Technical Report

Douglas M. Boulware and Anthony W. Romaniello, “An Analysis of Aggregate CBRS SAS Data from April 2021 to July 2024,” Technical Report NTIA TR-25-575, November 2024

This report presents an analysis of aggregate Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) Spectrum Access System (SAS) data reported quarterly from April 1, 2021, to July 1, 2024. The data provide insights into the growth of CBRS, the impact of dynamic s...

Douglas M. Boulware, Anthony W. Romaniello, Rebecca L. Dorch, and Michael G. Cotton, “An Analysis of Aggregate CBRS SAS Data from April 2021 to January 2023,” Technical Report TR-23-567, May 2023

This report presents an analysis of aggregate Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) Spectrum Access System (SAS) data reported quarterly from April 1, 2021, to January 1, 2023. The data provide valuable insights into the growth of CBRS, the impact ...

Frank H. Sanders, Kenneth R. Calahan, Geoffrey A. Sanders, and Savio Tran, “Measurements of 5G New Radio Spectral and Spatial Power Emissions for Radar Altimeter Interference Analysis,” Technical Report TR-22-562, October 2022

Introduction of Fifth Generation New Radio (5G NR) systems in the US between 3700 and 3980 MHz has raised concerns about electromagnetic compatibility with airborne radar altimeter (radalt) receivers operating between 4200 and 4400 MHz. This report d...

Jeffery A. Wepman et al., “Outdoor Propagation Measurements in the 37–40 GHz Band in Boulder, Colorado,” Technical Report NTIA TR-22-561, August 2022

Line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS), continuous-wave (CW), mobile outdoor propagation measurements were performed in the 37–40 GHz band in a small city downtown environment (Boulder, Colorado). The measurement system was optimized to pro...

Roger A. Dalke, “Tropospheric Scatter: Theory vs. Predictive Models,” Technical Report TR-22-557, February 2022

Circa 1960, the National Bureau of Standards intensively studied over-the-horizon radio propagation due to tropospheric (aka forward) scatter. The results of that effort, published in the form of graphs and/or empirical mathematical functions based o...

Robert J. Achatz, Nicholas Kent, and Erik R. Hill, “Solid-State Marine Radar Interference in Magnetron Marine Radars,” Technical Report TR-21-556, July 2021

Previously published field test results showed frequent solid state marine radar (SS-MR) interference in magnetron marine radars (M-MRs) at 0.34 nautical miles distance separation and 55 MHz frequency separation. The interference was mitigated but no...

Eric D. Nelson and Duncan A. McGillivray, “In-Situ Captures of AWS-1 LTE for Aeronautical Mobile Telemetry System Evaluation,” Technical Report TR-21-553, March 2021

This report describes the rationale, measurement methods, and analysis techniques for assessing Long Term Evolution (LTE) user equipment (UE) emissions in the Advanced Wireless Services - 1 (AWS-1) uplink band within the observable range of aeronauti...

This Technical Report provides details about protection of federal operations in the 5.850–5.925 GHz (5.9 GHz) band from new operations considered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as part of the agency’s comprehensive review intended to...

This report describes a methodology that measures the precision of objective metrics that assess image quality, video quality, speech quality, or the overall audiovisual quality. We assess the confidence intervals of 60 subjective tests and use a con...

Michael G. Cotton, Linh P. Vu, Bradley Eales, and Adam C. Hicks, “3.45–3.65 GHz Spectrum Occupancy from Long-Term Measurements in 2018 and 2019 at Four Coastal Sites,” Technical Report TR-20-548, April 2020

This report presents spectrum occupancy results for 3.45–3.55 GHz and for 3.55−3.65 GHz at sensor sites near San Diego CA (SD), Norfolk VA (NF), San Francisco CA (SF), and Astoria OR (AS). Sensors operated at the following {start date, end date, 2018...

Jeanne Quimby et al., “Channel Sounder Measurement Verification: Conducted Tests,” Technical Report JR-20-549, April 2020

Channel modeling often provides a basis for the design and deployment of wireless technology. Engineers design systems to operate under certain expected channel conditions. Channel models are typically based on the statistics of a collection of many ...

Edward F. Drocella Jr., Robert L. Sole, and Nickolas LaSorte, “Technical Feasibility of Sharing Federal Spectrum with Future Commercial Operations in the 3450-3550 MHz Band,” Technical Report TR-20-546, January 2020

As part of its ongoing effort to identify candidate bands for repurposing to accommodate commercial wireless services, NTIA selected the 3450-3550 MHz band to study for potential sharing between federal systems and a variety of non-federal commercial...

Frank H. Sanders, Edward F. Drocella Jr., Robert L. Sole, and John E. Carroll, “Lessons Learned from the Development and Deployment of 5 GHz Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U–NII) Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) Devices,” Technical Report TR-20-544, December 2019

This report is a case-history of the development, deployment, and operational experiences associated with 5 GHz unlicensed national information infrastructure (U–NII) devices that incorporate a detect-and-avoid approach to spectrum sharing. Such dyna...

Jeffery A. Wepman et al., “Received Signal Power Measurements On Select Air Traffic Control Radars In Utah,” Technical Report TR-20-543, October 2019

Received signal power measurements were performed on the Common Air Route Surveillance Radar (CARSR) operating in the 1300 1370 MHz band in Cedar City, Utah, and on the Airport Surveillance Radar (ASR 9) operating in the 2700 2900 MHz band in Trout C...

Frank H. Sanders, Geoffrey A. Sanders, and John E. Carroll, “Emission Measurements of a Contraband Wireless Device Jammer at a State Prison,” Technical Report TR-19-541, September 2019

This report describes emission spectrum measurements of a wireless jammer device operated temporarily inside a South Carolina state prison maximum security housing block. The measurements were intended to demonstrate the operation of the jammer in fo...

Jeffery A. Wepman et al., “Received Signal Power Measurements On Select Air Traffic Control Radars In Colorado,” Technical Report TR-19-542, August 2019

Received signal power measurements were performed on the Common Air Route Surveillance Radar (CARSR) operating in the 1300–1370 MHz band in Parker, Colorado and on the Airport Surveillance Radar (ASR 9) operating in the 2700 2900 MHz band in Plattevi...

Robert J. Achatz and Brent L. Bedford, “Interference Protection Criteria Simulation,” Technical Report TR-19-540, August 2019

Interference protection criteria (IPC) determine the interfering signal power a system can tolerate when sharing spectrum with other services. IPC are typically determined by measurements, but good measurements are often hindered by restrictions on e...

Frank H. Sanders, Robert T. Johnk, and Edward F. Drocella Jr., “Emission Measurements of a Contraband Wireless Device Jammer at a Federal Prison,” Technical Report TR-18-533, June 2018

This report describes emission spectrum and time domain measurements of a contraband wireless device micro-jammer that was operated temporarily in four Commercial Mobile Radio Service (CMRS) bands at a Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) at Cumbe...

Frank H. Sanders, Kristen E. Davis, and Keith D. Gremban, “A 53-Year History of Spectrum Efficiency Studies and Recommended Future Directions,” Technical Report NTIA TR-18-530, February 2018

Spectrum is a limited resource upon which the world makes continually increasing demands. It is therefore natural and compelling to study the efficiency with which radio systems use spectrum. Spectrum efficiency studies reveal how future systems can ...

Stephen D. Voran and Andrew A. Catellier, “Intelligibility Robustness of Five Speech Codec Modes in Frame-Erasure and Background-Noise Environments,” Technical Report TR-18-529, December 2017

Frame erasures and background noise are two factors that can interact with speech coding to reduce speech intelligibility and thus impair public safety mission-critical voice communications. We conducted two tests of intelligibility in the face of th...

Michael Frey et al., “Measured Emission Spectra of Selected AWS 3 LTE Transmitters,” Technical Report TR-18-528, December 2017

Version three of Advanced Wireless Services (AWS 3) radio systems will soon use spectrum that is adjacent to bands currently used by airborne telemetry links at U.S. government test and training ranges (TTRs). Spectrum sharing analyses need to be per...

