Larger image is 200 Kbby Ralph Milnes KC2RLM - last updated Jan 2004
Radio Mobile Deluxe (RMD) is a radio signal coverage program written by Robert VE2DBE . It plots signal strengths on digital elevation maps, allowing you to "see" how well a VHF/UHF radio signal will reach distant points. The aim of this web page is offer some help in downloading and configuring RMD.
Just to give you an idea of what the program can do, here are two screen shots from RMD (click on them if you want a larger view):
1. An elevation map for the area around my station, KC2RLM:
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2. A projected coverage map for radio signals from my 2 meter station:
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To get a better overview of the program's features, visit http://www.cplus.org/rmw/rme.html or http://www.qsl.net/ve2dbe/english1.html
First, I suggest you create a new folder (directory) on your hard drive called Radio Mobile Deluxe or RMD or something similar of your choice.
The RMD program files can be found at VE2DBE's site: http://www.cplus.org/rmw/download.html or http://www.qsl.net/ve2dbe/download.html
Download all the program files available and follow the instructions on the web site page regarding where to install them. The downloaded files come in "zip" format, which you can unzip into your RMD folder with a zip program such as WinZip (do a Google search if you want to download WinZip).
You'll also need to download at least one digital elevation map, in this case a DTED map (Digital Terrain Elevation Data) created by the US National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). Each DTED is 1 degree of longitude "wide" and 1 degree of latitude "high". (RMD will use other digital map types, but to start, use DTED.)
Before you download, create a folder named DTED under your RMD folder. Then in your DTED folder, create a longitude folder named W075. This folder will be used to hold DTEDs whose "width" is longitude 074.01 West to 075.00 West. In it, you will place DTED files with different "heights" or latitude. Here's the folder structure on my computer:
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Note that each DTED file downloaded will cover an area about 53 miles wide (east to west) and 70 miles high (north to south), so the DTED file for the Chatham area will only cover part of NJ. If you want to download maps for western NJ and PA, then you should also create other longitude folders, for example, W076, W077, WO78, etc. For more easterly points, such as Long Island and New England, you should create W074, W073, W072, etc. folders.
Also note that each DTED file is about 2.8 megabytes -- fairly large. So depending on your internet connection (or patience) you may not want to download a lot of maps. (There are actually two files per DTED area -- a small .dt0 file and a large .dt1 file. You need both.)
To download DTEDs go to: http://ham.eit.com/ or specifically ftp://ham.eit.com/
There you will find map folders arranged by longitude. To get the Chatham map, go to the W075 folder.
Inside that folder, click on the n40.dt0 file and download it into the W075 folder on your computer. Do the same for the N40.dt1 file. (If it's not obvious, the N40 name relates to latitude, in this case from 40.00 to 40.99 North). These are the only two map files you absolutely need for the Chatham/New Providence area.
If you want the map south of the Chatham area, also download the n39.dt0 and N39.dt1 files (further south? download the N38, N37, etc. files). If you want the map north of Chatham, download the n41.dt0 and N41.dt1 files (further north? download the N42, N43, etc. files)
Note: For areas with no land mass (only water), there is no DTED.
If you want maps west of Chatham, go to the W076 (or W077, etc.) folder and download the latitude files you want. Likewise, go to the W074 (or W073, etc) folder for maps east of Chatham.
To run RMD, click on the RMWDLX.exe file.
If I remember correctly, you get a picture of the Grand Canyon as the default picture when you first start RMD. Close this picture by using the second highest 'X' in the upper right of the picture -- not the top most 'X' which closes the program.)
To get started, think of screen displays in RMD as a three step process. First, you select the underlying DTED file and the viewable area using the Map Properties function. Second, you use the Picture Properties function to specify how the map appears -- black and white, color, etc. Third, you further enhance the map picture by adding overlays, such as signal coverage plots, station-to-station links, and street maps.
Go to the top menu and select File then Map Properties. This brings up the Map Properties window. Here's how I filled out that window to get a map about 65 miles square centered on Chatham Boro:
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Center -- You have several choices. I used the "Enter LAT LON or QRA" option to enter the Chatham Boro Municipal Building as the center location.
Size (pixels) -- This selects how big the map will be on your screen. I use a 800 x 600 screen resolution on my monitor, so I selected 800 x 600 to have the map fill up all of my screen (actually that's a bit big; I think 780 x 510 would fill it without any scrolling needed).
Size (km) -- This selects how much land area will be displayed around the center location. If you fill in the Height field, the Width field will fill in automatically (based on the pixel resolution ratio above). Remember that 100 Km is about 63 miles; 20 Km is about 12.5 miles.
Elevation Data Source - put a check-mark next to DTED. Then in the Drive or Path field, enter the path to your DTED folder. Do not include the DTED folder in the path name; for example, you would enter C:\RMD and not C:\RMD\DTED.
Ignore Missing Files - Check-mark this. If you have chosen a Size (Km) for which you do not have all necessary DTED files, this prevents messages saying "a file is missing". Instead, RMD will simply draw the map with sections blanked out.
When done, press the Apply button and RMD will draw an elevation map as such:
Now go to the top menu and select File then Picture Properties. This brings up the Picture Properties window.
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Here you can experiment with different types of map pictures. "Rainbow" is a good general choice, as is "Colored slope (relative)".
