysis capabilities, andconsequently requires the application of computer-aided techniques for data management and frequency assignment.