John E. Carroll et al., “Non-Linear Effects Testing of High Power Radar Pulses on 3.5 GHz Low-Noise Amplifiers,” Technical Report TR-17-525, June 2017

Future spectrum sharing between high-power radars and Citizens Broadband Radio Service Device CBSD in the 3550–3650 MHz (3.5 GHz) band could expose radio frequency (RF) receiver front-end low noise amplifiers (LNAs) to high peak power radar pulse sig...

Andrew A. Catellier and Stephen D. Voran, “Intelligibility of Selected Speech Codecs in Frame-Erasure Conditions,” Technical Report TR-17-522, November 2016

We describe the design, implementation, and analysis of a speech intelligibility test. The test included five codec modes, four frame-erasure rates, and two background noise environments, for a total of 40 conditions. The test protocol required twent...

Frank H. Sanders, Edward F. Drocella Jr., and Robert L. Sole, “Using On-Shore Detected Radar Signal Power for Interference Protection of Off Shore Radar Receivers,” Technical Report TR-16-521, March 2016

A spectrum sharing scheme is considered in which ship-based radar stations are operating in the same spectrum band as on-shore communication transmitters, and in which the communication transmitters will cause interference to the radar receivers when...

Stephen D. Voran and Andrew A. Catellier, “Speech Codec Intelligibility Testing in Support of Mission-Critical Voice Applications for LTE,” Technical Report TR-15-520, September 2015

We describe a major effort to quantify the speech intelligibility associated with a range of narrowband, wideband, and fullband digital audio coding algorithms in various acoustic noise environments. The work emphasizes the relationship between these...

Jeffery A. Wepman, Brent L. Bedford, Heather E. Ottke, and Michael G. Cotton, “RF Sensors for Spectrum Monitoring Applications: Fundamentals and RF Performance Test Plan,” Technical Report TR-15-519, August 2015

Great emphasis is seen on the networking and data management aspects of spectrum monitoring, but far less attention is given to the radio frequency (RF) sensor systems used to collect the spectrum data. This report focuses on these sensor systems and...

Robert T. Johnk et al., “In-Building LTE Testing at the University of Colorado ,” Technical Report TR-15-518, July 2015

This report describes a comprehensive series of tests that were conducted by engineers and researchers from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) program and the University of Colorado during the period of Jul...

Edward F. Drocella Jr. et al., “3.5 GHz Exclusion Zone Analyses and Methodology,” Technical Report TR-15-517, June 2015

This report describes the 3.5 GHz Study. It explains the assumptions, methods, analyses, and system characteristics used to generate the revised exclusion zones for small-cell commercial broadband systems to protect federal radar operations (ship and...

Christopher J. Behm, Nicholas DeMinco, Timothy J. Riley, and Linh P. Vu, “A Spectrum Sharing Case Study Leading to the Development of a Method for Identifying Interference Potential,” Technical Report TR-15-516, April 2015

This report details a method that was developed to identify all potential forms of interference that could occur with a proposed collocation of three Federal systems in the 1675–1695 MHz frequency band. The incumbents are the National Oceanographic a...

Spectrum reallocations may place broadband radio services (BRS) near spectrum used by 2900–3100 MHz band marine radars. Interference effects from these reallocations include unwanted emissions in the radar detection bandwidth and front-end overload. ...

Spectrum reallocations may place broadband radio services (BRS) near spectrum used by 2900–3100 MHz band marine radars. Signals from the BRS base stations can potentially introduce unwanted emissions in the radar detection bandwidth and cause interfe...

Spectrum reallocations may place broadband radio services (BRS) near spectrum used by 2900–3100 MHz band marine radars. Signals from the BRS base stations can potentially cause the radar front-end to overload and cause interference. This report provi...

Geoffrey A. Sanders et al., “Emission Spectrum Measurements of a 3.5 GHz LTE Hotspot,” Technical Report TR-15-512, February 2015

In response to proposals to introduce new Long Term Evolution (LTE) radio systems into the 3550–3650 MHz (called 3.5 GHz) portion of radio spectrum in the United States, a joint team of National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA...

William Kozma Jr., Joel Dumke, and Brent Johnson, “An Algorithmic Approach to Optimizing Network Resources for Public Safety LTE Networks,” Technical Report TR-15-511, December 2014

This report examines the problem of how to allocate limited network resources in a public safety LTE network for the purpose of disseminating video streams to end users. We develop a mathematical model of the network environment, including the defini...

Frank H. Sanders, John E. Carroll, Geoffrey A. Sanders, and Lawrence S. Cohen, “Measurements of Selected Naval Radar Emissions for Electromagnetic Compatibility Analyses,” Technical Report TR-15-510, October 2014

In response to proposals to introduce new Long Term Evolution (LTE) radio systems into the 3550–3650 MHz (called 3.5 GHz) portion of radio spectrum in the United States, a joint team of National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA...

Geoffrey A. Sanders, John E. Carroll, Frank H. Sanders, and Robert L. Sole, “Effects of Radar Interference on LTE (FDD) eNodeB and UE Receiver Performance in the 3.5 GHz Band,” Technical Report TR-14-506, July 2014

In response to proposals to introduce new radio systems into 3.5 GHz radio spectrum in the United States, the authors have performed measurements and analysis on effects of interference, from a variety of radar waveforms, to the performance of a prot...

Frank H. Sanders et al., “EMC Measurements for Spectrum Sharing Between LTE Signals and Radar Receivers,” Technical Report TR-14-507, July 2014

In response to proposals to introduce new Long Term Evolution (LTE) microcell Citizens Broadband Service (CBS) radio systems into 3550–3650 MHz (3.5 GHz) radio spectrum in the United States, the authors have performed measurements and analysis on eff...

Chriss A. Hammerschmidt, “Broadband Spectrum Survey in the Chicago, Illinois, Area,” Technical Report TR-14-502, April 2014

NTIA is responsible for managing the Federal Government’s use of the radio spectrum. In discharging this responsibility, NTIA uses the Radio Spectrum Measurement System to collect spectrum occupancy data for radio frequency assessments. This report s...

Michael G. Cotton and Roger A. Dalke, “Spectrum Occupancy Measurements of the 3550–3650 Megahertz Maritime Radar Band Near San Diego, California,” Technical Report TR-14-500, January 2014

This report presents spectrum occupancy data of the 3550–3650 megahertz (MHz) maritime radar band measured in June 2012 near San Diego. In this band, the military operates SPN-43 air marshaling radar systems with well-defined signal characteristics. ...

Frank H. Sanders, John E. Carroll, Geoffrey A. Sanders, and Robert L. Sole, “Effects of Radar Interference on LTE Base Station Receiver Performance,” Technical Report TR-14-499, December 2013

In response to proposals to introduce new radio systems into 3550–3650 MHz radio spectrum in the United States, the authors have performed measurements and analysis on effects of interference from a variety of radar waveforms to the performance of a ...

Chriss A. Hammerschmidt, “Broadband Spectrum Survey in the San Diego, California, Area,” Technical Report TR-14-498, November 2013

NTIA is responsible for managing the Federal Government’s use of the radio spectrum. In discharging this responsibility, NTIA uses the Radio Spectrum Measurement Sciences system to collect spectrum occupancy data for radio frequency assessments. This...

Chriss A. Hammerschmidt, Heather E. Ottke, and J. Randy Hoffman, “Broadband Spectrum Survey in the Denver Area,” Technical Report TR-13-496, August 2013

NTIA is responsible for managing the Federal Government’s use of the radio spectrum. In discharging this responsibility, NTIA uses the Radio Spectrum Measurement Sciences system to collect spectrum occupancy data for radio frequency assessments. This...

This report describes a modified rhyme test (MRT) conducted to characterize the behavior of digital and analog communication in the presence of background noise and moderate RF channel degradation. This is done through the use of reference systems to...

This report describes a free-field radio frequency (RF) measurement system that is currently being developed by engineers at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (NTIA/ITS). The objective is to provide estimates of the electrical properties o...

