Using Radio Mobile for Windows
Creating Antenna Patterns
Previous: Systems And Networks Next: RF Coverage Plot
Radio Mobile includes four basic antenna pattern files to get you started using the software. Most of the time you will want to create your own custom pattern files that are specific to the antennas you will be using in your system. Creating your own antenna patterns is easy but you will need a few tools to get started.
To create your own antenna pattern files you will need the following:
- Spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org or Gnumeric. Both OpenOffice.org and Gnumeric are free downloads that will run on Windows and Linux. You can also load the spreadsheets into Google Spreadsheets although the graph will not display.
- A text editor. Notepad works but I prefer Crimson Editor.
- One of the two spreadsheets included in the Radio Mobile Deluxe Yahoo! Groups file section.
- Antenna pattern files or antenna technical specs. Most antenna manufacturers provide antenna pattern files on their websites but not in a Radio Mobile-friendly format. This is not a problem because you can use the information included in the pattern files to create your own antenna patterns for use with Radio Mobile.
Now you are ready to create your custom antenna pattern. First, load the spreadsheet into your spreadsheet software. You will notice several columns labeled Angle, Gain, Azimuth, Att(dB) and Diag data. You will create the antenna pattern data by modifying the column labeled Att(dB). Enter the Att values for your antenna in 10° intervals into the Att(dB) column. Once have you entered all of your data, copy the values from column B, Gain (dB) and then paste them into a new file in your text editor. You do not need to copy the first two rows of column B, only the numerical data. Finally, save the text file with the extension .ant in your Radio Mobile directory. The new pattern file will be ready for you to use the next time you launch Radio Mobile.
You should now have Radio Mobile properly configured. Please continue to the next section, RF Coverage Plot, to learn how to create your own coverage plots with Radio Mobile.
References
- OpenOffice.org
- Gnumeric
- Google Spreadsheets
- Crimson Editor
- Radio Mobile Deluxe Yahoo! Groups file section