METHODOLOGY FOR CALCULATING THE COVERAGE AREAS OF DIGITAL TELEVISION BROADCASTING

The introduction of DVB-T2 digital television broadcasting in the VHF waveband is currently underway, and test trials have already been conducted in some regions of Ukraine. To assess the effectiveness of the projects, it is of particular interest to compare the radio coverage areas of digital TV transmitters operating in the VHF and UHF wave bands. This requires extensive calculations for specific locations. For comparison, the city of Kyiv was chosen, where there is one multiplex MX-7 (8 TV channels) in the VHF band, and the following four multiplexes are represented in the UHF band: MX 1 (26 TV channels) and MX 3 (49 TV channels), which operate at the lowest and highest frequencies of the band. In this article, to predict the coverage areas of digital television broadcasting transmitters, the justification of the selected Longley-Rice radio wave propagation model is provided, which allows calculating the radio signal attenuation compared to free space propagation using terrain profiles (digital elevation maps) and the electrical characteristics of the Earth's surface, Taking into account the main mechanisms of radio wave propagation (interference on the line of sight, diffraction on irregular terrain, tropospheric scattering), it is more accurate and its results are closer to actual measurements. The calculations will be carried out using Radio Mobile software based on the Longley-Rice Irregular Terrain Model (ITM) and using Terrain Mission SRTM satellite maps with the possibility of further adding map data and roads from various sources. Based on the ITU R Recommendations on the design of DVB-T2 digital television broadcasting networks, the minimum required field strength to ensure reception with a given quality was calculated and the initial data for predicting the coverage areas of DVB-T2 digital television transmitters were prepared using the example of Kyiv. The proposed methodology and the data obtained will allow to calculate the boundaries of the coverage areas of DVB-T2 digital standard television transmitters in the VHF and UHF wave bands for selected television channels