David J. Atkinson, Stephen D. Voran, and Andrew A. Catellier, “Intelligibility of the Adaptive Multi-Rate Speech Coder in Emergency-Response Environments,” Technical Report TR-13-493, December 2012

This report describes speech intelligibility testing conducted on the Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) speech coder in several different environments simulating emergency response conditions and especially fireground conditions. The intelligibility testing ...

Robert T. Johnk et al., “Conducted and Radiated Emissions Measurements of an Ultrawideband Surveillance Radar,” Technical Report NTIA TR-13-491, November 2012

We provide detailed descriptions of recent measurements conducted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Institute for Telecommunication Sciences in Boulder, Colorado. ITS engineers performed a comprehensive series of both ...

This report describes the methodology and results of an investigation into the source, mechanism, and solutions for radiofrequency (RF) interference to WSR-88D Next-Generation Weather Radars (NEXRADs). It shows that the interference source is nearby ...

Frank H. Sanders and Roger A. Dalke, “Relationships Between Measured Power and Measurement Bandwidth for Frequency-Modulated (Chirped) Pulses,” Technical Report NTIA TR-12-488, August 2012

Measured power levels for radio frequency (RF) pulses that are frequency modulated (chirped) vary as a function of the bandwidth in which the measurement is performed; if chirped pulses cause RF interference, the power levels of the pulses in victim ...

When radiofrequency pulse envelopes are observed away from their fundamental frequency their shapes differ from those at their fundamental frequency. Off-fundamental pulse envelopes tend to exhibit spikes at their rising and falling edges with lower-...

John E. Carroll, Geoffrey A. Sanders, Frank H. Sanders, and Robert L. Sole, “Case Study: Investigation of Interference into 5 GHz Weather Radars from Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure Devices, Part 3,” Technical Report TR-12-486, June 2012

In early 2009, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) became aware of interference to Terminal Doppler Weather Radars (TDWRs) that operate in the 5600–5650 MHz band and provide measurements of gust fronts, windshear, microbursts, and other weather...

This report describes one of three free-field radio frequency (RF) measurement systems that are currently being developed by engineers at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (NTIA/ITS). The objective is to provide estimates of the electrical...

J. Wayde Allen, “A Prototype Antenna for Total RF Field Measurement,” Technical Report TR-12-483, October 2011

The total radio frequency (RF) field strength is the sum of all signals incident at a given location. These signals can originate from many directions and have various polarizations. This complicates the measurement of the total RF field since common...

Robert J. Achatz, Roger A. Dalke, and John J. Lemmon, “In-Building Radio Enhancement Systems for Public Safety,” Technical Report TR-11-480, September 2011

Reliable public safety communications between system repeaters outside a building and portable radios inside a building is often not possible due to building attenuation. To circumvent this problem, increasing numbers of municipalities are requiring ...

Eric D. Nelson and Nicholas DeMinco, “Improved Estimation of the Third-Order Harmonic Emissions of Land Mobile Radio Base Stations,” Technical Report TR-11-481, September 2011

NTIA/ITS has developed an improved electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) analysis method that can be applied to more accurately model real scenarios for evaluating interference. The methodology described in this report can be used to conduct EMC analys...

Jeffery A. Wepman and Geoffrey A. Sanders, “Wideband Man-Made Radio Noise Measurements in the VHF and Low UHF Bands,” Technical Report TR-11-478, July 2011

Man-made radio noise measurements were conducted in a 1.16-MHz bandwidth at 112.5, 221.5, and 401 MHz at two residential and two business locations in the Boulder/Denver, Colorado, area. The measurement frequencies and bandwidth were selected using t...

John E. Carroll, Geoffrey A. Sanders, Frank H. Sanders, and Robert L. Sole, “Case Study: Investigation of Interference into 5 GHz Weather Radars from Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure Devices, Part 2,” Technical Report TR-11-479, July 2011

In early 2009, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) became aware of interference to Terminal Doppler Weather Radars (TDWRs) that operate in the 5600–5650 MHz band and provide quantitative measurements of gust fronts, windshear, microbursts, and ...

Peter B. Papazian and John J. Lemmon, “Radio Channel Impulse Response Measurement and Analysis,” Technical Report TR-11-476, May 2011

This paper describes radio channel sounding measurements and analysis using pseudo-noise (PN) codes. It presents a channel sounding model and shows how channel measurements can be made. A measurement system is described that can be implemented using ...

John E. Carroll, Frank H. Sanders, Robert L. Sole, and Geoffrey A. Sanders, “Case Study: Investigation of Interference into 5 GHz Weather Radars from Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure Devices, Part 1,” Technical Report TR-11-473, November 2010

In early 2009, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) became aware of interference to Terminal Doppler Weather Radars (TDWRs) that operate in the 5600–5650 MHz band and provide quantitative measurements of gust fronts, windshear, microbursts, and ...

Roger A. Dalke, “Radio Spectrum Estimates Using Windowed Data and the Discrete Fourier Transform,” Technical Report TR-10-470, September 2010

Digital signal processing algorithms are commonly used to obtain radio spectrum estimates based on measurements. Such algorithms allow the user to apply a variety of time–domain windows and the discrete Fourier transform to RF signals and noise. The ...

Robert T. Johnk et al., “Time–Domain Propagation Measurements of the NASA Space-Power Facility,” Technical Report TR-10-471, September 2010

This report describes a recent measurement effort conducted by the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences at a chamber located at the NASA Space Power Facility (SPF) in Sandusky, Ohio. The report describes the chamber and the measurement system, an...

Teresa L. Rusyn and Timothy J. Riley, “A Co–Channel Interference Model for Spread Spectrum Technologies,” Technical Report TR-10-467, June 2010

Even under ideal circumstances, insufficient spectrum is available for assigning a unique band of frequencies to each communication system. In less ideal circumstances, when a communication system experiences outages due to equipment failure or natur...

Frank H. Sanders and Robert T. Johnk, “Emission Measurements of a Cellular and PCS Jammer at a Prison Facility,” Technical Report TR-10-466, May 2010

This report describes emission–spectrum measurements of a denial-of-service (jammer) transmitter that was operated temporarily in 800 MHz and 1900 MHz cellular and PCS bands at a prison location. The jammer targeted signals indoors within a minimum-s...

Frank H. Sanders, Robert T. Johnk, Mark A. McFarland, and J. Randy Hoffman, “Emission Measurement Results for a Cellular and PCS Signal-Jamming Transmitter,” Technical Report NTIA TR-10-465, October 2009

This report describes emission measurements on a denial-of-service (jammer) transmitter operating in the 800 MHz and 1900 MHz cellular and PCS bands. The jammer operates at a power level of up to 100 watts in each band, repetitively sweeping a carrie...

Andrew A. Catellier and Stephen D. Voran, “Low Rate Speech Coding and Random Bit Errors: A Subjective Speech Quality Matching Experiment,” Technical Report TR-10-462, October 2009

When bit errors are introduced between a speech encoder and a speech decoder, the quality of the received speech is reduced. The specific relationship between speech quality and bit error rate (BER) can be different for each speech coding and channel...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Techniques for Evaluating Objective Video Quality Models Using Overlapping Subjective Data Sets,” Technical Report NTIA TR-09-457, November 2008

This report presents techniques for evaluating objective video quality models using overlapping subjective data sets. The techniques are demonstrated using data from the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) Multi-Media (MM) Phase I experiments. These r...

Roger A. Dalke, “Statistical Considerations for Noise and Interference Measurements,” Technical Report NTIA TR-09-458, November 2008

The study of noise and interference in the radio environment is essential to the development of efficacious communications systems. Many of the characteristics of radio noise and interference of interest to radio system designers can be expressed in ...

Andrew A. Catellier and Stephen D. Voran, “Relationships Between Intelligibility, Speaker Identification, and the Detection of Dramatized Urgency,” Technical Report NTIA TR-09-459, November 2008

The systems used for public safety speech communications must be intelligible. It is also desirable that they transmit secondary information, such as the attributes of a speaker's voice. This secondary information can allow a user to identify the spe...

