Among other clarifications, Bruce WA7BNM wrote:
> The ideal antenna modeling program would include both the NEC/MININEC
> analysis of antenna elements and 3D reflection/diffraction analysis for
> underlying terrain.
I couldn't agree more. That's the tool I would like to have for my
surrounding terrain. I've got the terrain data and the NEC models, but
no way to integrate them, especially over a 2.5 dimensional surface.
I would even like to add one more layer to the model - soil type. There
may be a way to interpret soil conductivity, if not directly read it from
GIS soil databases such as STATSCO and SURRGO (spelling...?) These could
be used to create a better model of the actual ground conditions.
> Unfortunately, to my knowledge, this doesn't exist and
> would probably be very slow running if it did.
Perhaps for now. But the MIPS-per-dollar ratio keeps rising to where this
will become less of an issue. Perhaps the cellular industry/commercial
folks already have software like this? I've got access to the hardware
to crunch numbers on. If I were a better programmer with more time, I'd
try to write such a modeling program myself.
It seems that terrain, soil conductivity, and assocaited ground effects
just have too great an influence to ignore when trying to model what's
actually happening at HF, particularly in hilltop and ridgetop terrains.
Of course, something is better than nothing, but wouldn't it be great
to integrate all of these parameters into a 3-D model, and see what the
resulting patterns look like?
-Kirk K4RO
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