Monday, April 04, 2011

Working the Wainwrights

I noticed that when you save a radio coverage image from Radio Mobile, the program also saves a KML file. If you double-click on this it opens Google Earth superimposing the coverage map on the satellite view.

I made a new coverage map without the road map and then opened that in Google Earth. I then opened a Google Earth plugin showing all the Wainwright summits. I could then easily see the predicted radio reception from each of the summits. (Click the image to see it full sized.)


The predictions seem pretty accurate from the summits I have worked (or failed to work) so far.

4 comments:

Alex Hill said...

A fairly hefty hump to get some information out but none the less pretty interesting.

I had a go myself and found it does need some careful thought to getting it going and turning out some data that you can trust. The coverage for the RF sink hole that is St Bees is pretty much what I get on a good day so it at least confirms the antenna is connected!

The one with no shadow said...

you can get rid of the "map over the map" (the greyscale map than is exported with the coverage) if you follow these steps:

>After setting all parameters and getting aceptable output for preview in GE,

>Press Ctrl+I, set output for "X-ray like" (I use the Greek version so strings might not be exact) and set the minimum altitude OVER the maximum regional altitude by far, ie. 12000 feet, and the maximum altitude to even more like 15000 feet.

>Set Contrast to 0% and brightness to 100%

>press "Design map". Program will output just the coverage data on a blank white map.

>Print the Polar coverage on that blank map, and then save the image as PNG, and a dialog will ask you if white is transparent, opt for it by checking that box.

open the newly created KML.

Presto!

you can find the image at "temporary" at the left-sided locations menu of Google Earth. Right click it, select properties, adjust transparency to taste and viewability.

73 de SV9OFO John.

Unknown said...

Thank you, John. This made a good improvement for viewing the coverage in Google Earth.

The one with no shadow said...

Always glad to help.