Digital/analogue co-channel protection ratio field measurements

The digital terrestrial television standard approved by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) using coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (COFDM) facilitates the establishment of complex networks including single frequency networks (SFN) and multiple frequency networks (MFN). RTE and other partners of European Union (EU) sponsored projects such as MOTIVATE and VALIDATE have established and tested these networks in order to understand the important parameters of digital networks. Protection ratios are needed in order to plan the coverage of digital networks and minimise interference from co-channel transmitters. This paper describes a network established to field test protection ratios and details the measurements performed. Three co-channel UHF transmitters were installed at RTE mainstations in the Dublin area.