Comparison of Empirical and Ray-Traced Based Channel Modeling on VHF Band

In this paper, we investigate the comparison of empirical and ray-tracing based channel modeling over a dense hilly environment at carrier frequency of 145 MHz VHF band. As the measurement environment, Inozu Valley, Ankara, Turkey, is selected where the dense rocky hills exist alongside the valley. Large-scale statistics, i.e. path loss, path loss exponents, and small-scale statistics, i.e. delay statistics, coherence bandwidth of the channel are obtained for both measurement cases. Wireless InSite electromagnetic propagation simulation software, which is a widely used product of RemCom Inc, is used to ray-tracing based channel modeling. The result for each cases show that the Wireless InSite channel modeling software produces close results to the empirical results with slight differences. The obtained channel statistics are used during the design of a military communication system which is operated at the VHF band over a dense hilly environment.