A comparative study of the field strength prediction methods in the MW band

Abstract

[EN] The recently developed digital radio systems for the MW band require accurate field strength prediction algorithms for coverage estimation. This paper presents a comparison of the estimation accuracy provided by the most relevant field strength prediction methods employed for ground-wave propagation at this band. Moreover, a field strength prediction method recently developed by the authors, has been also considered in the analysis. Empirical values from measurement campaigns carried out in three different broadcasting networks have been used to analyse the accuracy of the prediction methods. The comparison between the predicted and the measured values allows an objective evaluation of the estimation accuracy of each method under different reception conditions. The proposed method provides the most accurate results on field strength predictions, and consequently, it is a suitable method for the coverage estimation of the new digital radio systems.