Analytical bit error rate determination for digital audio broadcasting

State-of-the-art design methods for digital audio broadcasting (DAB) networks use the computer-aided prediction of received field strength levels. However in certain terrain the performance of the DAB system may be insufficient whilst still meeting the required field strength level. This is due to multipath propagation and extremely delayed transmitter signals causing intersymbol interference. Therefore it is necessary to consider multipath effects even in the planning phase in order to optimize the transmitter location and the antenna patterns. The total field strength delay spectra (FDS) of all transmitters of the single frequency network (SFN) is used to calculate the symbol error rate (SER) of the unprotected radio channel. This SER is of high interest for the planning of this digital data distribution system. For the 4-DPSK modulation scheme, the influence of the modelled time variation of the signal reception phase on the SER calculation is investigated.