Software analyses spectrum usage

The Radio Communications Agency uses DADiSP to aid its mobile radio usage analysis.

As part of the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Radiocommunications Agency, based in Hertfordshire, monitors and manages public and private radio transmission throughout the UK.

In 1994, the agency set out to evaluate activity in the VHF (very high frequency) PMR (private mobile radio) high band used by emergency medical services, local government councils and private businesses.

While monitoring user occupancy in the VHF PMR was a fairly straightforward project, analysing the volume of acquired data proved daunting.

The agency's Mobile Monitoring Section set up six unattended monitoring systems between the city centre and the M25, the major highway artery encircling the metropolitan area.

A seventh manned monitoring system was activated in London's Hyde Park.

For 13 weeks each of these monitoring systems collected 12Mbyte of ASCII data on more than 300 radio channels.

According to the Agency's Quality Manager, Kevin Mylan, the spreadsheet and database software they were using "proved to be incapable of analysing the vast amount of data we were gathering and so the search began for new software".

The data analysis solution was literally down the road from the agency.

Long-standing DADiSP dealer Adept Scientific responded to a query from Mylan with an on-site demonstration.

Adept's product manager went down the street to their offices with his PC and DADiSP and pulled the data straight in.

Within 10min it could visualise its data.

The agency immediately started using DADiSP.

"We were able to build up a profile of channel usage - for both base-transmit and mobile-transmit frequencies", says Mylan.

"At the end of two weeks solid work, we were able to meet with representatives of the radiocommunications industry armed with detailed line graphs showing occupancy of a radio channel from 0000 on Monday morning through to 2359 on Sunday evening for any channel and any location - all this at the click of a mouse button".

In March 1995, the agency published a comprehensive report for the radio industry, containing traffic distribution characteristics as well as best and worst case scenarios for all channels in the VHF PMR high band.

After the success of the radio spectrum audit, Mylan's group purchased additional DADiSP licenses from Adept and is now using the software on a daily basis.

DADiSP is supplied and supported in the UK and Ireland by Adept Scientific.

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