John E. Carroll, J. Randy Hoffman, and Robert J. Matheson, “Measurements to Characterize Land Mobile Channel Occupancy for Federal Bands 162–174 MHz and 406–420 MHz in the Denver, CO Area,” Technical Report TR-08-455, August 2008

This report describes field measurements to characterize Land Mobile Radio (LMR) channel occupancy of Federal bands 162–174 megahertz (MHz) and 406–420 MHz at a single location overlooking the Denver, Colorado metropolitan area. This is part of the N...

John J. Lemmon, Frank H. Sanders, Doris Turner, and John E. Carroll, “Assessment of the Effects of Wind Turbines on Air Traffic Control Radars,” Technical Report TR-08-454, July 2008

This technical report describes the results of a study exploring the effects of power-producing wind turbines on Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic control (ATC) radars. The study was performed to identify the extent to which these eff...

David J. Atkinson and Andrew A. Catellier, “Intelligibility of Selected Radio Systems in the Presence of Fireground Noise: Test Plan and Results,” Technical Report TR-08-453, June 2008

This report describes an experiment conducted to measure the intelligibility of selected radio communication systems when those systems are employed in high-background-noise environments experienced by firefighters. The test plan for a Modified Rhyme...

Kim Cai et al., “Assessment of Alternative Future Federal Land Mobile Radio Systems,” Technical Report TR-08-451, December 2007

This report evaluates the efficiency of federal spectrum use, performing a study that compares the spectrum resources used by several alternative land mobile radio (LMR) system architectures employing trunked radio technology to the spectrum resource...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Reduced Reference Video Calibration Algorithms,” Technical Report TR-08-433b, November 2007

This report describes four Reduced Reference (RR) video calibration algorithms of low computational complexity. RR methods are useful for performing end-to-end in-service video quality measurements since these methods utilize a low bandwidth network ...

On October 14, 2004, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) adopted a Report and Order that defined new Part 15 rules for Access Broadband over Power Line (BPL) systems. The National Telecommunications and Information Administratio...

This report describes field measurements to characterize Land Mobile Radio (LMR) channel occupancy of Federal bands 162–174 MHz and 406–420 MHz at a single central location in the Washington, D.C., area. This is part of the National Telecommunication...

An investigation of different propagation modeling methods to meet the special requirements of a short-range propagation model with low antenna heights was performed, and has resulted in the development of approaches to be taken to accurately model r...

Bernard Joiner, Alakananda Paul, Kim Cai, and Edward F. Drocella Jr., “Assessment of Federal and Non-Federal Land Mobile Radio Frequency Assignment Methodologies,” Technical Report TR-07-447, May 2007

This report describes how the current frequency assignment process influences spectrum efficiency in the federal land mobile radio frequency bands. In light of the increasing demands for land mobile radio communications, federal spectrum managers mus...

Charles T. Hoffman, Robert J. Matheson, Fred Najmy, and Robert C. Wilson, “Federal Land Mobile Operations in the 162–174 MHz Band in the Washington D. C. Area — Phase 1: Study of Agency Operations,” Technical Report TR-06-440, August 2006

This Phase 1 report contains a description of federal agencies with GMF assignments in the 162–174 MHz band, with emphasis on their LMR systems and their use in the Washington, D.C. area. It also describes many of the mobile radio technologies used...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Reduced Reference Video Calibration Algorithms,” Technical Report NTIA TR-06-433a, July 2006

This report describes four Reduced Reference (RR) video calibration algorithms of low computational complexity. RR methods are useful for performing end-to-end in-service video quality measurements since these methods utilize a low bandwidth network ...

Michael G. Cotton, Robert J. Achatz, Jeffery A. Wepman, and Roger A. Dalke, “Interference Potential of Ultrawideband Signals Part 3: Measurement of Ultrawideband Interference to C-Band Satellite Digital Television Receivers,” Technical Report NTIA TR-06-437, February 2006

This report provides results from tests that measured digital television (DTV) susceptibility to ultrawideband (UWB) interference. A test system was developed to inject interference with known characteristics into a victim receiver and quantitatively...

Frank H. Sanders et al., “Effects of RF Interference on Radar Receivers,” Technical Report NTIA TR-06-444, February 2006

This report describes the results of interference tests and measurements that have been performed on radar receivers that have various missions in several spectrum bands. Radar target losses have been measured under controlled conditions in the prese...

Measured antenna patterns of an end-fed slotted waveguide antenna and a phased-array patch antenna used in maritime radionavigation radars across the frequency range 8500–10800 MHz are presented along with a measurement technique that characterizes t...

Alakananda Paul et al., “Interference Protection Criteria Phase 1 - Compilation from Existing Sources,” Technical Report NTIA TR-05-432, October 2005

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) launched this two-phase study of interference protection criteria (IPC) in order to compile, explain and validate, modify or supplement the levels of protection from interference t...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Reduced Reference Video Calibration Algorithms,” Technical Report NTIA TR-06-433, October 2005

This report describes four Reduced Reference (RR) video calibration algorithms of low computational complexity. RR methods are useful for performing end-to-end in-service video quality measurements since these methods utilize a low bandwidth network ...

Michael G. Cotton, Robert J. Achatz, Jeffery A. Wepman, and Paul Runkle, “Interference Potential of Ultrawideband Signals, Part 2: Measurement of Gated-Noise Interference to C-Band Satellite Digital Television Receivers,” Technical Report NTIA TR-05-429, August 2005

This report demonstrates that digital television (DTV) susceptibility to gated-noise interference cannot be predicted by interference power characteristics alone. It was found that DTV susceptibility is also dependent on temporal characteristics of t...

Frank H. Sanders, Robert L. Hinkle, and Bradley J. Ramsey, “Measurement procedures for the radar spectrum engineering criteria (RSEC),” Technical Report NTIA TR-05-420, March 2005

The wide application of radar for various functions makes large demands on the electromagnetic spectrum, and requires the application of effective frequency management for the equipment and systems involved. Requirements for certain equipment charact...

In this study, we hypothesize that ultrawideband (UWB) interference potential can be quantified in terms of UWB signal characteristics. To test this hypothesis, a test system was designed and built to inject UWB signals with known characteristics int...

The objectives of this technical study are to define interference risks from operation of BPL systems under field strength limits and associated compliance measurement procedures specified in Part 15 of the Commissions rules, identify interference ri...

J. Wayde Allen, “Gain characterization of the RF measurement path,” Technical Report NTIA TR-04-410, February 2004

In radio frequency (RF) measurements the gain (or loss) of the signal path connecting the measurement equipment to the measurement reference plane must be accounted for. This tutorial paper discusses the various definitions of gain, and how to determ...

Peter B. Papazian and Michael G. Cotton, “Relative Propagation Impairments between 430 MHz and 5750 MHz for Mobile Communication Systems in Urban Environments,” Technical Report NTIA TR-04-407, December 2003

Radiowave propagation measurements made in an urban area of Denver, Colorado, are described. Wideband, impulse response measurements were made at 4 carrier frequencies from 430 MHz to 5750 MHz. These measurements were made using a mobile measurement ...

Bernard Joiner, “Receiver Spectrum Standards: Phase 1 – Summary of Research into Existing Standards,” Technical Report NTIA TR-03-404, November 2003

As part of the overall spectrum management process, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have developed radio regulations to help ensure that the various radio services ...

J. Randy Hoffman, Eldon J. Haakinson, and Yeh Lo, “Measurements to determine potential interference to public safety radio receivers from ultrawideband transmission systems,” Technical Report NTIA TR-03-402, June 2003

This report describes laboratory measurements to determine the extent and nature of interference to Public Safety radio receivers by ultrawideband (UWB) signals. Two Public Safety radio receivers from different manufacturers were tested in the 138-MH...

Peter B. Papazian, Yeh Lo, John J. Lemmon, and Michael J. Gans, “Measurements of channel transfer functions and capacity calculations for a 16x16 BLAST array over a ground plane,” Technical Report NTIA TR-03-403, June 2003

Wideband channel transfer function measurements were made for a 16-element transmit and 16-element receive, multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) antenna array. The measurements were conducted using the National Institute of Standards and Technology...

