One of the Study Groups available from the Area Studies Details dialog box in EDX SignalPro, is the TSB-88/Monte Carlo set of studies (not available in EDX Signal). These studies follow the procedures outlined in TIA TSB-88 for calculating the percent of reliability or percent of a bounded service area that meets the Channel Performance Criteria (CPC). The TIA TSB-88 document describes a method for calculating the coverage within a service area of a transmitter ("station") by calculating the C/(I+N) at many points ("tiles/Tx") within the study area. If the calculated C/(I+N) is greater than the required CPC for that system, then the point is consider served. It is difficult to guarantee 100% coverage at all points within a service area due to signal fading and incomplete knowledge of the radio environment. Therefore, licensees and operators will typically specify minimum required performance in terms of statistical signal strength reliability and/or percentage of area meeting this performance within the service area.

These studies include:

• TSB88 Monte Carlo Bounded Area Coverage

• TSB88 Radius-of-operation overlap Reliability

• Aggregate Simulcast Monte Carlo Reliability

• Simulcast delay spread (Hess)

• Hess Simulcast Monte Carlo Reliability

Along with the visual study results that are displayed in the main map, some of these studies generate a text report as well. These reports can be viewed by going to the System Reports dialog box. (Utilities>System Reports). The setup dialog box that controls the study parameters is accessed by clicking Studies>TSB-88 Studies Setup.

Service Area Boundary File

Use this to point or browse to the boundary file you want to use for the studies. This input accepts “.bna” or “.mif” boundary files.

Simulcast Delay vs Signal File

A requirement for the Hess Simulcast Monte Carlo Reliability study is a simulcast delay vs. signal performance curve file for the mobile/remote unit. This data is used to determine the criteria for successful receiver performance. This field points to that file. For details on the specifics of the file see the "Hess Simulcast Monte Carlo Reliability study" section in the TSB-88 Studies Appendix article.

Required Tile Reliability/Required Simulcast Delay/Required CPC

Required Tile Reliability (%) is the percentage of Monte Carlo sample C/(I+N) calculations in a tile that are required to be above the Required CPC in order for that tile to "pass" (i.e. provide acceptable service).

Required Simulcast Delay (us) is used for the simulcast reliability studies in this study unit (and is not needed for the interference studies).

Required CPC is a dB number based on the modulation type in use, the C/(I+N) needed for the desired DAQ level. This number is obtained from table A.1 in the annex A of the TSB-88 document that describes TSB-88 studies. The title of the table is “Projected CPC Parameters for Different DAQ’s.”

Monte Carlo

The Random Seed field sets the "random" function within a microprocessor that generates sequences of pseudo-random numbers. The "seed" is used to determine which sequence. Using the same seed for each study will ensure that the same set of Monte Carlo "random number" draws are used (this provides consistency within consecutive studies while other factors are being adjusted). 

Standard Deviation is a dB number used by the Monte Carlo routine to set the log normal distribution used in the Monte Carlo calculations.

The Samples/TX/Location field is used to enter the number of "draws" of faded signal strength for each station at each study point (tile/Tx).