Advanced Tab

When the "Use Advanced Settings" box is checked, the Advanced tab is enabled, and the settings on that tab override the settings on the "Basic" tab.

Like the Basic tab, the Advanced tab is organized into several sections. The accessibility of some of the sections depends on the type of coverage study selected (on the Basic tab).

Radials

The radial or contour studies set up from the Basic tab allow uniformly spaced radials of equal length. If you want to specify non-uniform spacing, or unequal length radials, you can use the Advanced tab. (The Radials section is only accessible if you have selected the Radials or Contour option in the Coverage Area section on the Basic tab.)

The buttons in this section provide several ways to define radials:

• Add allows you to enter the azimuth and distance of a specific radial, or enter the latitude and longitude of the desired end point. If you enter azimuth and distance, the coordinates will be computed. If you enter the coordinates, the azimuth and distance will be computed.
• Sequential allows you to specify uniform spacing and equal length radials, similar to the option available on the Basic tab. The main difference is the ability to use the Sequential Radial template.
• Loc Look allows you to open the TAP Location data base to define the end point of a radial. The corresponding azimuth and distance from the transmitter site will be computed.
• Fac Look allows you to open the TAP Fixed Facility data base to define the end point of a radial. The corresponding azimuth and distance from the transmitter site will be computed.
• BNA Look allows you to open a .BNA file, such as CO_CITY.BNA containing the coordinates of points, such as city locations. The azimuth and distance will be computed to each point in the file, and the name of the point (such as the city name) will be inserted into the radial "Description" field for reference. (Only points in the BNA file are considered. Areas and lines in the file are ignored.)

The "Remove" button is used to remove lines from the radial list.

The "Radial Ends Only" box can be checked if you only want to compute the field at the end of each radial. For example, if you create radials for a list of sites in a .BNA file, you probably don’t care about the field along each path between the transmitter and the target point.

The "Distance between Points" sets the step for the field calculations along the radials for the radial or contour study.

You can use the "Sort by column" button to sort the list of radials. For example, if you want to view the radials for a .BNA file based on the length of each radial, click on the top of the Distance column to select that column, then the sort button

The Advanced tab also includes other functions.

Surface Feature Files

Use the "Add" button to lookup TAP Surface Feature files that can contain obstructions, vegetation, etc., to be used in the study.

Topographic Data

The Basic tab uses FCC four-point interpolation (described in the TAP Technical Reference Manual) to interpolate the required elevation data points from the topographic data files. You can select one of the other interpolation methods using the pulldown list. You can also set an effective earth curvature value.

Three options are available regarding saved topographic data.

• You can choose to NOT save or reuse data. With this option, the program will retrieve the data it needs for each path, then discard the data.
• You can use existing elevation data, saved from a previous study for the same site. If this option is selected, use the "Lookup" button to select the elevation data you want to use.
• You can save the data collected during this study for use later in other studies from the same site. If this option is selected, you must enter a description of the elevation data to be used to lookup the data later.