Stephen D. Voran, “Estimation of system gain and bias using noisy observations with known noise power ratio,” Technical Report NTIA TR-02-395, September 2002

The identification of linear systems from input and output observations is an important and well-studied topic. When both the input and output observations are noisy, the resulting problem is sometimes called the "errors in variables" problem. Existi...

John J. Lemmon, “Wireless Link Statistical Bit Error Model,” Technical Report NTIA TR-02-394, June 2002

A bit error model that enables simulations of the digital error performance of wireless communication links has been developed. The model development has been based on error sequences derived from waveform simulations of wireless link performance wit...

Stephen Wolf and Margaret H. Pinson, “Video Quality Measurement Techniques,” Technical Report NTIA TR-02-392, June 2002

Objective metrics for measuring digital video performance are required by Government and industry for specification of system performance requirements, comparison of competing service offerings, service level agreements, network maintenance, and opti...

Pulsed signals in Earth station receiver spectrum bands have traditionally occurred due to unwanted emissions from adjacent-band transmitters such as radars and altimeters. Analog Earth station receivers sometimes experience interference from such em...

John J. Lemmon and Roger A. Dalke, “Analysis of the RF Threat to Telecommunications Switching Stations and Cellular Base Stations,” Technical Report NTIA TR-02-391, February 2002

The objective of this report is to assess the vulnerability of telecommunications switching stations and cellular base stations to high power electromagnetic radiation generated by an RF device. Analyses, measurements, and simulations of indoor propa...

Robert J. Achatz and Roger A. Dalke, “Man–made noise power measurements at VHF and UHF frequencies,” Technical Report NTIA TR-02-390, December 2001

Man-made noise generated by automotive ignition, power distribution and transmission, industrial equipment, consumer products, and lighting systems degrades the performance of radio systems. Man-made noise models, derived from measurements made in th...

J. Randy Hoffman, Michael G. Cotton, Robert J. Achatz, and Richard N. Statz, “Addendum to NTIA Report 01-384: Measurements to Determine Potential Interference to GPS Receivers from Ultrawideband Transmission Systems,” Technical Report NTIA TR-01-389, September 2001

This addendum to NTIA Report 01-384 describes laboratory measurements on two additional Global Positioning System receivers to quantify the effects of ultrawideband interference on those receivers. The laboratory measurements were performed by insert...

Jeffery A. Wepman and J. Randy Hoffman, “Implementation and Testing of a Software Defined Radio Cellular Base Station Receiver,” Technical Report NTIA TR-01-388, July 2001

Software defined radios (SDR’s) represent a departure from traditional radio design. There is some mystique about what SDR’s are, how they are designed, how they operate, and how performance is determined or verified. This report provides insight int...

Christopher L. Holloway, Frank H. Sanders, and Paul M. McKenna, “Predicted and Measured Field Strengths in the Boulder, Colorado, Area from Two Proposed Terrestrial Digital Television Tower Sites,” Technical Report NIST Technical Note 1519 / NTIA TR-01-387, May 2001

A study was performed to determine the increase in ambient electromagnetic field strengths that would result from a proposal to locate a cluster of terrestrial digital television (DTV) transmission towers in proximity to the Department of Commerce (D...

William J. Ingram and Evelyn M. Gray, “On–line Development of an Interactive Web Glossary,” Technical Report NTIA TR-01-385, April 2001

This report describes the electronic, computer-based processes of creating an on-line, Web-based glossary of telecommunication terms—American National Standard, T1.523-2001, Telecom Glossary 2000. These e-mail processes or Web-based processes constit...

Christopher Redding, Nicholas DeMinco, and Jeanne Lindner, “Voice Quality Assessment of Vocoders in Tandem Configuration,” Technical Report NTIA TR-01-386, April 2001

This report describes the objective testing of various vocoders, both singly and in different combinations of tandem configurations, to evaluate overall voice quality in an objective manner. The objective test evaluation was performed using a standar...

This report describes laboratory measurements of Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver vulnerability to ultrawideband (UWB) interference. The laboratory measurements were performed by inserting increased levels of UWB interference until an operati...

William A. Kissick, “The Temporal and Spectral Characteristics of Ultrawideband Signals,” Technical Report NTIA TR-01-383, January 2001

Ultrawideband (UWB) technology, useful for both communication and sensing applications, uses the radio spectrum differently than the vast majority of radiocommunication technologies. UWB systems make use of narrow pulses and time-domain signal proces...

Perry F. Wilson, Eldon J. Haakinson, and Roger A. Dalke, “Vulnerability of Wireline and Cellular Telecommunications Networks to High Power Radio Frequency Fields,” Technical Report TR-01-382, November 2000

High level electromagnetic fields can upset and damage electronics, as well as disrupt or disable computer software. Thus, high power radio frequency (RF) fields pose a threat to critical infrastructures such as telecommunications. This report examin...

Peter B. Papazian, Perry F. Wilson, Michael G. Cotton, and Yeh Lo, “Flexible Interoperable Transceiver (FIT) Program Test Range I: Radio Propagation Measurements at 440, 1360, and 1920 MHz Edwards Air Force Base, CA,” Technical Report TR-00-380, October 2000

Radiowave propagation measurements at Edwards Air Force Base, CA are described. These measurements were made as part of the Flexible Interoperable Transceiver (FIT) Program. The objective of the measurements is to define communication link requiremen...

Peter B. Papazian, Perry F. Wilson, Michael G. Cotton, and Yeh Lo, “Flexible Interoperable Transceiver (FIT) Program Test Range II: Radio Propagation Measurements at 440, 1360 and 1920 MHz, Ft. Hood, Texas,” Technical Report TR-00-381, October 2000

Radiowave propagation measurements at Ft. Hood, Texas are described. These measurements were made as part of the Flexible Interoperable Transceiver (FIT) Program. The objective of the measurements is to define communication link requirements at 440, ...

Michael G. Cotton, Edward F. Kuester, and Christopher L. Holloway, “A Frequency- and Time-Domain Investigation into the Geometric Optics Approximation for Wireless Indoor Applications,” Technical Report NTIA TR-00-379, June 2000

In this study we investigated the geometric optics (GO) approximation to the fields of an incremental electric dipole above a half plane for geometries typical of wireless indoor communications. This inspection was motivated by efforts to establish a...

Robert L. Sole, Brent L. Bedford, and Gary M. Patrick, “Electromagnetic Compatibility between Marine Automatic Identification and Public Correspondence Systems in the Maritime Mobile VHF Band,” Technical Report TR-00-376, April 2000

The Coast Guard funded the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to perform electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) tests between an ITU-R M. 825-3 (Characteristics Of a Transponder System Using Digital Selective Calling Techn...

Robert J. Matheson, “Spectrum Usage for the Fixed Services,” Technical Report NTIA TR-00-378, March 2000

This study is an update to a 1993 ITS staff study entitled “A preliminary look at spectrum requirements for the Fixed Services.” That study included a description of the services provided in 30 of the Government and non-Government frequency bands bet...

Roger A. Dalke, Robert J. Achatz, and Yeh Lo, “Nonlinear Operation of a MMIC Power Amplifier and Its Effects on Battery Current, Interface, and Link Margin,” Technical Report TR-00-375, January 2000

This report describes measurement, modeling, and simulation methods that are used to analyze the relationship between nonlinear operation of a typical PCS portable transceiver power amplifier and battery current, out-of-band power, and link margin. F...

Frank H. Sanders, “Measured Occupancy of 5850–5925 MHz and Adjacent 5-GHz Spectrum in the United States,” Technical Report TR-00-373, December 1999

Dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) systems have been proposed for operation at locations across the United States in the 5850 to 5925 MHz band. To establish electromagnetic compatibility between DSRC and other 5-GHz systems, it is necessary t...

