Correction to Article from Last Week's RF Report

In last week's RF Report a piece was published about cell phone base station signals being used to measure rainfall patterns in Israel. Reader Gordon Pugh flagged a typo in that article. It said "...the system works by measuring the strength of the signal from the satellite." It should have read "...the system works

Author:: TVTechnology
Updated:: Feb 23, 2018
Original:: May 17, 2006

In last week's RF Report a piece was published about cell phone base station signals being used to measure rainfall patterns in Israel. Reader Gordon Pugh flagged a typo in that article. It said "...the system works by measuring the strength of the signal from the satellite." It should have read "...the system works by measuring the strength of signals at the cell phone base station."

However, RF propagation of satellite signals can be used for meteorological measurements. There is a totally different project underway to use satellites to measure atmospheric temperature, pressure and humidity. The COSMIC constellation of six satellites launched April 14 will use radio occultation to measure Earth's atmosphere. Details on the COSMIC (short for Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate) project can be found in the April IEEE Spectrum article and online.

Check out the most read articles from Broadcast Engineering during 2008.

Last week's TV Technology's News Bytes had some articles that RF Report readers may find interesting. MSTV, NAB to Create D-A Converter describes reaction to the announcement by the Association for Maximum Service Television (MSTV) and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) that they plan to develop a proto

The FCC made some minor changes in the Access Broadband over Power Line (BPL) Report and Order . The portion of Section 15.15 dealing with user adjustable controls was changed from "(b) Except as specified in paragraph (c), an intentional or unintentional radiator must be constructed such that the adjustments of any

It was reported here last week that the new Dolby Digital (aka AC-3) encoder, which will employ TI DSP chips, would have the capability to generate Dolby Digital Plus advanced audio coding. Our friends at Dolby inform us that this is not the case. The new encoder is a new implementation of the Dolby Digital coding algo

The WiNRADiO PFSL-G3 Portable Field Strength Logging and Surveillance System provides a portable, compact, fully integrated solution designed for mobile signal coverage measurements. It is ideal for field strength mapping, mobile surveillance and other ...

An article by Sterling Allan, "First space-to-earth solar power station targeted for Oct. 2010," talks about the plans of Sir Charles Shults of Xenotech Research to beam power from space.

Is DVB-T last century? promo image

WORLD EDITION EXCLUSIVE: The EBU has just released a paper entitled “DTT Quo Vadis” by Ulrich Reimers of Germany’s Braunschweig Technical University. The paper focuses on the future prospects for classical terrestrial broadcasting in Germany. It makes interesting reading, as it predicts the possible termination of terrestrial broadcasting by the end of the decade. Germany is well-served by satellite and cable services, with the result that DVB-T viewing averages only 12.5 percent of viewing, falling as low as 3 percent in one state.

Regulatory and Standards

The commission hopes stations will use the handbook in conjunction with FEMA’s EAS Best Practices Guide.