If you select "Rainbow" and then the "Colors" button next to it, you can change the color scale -- both the scale and the displayed color for an elevation gradient. So, for example, if your map doesn't show much color variation normally (because the height differences aren't that great), you can select a different scale and use contrasting colors to accentuate the slight differences.
The "Bottom Elevation" and "Top Elevation" numbers in the fields to the right are based on the map being viewed, so you don't need to play with them, but you can play with Contrast and Brightness if you want. "Azimuth" is the direction of virtual sun light and you can change it for different visual effects. You can also elect to have city names and contour lines displayed on the map.
Suggestion: Press the F1 key for Help on this window.
Press Apply to redraw the map.
If you click on the map, cross-hairs appear on the map. At the bottom of the screen, you can then see the latitude, longitude and height in meters of the cross-hair intersection.
Clicking and dragging on the map creates a box. Right clicking in the box then gives you the option of zooming in on the box area (replacing the current map view).
If you use the top menu's View >Elevation Grid, a small window appears showing a grid with the heights of terrain immediately around the cursor. You can also make a small "zoomed in" map appear if you click the arrow button at the bottom of the window. You may need to move this window to see the zoomed in map. To do that, click and drag on the window's title bar.
Now that you have an elevation map displayed, you need to add radio stations. From the top menu, select Edit and then Unit properties. In the Unit Properties window, click on Unit 1 in the left column and then to the right type in a Name of a station (e.g. KC2RLM-2)
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Enter the station's latitude and longitude manually or, if you have a map drawn, place the cursor at the desired location and choose Place unit at cursor position. You can also opt to add the station to the permanent Cities.dat database by clicking Add unit to cities.dat. This can be handy in the future if you want to center maps on this station and/or you want to have the station name appear automatically on maps (by selecting Show Cities in the Picture Properties window). (Advanced trick: use a text editor to edit the cities.dat file and delete city names you will never need.)
Repeat this process to add at least one more station (necessary to later show radio link information).
Click on the Apply button to save your entries.
From the top menu, select File and then Network properties to bring up the Networks Properties window.
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With Net 1 highlighted in the left column, enter a name of your choice in the Net Name field. You can change other variables on this page if you want, but leave the defaults for anything that you are not sure of. (Press the F1 key for Help on this window and to learn about various options.)
Now click the Systems button where you can enter information for various radio systems (station equipment). Often one of the Predefined options is a good choice (click on the down arrow key to the left of Predefined). Otherwise you can enter a system name of your choice. You can either leave the default characteristic values "as is" (Transmit Power, Receiver Threshold, etc.) or change them if appropriate.
To add another system (station equipment type), click on System 02 in the left column and then fill in this system's name and characteristics. Repeat for any additional station types using System 03, etc.
When done entering systems, click on the Membership button. Check-mark the first unit (station) that will be in the network. Then in the right side of the window, define the system being used by this unit and it's role ( 'command' means all stations will talk to this station, 'subordinate' means only command stations will talk to this station, and 'rebroadcast' means a repeater). Then click on the remaining units in this network and assign a system and role to each unit.
When done, click Apply and RMD will add the stations to the map and draw a line from all command and rebroadcast stations to all other command and rebroadcast stations plus subordinate stations. The color indicates the quality of the link, e.g. green is good; yellow is weak; and red is none.
To see the predicted radio signal coverage for any unit, from the top menu select View, then Radio Coverage, and then Single Polar. In the resulting Radio Coverage window, fill in the Center Unit, Mobile Unit (any will do) and Network. Under Plot, I like to use Rainbow to see different signal strengths. Press F1 to read Help for this window and learn more about other options.
When you're done, press Apply to display the signal coverage plot on the map. (If you were displaying a color picture, the program will first ask if it's OK to display a gray scale map -- say 'Yes'). After the plot appears, a pop-up window will ask if you want to "Keep coverage in picture?". If you select "yes", the coverage plots becomes a permanent part of this picture and there's no way to erase it. You'd need to go back to step #1 to get the program to create a new picture. If you say 'no', the first coverage plot will disappear when you request a second plot. (You might say 'Yes', for example, if you wanted to plot the coverage of two or more repeaters on the same picture.)
To look at the link details between 2 particular stations, from the top menu, select View and then Radio link. Then select the 2 stations, one Transmitter and one Receiver. If you click anywhere on the resulting profile diagram, the cursor will appear on the main picture and you can see which hills are obstructing the path! (You may need to move the Radio Link window to see the main picture. To do that, drag the window's title bar.) Note that the Radio Link window has its own menu. Select View for additional menu options, including more information about the link's details, range, and distribution.
8. Other Tips
a. If you are connected to the internet, you can overlay Map Blast road maps on the coverage plot by using the Edit menu and Merge from Map Blast options: Copy = replace; Add = overlay roads with Map Blast map dominant; and Multiply = overlay roads with RMD map dominant.
b. If you want to retain a picture with any overlays on it, for example coverage plots or network links, you can use the File menu and select Save Picture As .... . To recall the picture, use the Open Picture option.
c. You can hook up a GPS to your computer and import your position into RMD (View > GPS Tracking).
d. You can also import live APRS position reports into RMD if you are running AGWPE software and it is receiving live packets (View > APRS)
e. Read the program's Help file for more ideas. Also, play with various menu options to learn more about the program.
f. The program is able to import Space Shuttle-produced elevation maps (SRTM) which are supposed to provide finer detail. See http://www.cplus.org/rmw/aprs_en.html for more information (I haven't tried this).
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