Steven K. Jones, Robert L. Hinkle, Frank H. Sanders, and Bradley J. Ramsey, “Technical Characteristics of Radiolocation Systems Operating in the 3.1–3.7 GHz Band and Procedures for Assessing EMC with Fixed Earth Station Receivers,” Technical Report TR 99-361, December 1999

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of reported cases of electromagnetic interference (EMI) to 3.7–4.2 GHz FSS earth stations from radar stations operating in the 3.1–.7 GHz band. The increase in reported interferen...

Robert L. Sole, Brent L. Bedford, and Gary M. Patrick, “Lower Mississippi River Ports and Waterways Safety System (PAWSS) RF Coverage Test Results,” Technical Report TR 00-374, November 1999

The Coast Guard plans to operate an Automatic Identification System (AIS) Digital Selective Calling (DSC) based transponder system as part of the Ports and Waterways Safety System (PAWSS) in the lower Mississippi River. The AIS uses two duplex channe...

Michael G. Cotton, Robert J. Achatz, Yeh Lo, and Christopher L. Holloway, “Indoor Polarization and Directivity Measurements at 5.8 GHz,” Technical Report TR-00-372, November 1999

This report investigates how antenna polarization and directivity affect indoor radio channel bandwidth and signal coverage. Indoor impulse response measurements were taken at 5.8 GHz for four canonical propagation conditions: within a room, down a c...

Edmund A. Quincy et al., “Radio Link Performance Prediction via Software Simulation,” Technical Report NTIA TR-00-371, October 1999

The subjective quality of speech and image information, transmitted over a high frequency radio link impaired with varying levels of interference, has been evaluated using software simulation. The high frequency radio link was also degraded by freque...

Robert L. Sole and Brent L. Bedford, “Evaluation of Marine VHF Radios: Compliance to IEC Receiver Standards,” Technical Report TR-99-363, October 1999

Mariners in the United States and other countries are experiencing interference on channels allocated to the above functions. The Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services (RTCM) established Special Committee 117 to investigate the interferenc...

John M. Vanderau and Eldon J. Haakinson, “An Evaluation of the Proposed Railroad VHF Band Channel Plan,” Technical Report TR-99-370, September 1999

As a result of the Federal Communications Commission’s radio spectrum realignment initiative, land mobile radio manufacturers are being encouraged to incorporate narrowband and trunking technologies into their designs in order to efficiently utilize ...

This paper discusses the basic aspects of radio-wave propagation and antenna modeling in the medium frequency (MF) band. This band covers the frequencies of 300 to 3000 kHz. More specifically, we are concerned with the ground wave and the sky wave in...

Perry F. Wilson, Peter B. Papazian, Michael G. Cotton, and Yeh Lo, “Advanced Antenna Test Bed Characterization for Wideband Wireless Communication Systems,” Technical Report TR-99-369, August 1999

An advanced antenna test bed for evaluating adaptive antennas and next-generation mobile communication systems is described. The key elements of the data acquisition system are 8 simultaneous channels, broadband impulse channel sounding, high speed a...

Frank H. Sanders, Bradley J. Ramsey, and Vincent S. Lawrence, “Broadband Spectrum Survey at San Francisco, California May–June 1995,” Technical Report TR-99-367, July 1999

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is responsible for managing the Federal Government's use of the radio spectrum. In discharging this responsibility, NTIA funds the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) ra...

Robert L. Sole and Brent L. Bedford, “Lower Mississippi River VTS Frequency Survey,” Technical Report TR-99-364, June 1999

The maritime mobile frequency band supports maritime communications worldwide. Appendix 18 of the ITU Radio Regulations (RR) defines the channels of the maritime mobile service. These channels support a variety of communication functions including:...

Roger A. Dalke, Patricia J. Raush, Frank H. Sanders, and Jeanne M. Ratzloff, “Spectrum Measurements for an RF–Driven Lighting Device,” Technical Report NTIA TR-99-366, May 1999

New lighting devices that emit radio frequencies are being developed for commercial use. Since such devices may interfere with communication systems that utilize the radio spectrum, it is essential that the emission characteristics be carefully analy...

Robert L. Sole and Brent L. Bedford, “Evaluation of Marine VHF Radios: Performance in the Savannah, Ga., and New Orleans, La., Port Areas,” Technical Report TR-99-362, April 1999

The maritime mobile frequency band supports maritime communications worldwide. Appendix 18 of the ITU Radio Regulations (RR) defines the channels of the maritime mobile service. These channels support a variety of communication functions including:...

William J. Ingram and Evelyn M. Gray, “A Search Engine for Federal Standard 1037C,” Technical Report TR-99-365, March 1999

Federal Standard 1037C, Glossary of Telecommunication Terms, contains more than 5800 entries defining the components of several disciplines in telecommunications technology. Use of this large glossary is enhanced with the search engine designed speci...

Christopher Redding and Robert A. McLean, “Performance Assessment of Internet E-mail over Degraded High-Frequency Radio Channels,” Technical Report TR-99-360, December 1998

The transmission of E-mail over high-frequency (HF) radio channels is experiencing widespread use in the Government and military communities. This ability is made possible through the convergence of Internet and radio communication protocols, primari...

John J. Lemmon, Frank H. Sanders, and Brent L. Bedford, “Electromagnetic Compatibility Testing of a Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) System that Conforms to the Japanese Standard,” Technical Report NTIA TR-99-359, November 1998

Dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) systems, designed to enhance the efficiency of highway travel, have been proposed for operation in the 5850 to 5925 MHz band. The successful operation of these communication systems depends upon their compat...

Gerald F. Hurt and Ernesto A. Cerezo, “Identification of Alternate Bands, Response to Title III of The Balanced Budget Act of 1997,” Technical Report TR 98-39, November 1998

The National Table of Frequency Allocations allocate the 2025–2110 MHz band to Federal space science services and the entire 1990–2110 MHz band to the non-Federal government fixed and mobile communication services. The Federal space science services ...

John M. Vanderau, “Delivered Audio Quality Measurements on Project 25 Land Mobile Radios,” Technical Report TR-99-358, November 1998

Minimum acceptable speech intelligibility of land mobile radios is influenced by a number of factors. These factors include the method of modulation, transmission bandwidth, channel spacing, received signal strength, and the ability of a radio receiv...

Robert J. Achatz et al., “Man-Made Noise in the 136 to 138-MHz VHF Meteorological Satellite Band,” Technical Report TR-98-355, September 1998

Satellite radio system performance in the 136 to 138-MHz VHF meteorological satellite band is compromised by man-made noise external to the receiver. Methods used for predicting man-made noise power in this band are based on measurements conducted in...

Jeffery A. Wepman, “Personal Communications Services Technology Field Trials,” Technical Report TR-98-356, September 1998

Technology field trials for six personal communications services (PCS) common air-interface technologies (whose standards were developed by the Joint Technical Committee on Wireless Access) were performed at the US West Boulder Industry Test Bed (BIT...

Frank H. Sanders, Gregory R. Hand, and Vincent S. Lawrence, “Land Mobile Radio Channel Usage Measurements at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games,” Technical Report TR-98-357, September 1998

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is responsible for managing the Federal Government's use of the radio spectrum. In discharging this responsibility, NTIA uses the ITS radio spectrum measurement system and portable...

Christopher L. Holloway, Michael G. Cotton, and Paul M. McKenna, “A simplified model for predicting the power delay profile characteristics of an indoor radio propagation channel,” Technical Report TR-98-353, August 1998

Multipath channels in indoor wireless communication systems exhibit a characteristic power delay profile, which can be a detriment to system performance. In this paper, we present a simplified model for calculating the decay rate of the power delay p...

Many government telecommunications needs, especially those that support National Security and Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) missions, are becoming increasingly dependent on commercially available equipment and services. This is consistent with the g...

William J. Ingram and Evelyn M. Gray, “A Federal Standard on Electronic Media,” Technical Report TR-98-350, August 1998

Federal telecommunications standards have traditionally been distributed in hard copy, i.e., in book form, with mandated 5-year revisions requiring a new book or new change pages for every updated edition. Distributing Federal telecommunications stan...

