Path Loss Analysis between the north and the south of Mauritius with some Existing Models for Digital Television Broadcasting for Summer Season at UHF Bands Armoogum V., Member IEEE, University of Technology, Mauritius Soyjaudah K.M.S., University of Mauritius, Mauritius Mohamudally N., University of Technology, Mauritius Fogarty T., London South Bank University, England Tel: (230) 234 76 24, (230) 799 16 21 E-mail: varmoogum@utm.intnet.mu Abstract - After the official launching in October 2005 of Digital Terrestrial television (DTT), plans were made to carry out field measurements across the island. Field strength, Carrier-to-Noise Ratio and Bit-Error-Rate were measured at two antenna heights (4 m and 6 m) both in the north and south of Mauritius at UHF Bands (470 to 862 MHz). In this paper, we compare the measured path loss obtained for the sub-urban northern area with that for the rural southern area and then with four propagation models, that is, Free-Space, Lee, Hata and Extended COST-231. Firstly, for both areas, the results show that the path loss is not constant at various locations for a constant distance around the respective base station showing that the terrain of Mauritius is irregular. Moreover, for the same antenna height, the path loss is higher in the south than in the north by 5 dB to 20 dB depending upon the distance from the station. The effects of the slow fading effect (shadow) and fast fading effect are more pronounced in the south than in the north, causing higher probability of signal errors. Secondly, we found that Lee and Free Space models are not in agreement with the values obtained for both regions. However, observations show that Hata and Extended COST 231 models give better agreement and hence, can be used to model areas in Mauritius. Index Terms - Bit Error Rate, Carrier to Noise ratio, COFDM, DTT, DVB-T, Field Strength, Multiplexing, Path Loss, Propagation Model. I. INTRODUCTION Mauritius is a tropical island in the Indian Ocean, located in the Southern Hemisphere. Mauritius has two kinds of climate. Below the 400-meter level on most of the windward (southeastern) side of the island and below 450 meters on the leeward side, a humid, subtropical climate prevails. Above these altitudes, the climate is more temperate, but there is no sharp break, and variations in exposure, altitude, and distance from the sea produce a wide range of patterns. The island has two seasons. The hot and wet summer lasts from November through April. February is the warmest month with highest temperatures of 38 ºC in the lowlands and 34 ºC on the plateau. Winter is cool and dry, influenced by the steady southeasterly trade winds. July is the coolest month and has average temperatures of 22 ºC in the lowlands and 16 ºC in the plateau. Rainfall is abundant, ranging from 90 cm per year in the western lowlands to 500 cm in the tableland and an average of 200 cm per year overall. Humidity is frequently above 80 percent. The whole terrain is irregular and with numerous mountains and hills and gorges. The area is about 1860 km 2 . The central plateau, which is not really flat, gradually rises towards the south west where it reaches its highest point at 800 m with the Piton de la Rivière Noire peak. This plateau is surrounded with the primary crater in the form of a chain of mountains and some isolated peaks. Buildings, houses, sugar cane plantation and trees are scattered in the north part of Mauritius while the south is mainly covered by large areas of sugar cane field, dense forests and range of mountains and gorges. In this paper, we classify the north as suburban (76%) and the south as rural will apply the category of the terrain mentioned in the ITU-R Recommendations of 1997 [1]. Field strength analysis and path loss analysis are research areas over the past four decades and now have become very important when the world is moving towards the digital era. Prasad and Iqbal et al. [2][3] have carried out research works on path loss analysis using several old models in Southern India using VHF/UHF bands [4]. In 2005, the above mentioned authors have done an intensive research works and have used the Perez-Vega and Zamanillo’s model [5]. Arinda et al. [6][7] have done similar works in Spain on digital TV broadcasting. We have carried some preliminary study on field strength with few measuring data in the north [8] and have studied the variation of the path loss using some models [9]. The observations of the two above-mentioned papers show firstly that in the north at a distance of 5 km from the base station, the power level was high enough to decode picture to achieve a BER lower than 2x10 -4 . However, the signal strength decreases by 20 dB in the region of near 10 km from the base station as the cell covered by the base station does not include this region. Secondly, observation shows that Hata model is 1-4244-0987-X/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE.