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While terrain has a profound effect on the propagation of radio signals, more localized features of the environment, such as trees, buildings and houses, can also have a substantial impact. At higher frequencies using shorter paths, signal propagation may be dominated by local obstructions rather than by terrain, making Land Use (Clutter) data an important component of signal studies. Urban and residential structures can reflect, scatter and absorb radio waves. In forested land, the signal can also be weakened due to scattering of radio waves by leaves and branches. Land Use (Clutter) databases give you the ability to add additional losses above and beyond path loss and terrain effects.
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If you have already run studies, this gives you the option to keep those results until you’re ready to re-run the study, or to just delete the study files and start again.
Edit Attenuation File
When you click on the Edit attenuation file button, a dialog box opens listing clutter code, label and clutter height in the top half of the screen, and frequencies and attenuation values in the lower half.
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Instead of using a fixed attenuation value at the receiver to accommodate clutter losses, you can assign a pass-through attenuation factor to the various clutter types. This tab works with the Add clutter pass-through Loss selection in the Propagation Models dialog box. When running the study, the program will determine the distance that the signal passes through a clutter type based upon the radio path profile and the clutter height values. The dB/KM attenuation values can be edited in the same way as described above.
Create Land Use (clutter) Data-file
Returning to the Land Use (Clutter) dialog box, there are times when the clutter database you’re using may not reflect the current state of land use in your study area. A common example is if your clutter database shows an area as being forest but that forest has been cut down and converted to suburban housing units. It’s not practical to modify the “.gcv” clutter files to reflect the change. Instead, you can use the Create land use (clutter) datafile feature to make a new file that covers that converted area.
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To use the new data once you’ve converted the “.bna” and copied the “.gcv” file into your land use database directory path, save your project, exit the EDX Software then restart it and re-open your project. If you’ve displayed the land use on the screen, you’ll need to either reset all the working files, or change your study grid spacing by a slight amount to delete the existing display file and force a re-draw of the main map.
Modify Existing Ground-cover Database
Clutter carving (available only in EDX SignalPro) is a unique feature that allows taking clutter data of medium resolution and adding a “streets/roads” type of land use category by using a streets/roads database to define where the roadways are. One can imagine the process as that of a street or road route being used to “carve” a path through the clutter types found in the original file. This process is quite useful where high resolution clutter data, that already includes streets/roads, is not readily available or is unreasonably high in cost.
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A second option that can be used to modify the source clutter file data is to reclassify the clutter data codes. This can be done as a separate function from the carving process or can be included when the carving is performed. Reclassification is the process where the clutter category for an area in the source file can be changed to a new category in the output file, by creating a polygon area that encloses the area to be changed and then specifying the new category code. Specify the directory that contains these polygon definition file(s) in Directory for land use polygon reclassification.
Import From Vertical Mapper (optional)
This is a separate option for EDX SignalPro and is installed after SignalPro is installed. If the Vertical mapper option is not installed, the Import button will not be enabled in the Land Use (Clutter) dialog box.
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