Robert J. Achatz, Yeh Lo, and Elizabeth E. Pol, “Indoor direction diversity at 5.8 GHz,” Technical Report TR-98-351, July 1998

Complex impulse response measurements of a warehouse building were made at 5.8 GHz with a sliding correlator channel probe. These measurements were made with vertically and horizontally polarized directional antennas so performance improvement due to...

J. Randy Hoffman, John J. Lemmon, and Ronald L. Ketchum, “DGPS field strength measurements at a GWEN site,” Technical Report TR-98-346, April 1998

Field strength measurements of a 300-kHz Differential Global Positioning System signal transmitted at a Ground Wave Emergency Network site at Appleton, Washington were conducted. Data were acquired continually along five different routes and tagged w...

Perceived speech quality is most directly measured by subjective listening tests. These tests are often slow and expensive, and numerous attempts have been made to supplement them with objective estimators of perceived speech quality. These attempts ...

David A. Sutherland Jr., “Software Implementation of a Wideband HF Channel Transfer Function,” Technical Report TR-98-348, April 1998

This report presents an analytic model implemented as the computer program of the transfer function of a wideband HF channel model for use in a hardware simulator. The transfer function is the basic input to the hardware simulator. The mathematical b...

Christopher L. Holloway and Edward F. Kuester, “Analysis and calculations of the ground plane inductance associated with a printed circuit board,” Technical Report TR-98-344, November 1997

A knowledge of the net inductance of the ground plane can aid in the analysis and investigation of printed circuit board emissions. In this report, we present a method, based on the concept of partial inductance, to determine the net inductance of th...

In support of the Federal Railroad Administration of the United States Department of Transportation, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) has completed a field spectrum utilization survey designed to examine individual channel utilizati...

Roger A. Dalke et al., “Link Analysis for the LRPT Digital Weather Satellite System,” Technical Report TR-97-341, September 1997

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the European Space Agency, and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites are designing a weather satellite system that will broadcast digital weather images at VHF...

Robert L. Sole, Frank H. Sanders, and Brent L. Bedford, “Assessment of Compatibility between 25 and 12.5 kHz Channelized Marine VHF radios,” Technical Report NTIA TR-97-343, August 1997

The maritime mobile frequency band supports maritime communications worldwide. Appendix 18 of the ITU Radio Regulations (RR) defines the channels of the maritime mobile service. These channels support a variety of communication functions including: p...

Roger A. Dalke, George A. Hufford, and Ronald L. Ketchum, “A digital simulation model for local multipoint and multichannel multipoint distribution services,” Technical Report TR-97-340, July 1997

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences has developed a computer simulation model that can be used to predict coverage and quality of service for proposed terrestrial communication systems that broadcast digital television such as local multipoi...

An interference model applicable to wireless technologies is presented in this report. Specifically, a generic methodology for cellular system self-interference modeling was developed, then applied to two proposed personal communications services (PC...

J. Randy Hoffman, John J. Lemmon, and Ronald L. Ketchum, “Field Strength Measurements of DGPS and FAA Beacons in the 285- to 325-kHz Band,” Technical Report TR-97-337, June 1997

Signal strength measurements in the 285- to 325-kHz band were conducted on eight U.S. Coast Guard differential global positioning system beacons along the Gulf and West Coast, and on a Federal Aviation Administration beacon in Bennett, Colorado. Data...

Frank H. Sanders, Bradley J. Ramsey, and Vincent S. Lawrence, “Broadband Spectrum Survey at Los Angeles, California,” Technical Report TR-97-336, May 1997

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is responsible for managing the Federal Government's use of the radio spectrum. In discharging this responsibility, NTIA funds the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences Radio Sp...

Arthur D. Spaulding, “The Natural and Man-made Noise Environment in Personal Communications Services Bands,” Technical Report TR-96-330 (revised), May 1997

This report presents a summary of the available measurement information on the level and statistical characteristics of the background noise environment in the frequency range of 1–3 GHz. The frequency range covers the proposed frequencies for the ne...

Robert O. DeBolt and Nicholas DeMinco, “FM Subcarrier Corridor Assessment for the Intelligent Transportation System,” Technical Report TR-97-335, January 1997

This report documents the assessment of FM subcarrier performance for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) applications in three areas of interest in the United States. These areas are: 1) The Interstate 95 corridor from Richmond, Virginia, to Po...

Frank H. Sanders, Bradley J. Ramsey, and Vincent S. Lawrence, “Broadband Spectrum Survey at San Diego, California,” Technical Report TR-97-334, December 1996

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is responsible for managing the Federal Government's use of the radio spectrum. In discharging this responsibility, NTIA uses the Radio Spectrum Measurement System to collect data ...

Joseph P. Camacho and Richard J. Orsulak, “High frequency (3–30 MHz) spectrum planning options,” Technical Report TR-96-332, September 1996

This report examines the additional HF spectrum requirements for the maritime mobile, aeronautical mobile, mobile, amateur, and broadcasting services previously identified by NTIA. This spectrum availability study for the five radio services was prep...

John F. Mastrangelo and Wayne R. Rust, “Testing and evaluation of the subcarrier traffic information channel,” Technical Report TR-96-333, September 1996

In support of the Federal Highway Administration of the United States Department of Transportation, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences has completed a laboratory and field test program designed to independently evaluate the performance of a...

Roger A. Dalke, George A. Hufford, and Ronald L. Ketchum, “Radio Propagation Considerations for Local Multipoint Distribution Systems,” Technical Report TR-96-331, August 1996

A local multipoint distribution system will essentially broadcast television signals (and perhaps more) to subscribers in small cells. It has been proposed to put such systems in the frequency band from 27.5 to 29.5 GHz where the wave length is only ...

David J. Atkinson, “Exploring B-ISDN performance: Selected experiments and results,” Technical Report TR-96-329, April 1996

This report describes experiments conducted to explore the user-information transfer performance of the broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN), the emerging infrastructure for the global information age. These performance experiments ...

Jeffery A. Wepman and J. Randy Hoffman, “RF and IF digitization in radio receivers: Theory, concepts, and examples,” Technical Report TR-96-328, March 1996

Hardware development of analog-to-digital converters (ADC's) and digital signal processors, including specialized integrated circuits, has advanced rapidly within the last few years. These advances have paved the way for development of radio receiver...

Teresa G. Sparkman, David R. Wortendyke, Christopher Riddle, and Gregory P. Smith, “Testing automatic link establishment high frequency radios using compact disk technology. Part I: Clean tones,” Technical Report TR-96-327, February 1996

A method of high frequency (HF) radio interoperability testing in accordance with Federal Standards 1045A and 1046/1 is now available on a compact disc (CD) created by engineers at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Insti...

Christopher L. Holloway, Patrick L. Perini, Ronald Delyser, and Kenneth C. Allen, “A study of the electromagnetic properties of concrete block walls for short path propagation modeling,” Technical Report TR-96-326, October 1995

For short propagation paths, correctly representing reflections of electromagnetic energy from surfaces is critical for accurate signal level predictions. In this paper, the method of homogenization is used to determine the effective material propert...

John J. Lemmon and Peter B. Papazian, “Impulse Response Measurements Over Space-Earth Paths Using the GPS Coarse/Acquisition codes,” Technical Report TR-95-324, September 1995

The impulse responses of radio transmission channels over space-earth paths were measured using the coarse/acquisition code signals from the Global Positioning System of satellites. The data acquisition system and signal processing techniques used to...

Lynette H. Loew, Yeh Lo, Michael Laflin, and Elizabeth E. Pol, “Building Penetration Measurements from Low-Height Base Stations at 912, 1920, and 5990 MHz,” Technical Report TR-95-325, September 1995

Building penetration measurements were taken simultaneously at three potential Personal Communications Services (PCS) frequencies: 912, 1920, and 5990 MHz. The continuous wave (CW) measurement system employed a fixed outdoor transmitter and a mobile ...

Marjorie L. Weibel, “Data communication performance testing of ACTS,” Technical Report TR-95-320, September 1995

The results of a series of data communication tests, which define the digital end-to-end performance of the Advanced Communication Technology Satellite (ACTS), are presented. The experiment consisted of a test set characterization to determine the ef...

