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Radio Mobile: Evolution for RF Enthusiasts

This document provides a brief history of the development of Radio Mobile software by Roger Coudé. It describes how he created the first prototype in 1988 as a hobby using basic software on an 8088 computer to perform manual radio frequency coverage analyses. Over time, he refined the software and it became a commercial product used by forestry, utilities and mobile carriers. He later made it freeware for amateur radio operators. The software has expanded to support a variety of mapping data and is now used globally for radio planning in several industries.

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Jules
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128 views24 pages

Radio Mobile: Evolution for RF Enthusiasts

This document provides a brief history of the development of Radio Mobile software by Roger Coudé. It describes how he created the first prototype in 1988 as a hobby using basic software on an 8088 computer to perform manual radio frequency coverage analyses. Over time, he refined the software and it became a commercial product used by forestry, utilities and mobile carriers. He later made it freeware for amateur radio operators. The software has expanded to support a variety of mapping data and is now used globally for radio planning in several industries.

Uploaded by

Jules
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Radio Mobile

Little History
Roger Coudé Ing
VE2DBE
Quebec city 1973

• Coop student University of Sherbrooke


• Work for Quebec Government
• Communication Department
• VHF and UHF coverage studies
Quebec city 1973
• Bullington method
– Put maps on the wall
– Extract path profile in various directions
– Read elevation from map contour lines
– Use Bullington templates to calculate
• Free space path loss
• Obstruction loss
Quebec city 1973

One week of tedious work


to perform the coverage analysis
of a single site!

I said to myself « Never again »


1974-1987

• Graduates Electrical Engineering in 1976


• 1976-1987 Teaches Physics in a college
• 1987 Begins a Mastery in robotics
Lac St-Jean 1988
Lac St-Jean 1988
• Hired as an industrial trainer
• First prototype of Radio Mobile as hobby
• 8088 MS-DOS computer - Turbo Basic
• Elevation Database Tiles
– Created manually from topo maps
– Resolution 1 min of an arc
• Propagation model
– Inspired from Bullington
– Supplemental height added from type of terrain
Lac St-Jean 1990
• Work as consultant professional engineer
• Radio Mobile is now a mature product
• Cost 1000$
• In use by some 30 companies
– Forest industry
– Hydro power remote control
– Mobile communications providers
August 1990
Special engineering
publication
about emerging
telecommunications
technologies

Output from
Radio Mobile
does the cover page
St-Jean-sur-Richelieu 1991
St-Jean-sur-Richelieu 1991
• New job in the military industry
• New employer shows no interest in the
program
• Radio Mobile is no longer available for sale
• I decide to make it available to amateur
radio operators for 50$, mostly repeater
builders
• Program re-written in C
St-Jean-sur-Richelieu 1992-1996
• Program re-written with Visual Basic 3 for
Windows 3.1
• Program re-written with Visual Basic 4 for
Windows 3.1 and Windows 95
• Implementation of ITM model
• DLL in C++ is created to accelarate calculations
• Visual Basic 5 (32 bits version only)
• Visual Basic 6 (Huge improvement in speed)
St-Jean-sur-Richelieu 1997
• CPLUS.ORG offers me to host a site
dedicated to the program
• Radio Mobile Website is created
• Radio Mobile becomes a freeware
• Users provide suggestions to improve the
program
• Gtopo30 and DEM250 available at USGS
2000

• Space Shuttle Radar Topography Mission


• Radio Mobile becomes the first application
to use the SRTM tiles at JPL
2002
• Radio Mobile Yahoo Group begins

2010
• Over 6000 members on the group!
• Available in 10 languages
• Used as RF planning tool by:
• Amateur radio • Forest protection
• Wireless Internet • Civil protection
providers • Canadian Mountain police
• Community FM radio • Canadian Coast Guard
• Red Cross
• United Nations

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