Frank H. Sanders and Vincent S. Lawrence, “Broadband Spectrum Survey at Denver, Colorado,” Technical Report TR-95-321, September 1995

NTIA is responsible for managing the Federal Government's use of the radio spectrum. In discharging this responsibility, NTIA uses the Radio Spectrum Measurement System to collect data for spectrum utilization assessments. This report details such a ...

Nicholas DeMinco, “Engineering manual for the Jammer effectiveness model,” Technical Report TR-95-322, September 1995

This engineering manual describes a user–friendly and menu–driven computer program called the Jammer Effectiveness Model (JEM). The models used in JEM to analyze the effectiveness of a jammer in jamming a receiver/transmitter pair or network of recei...

Michael G. Biggs, Frank H. Sanders, and Bradley J. Ramsey, “Measurements to Characterize Aggregate Signal Emissions in the 2400–2500 MHz Frequency Range,” Technical Report TR-95-323, August 1995

This report provides the results of radio spectrum measurements performed to characterize the aggregate signal emissions present in the 2400–2500 MHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band and adjacent frequency bands. These measurements were...

This is the first volume of this report. The six volumes of this report are: Volume 1. Overview; Volume 2. Experiment Design; Volume 3. Data Extraction; Volume 4. Data Reduction; Volume 5. Data Analysis; Volume 6. Data Display This volume is an overv...

This is the second volume of this report. The six volumes of this report are: Volume 1. Overview; Volume 2. Experiment Design; Volume 3. Data Extraction; Volume 4. Data Reduction; Volume 5. Data Analysis; Volume 6. Data Display This volume shows how ...

This is the third volume of this report. The six volumes of this report are: Volume 1. Overview; Volume 2. Experiment Design; Volume 3. Data Extraction; Volume 4. Data Reduction; Volume 5. Data Analysis; Volume 6. Data DisplayThis volume explains how...

This is the fourth volume of this report.The six volumes of this report are: Volume 1. Overview; Volume 2. Experiment Design; Volume 3. Data Extraction; Volume 4. Data Reduction; Volume 5. Data Analysis; Volume 6. Data DisplayThis volume shows how th...

This is the fifth volume of this report. The six volumes of this report are: Volume 1. Overview; Volume 2. Experiment Design; Volume 3. Data Extraction; Volume 4. Data Reduction; Volume 5. Data Analysis; Volume 6. Data Display TThis volume shows how ...

This is the sixth volume of this report.The six volumes of this report are: Volume 1. Overview; Volume 2. Experiment Design; Volume 3. Data Extraction; Volume 4. Data Reduction; Volume 5. Data Analysis; Volume 6. Data DisplayThis volume shows how to ...

The ability to rapidly mobilize the telecommunications industry is of concern in National Security and Emergency Preparedness planning scenarios. This report assesses the extent to which the U.S. telecommunications industry is dependent on foreign so...

Janet Geikas and Nicholas DeMinco, “Jammer effectiveness model,” Technical Report TR-95-317, November 1994

The Jammer Effectiveness Model (JEM) is a Windows-based computer program which provides an integrated procedure for modeling propagation effects on telecommunication links and the effect of a jammer on communication links and networks. JEM provides t...

Peter B. Papazian, Michael P. Roadifer, and George A. Hufford, “Initial Study of the Local Multipoint Distribution System Radio Channel,” Technical Report TR-94-315, August 1994

A broadband millimeter wave study was completed to characterize the radio channel for Local Multipoint Distribution Systems in Boulder, Colorado. The study determined characteristics for proposed 20-MHz channels centered at 30.3 GHz using two transmi...

"Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing" is an interesting system architecture for high data-rate digital transmission that has been receiving renewed attention. This report is a discussion of how it works and of how it might be used to carry Hig...

Robert J. Matheson, “A Survey of Relative Spectrum Efficiency of Mobile Voice Communication Systems,” Technical Report TR-94-311, July 1994

This paper provides definitions of spectrum efficiency for general communication systems, then simplifies the definitions so that the spectrum efficiency of several contemporary mobile radio systems can be easily compared. A variety of systems curren...

Eldon J. Haakinson, Wayne R. Rust, and Martin M. Garrity, “An Evaluation of the North American Advanced Train Control System,” Technical Report TR-94-312, July 1994

The railroad industry has proposed an advanced system for train control. This report presents an evaluation of the system development process, with particular emphasis on the data communication system that interconnects dispatch centers, locomotives,...

Frank H. Sanders, Robert L. Hinkle, and Bradley J. Ramsey, “Analysis of Electromagnetic Compatibility Between Radar Stations and 4 GHz Fixed-Satellite Earth Stations,” Technical Report TR-94-313, July 1994

The susceptibility of 3700 to 4200 MHz fixed-satellite service earth stations to interference from radar signals, and the mechanisms by which such interference can occur, are examined. It is shown that interference can occur even if all currently app...

Jeffery A. Wepman, J. Randy Hoffman, and Lynette H. Loew, “Impulse Response Measurements in the 1850–1990 MHz Band in Large Outdoor Cells,” Technical Report TR-94-309, June 1994

Mobile impulse response measurements were taken in the 1850–1990 MHz band in three different macrocellular (cell radii of 5 km) environments: flat rural, hilly rural, and urban high-rise. Spatial diversity with a 15-wavelength separation was employed...

Eric E. Johnson and David F. Peach, “High-frequency radio channel error model,” Technical Report TR-94-310, June 1994

Simulation has been extensively employed to evaluate concepts included in the current generation of standards for automated high–frequency (HF) radio systems. As development proceeds from link–layer technology to network– and higher–layer technology,...

Kenneth C. Allen et al., “Building Penetration Loss Measurements at 900 MHz, 11.4 GHz, and 28.8 GHz,” Technical Report TR-94-306, May 1994

The feasibility of using radio frequencies in the super high frequency (SHF) band (3-30 GHz) for Personal Communications Services (PCS) in buildings depends on the multipath within the structure and the amount of attenuation experienced by the electr...

Wayne R. Rust and Eldon J. Haakinson, “U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Eastern Region Strategic Telecommunication Plan 1994-2003,” Technical Report TR-94-307, May 1994

This report documents the development of a telecommunication strategy for 1994-2003 for the Eastern Region of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) identified telecommunication needs, as...

The National Communications System (NCS) is responsible for defining operational infrastructures and processes that could be detrimental to the provision of telecommunications equipment and services necessary to the National Security and Emergency Pr...

Philip E. Gawthrop, Frank H. Sanders, Karl B. Nebbia, and John J. Sell, “Radio Spectrum Measurements of Individual Microwave Ovens, Volumes 1 and 2,” Technical Report NTIA TR-94-303, March 1994

This report provides results of radio spectrum measurements of 13 individual microwave ovens performed at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS). Measurements include emiss...

Paul C. Smith, Robert T. Adair, and David F. Peach, “An investigation of Federal Standard 1045 High–Frequency ALE Radio Performance in the Southern Trans–Auroral Zone,” Technical Report TR-94-304, March 1994

This report presents the results of two weeks of bi–directional high frequency radio path soundings in a trans–auroral environment between Christchurch, New Zealand, and the U.S. station, McMurdo (Black Island), Antarctica, during mid–January, 1992. ...

Daniel Law, Frank H. Sanders, Gary M. Patrick, and Michael Richmond, “Measurements of Wind Profiler EMC Characteristics,” Technical Report TR-93-301, March 1994

This report provides the results of measurements that were conducted on a 404.37 MHz wind profiler located in Platteville, Colorado. These measurements included: radiated spectra (both high and low mode), radiated harmonic and subharmonic power measu...

David A. Sutherland Jr., “Foundations, Applications, and Assessment of Wavelets,” Technical Report TR-93-302, December 1993

This report is an introduction to wavelet theory intended for the technical professional working in telecommunications. The basics of wavelet theory are presented with an emphasis on explanation of the principles and ideas involved rather than on the...

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in the fall of 1992 was required by Congress to develop and commence implementation of a plan for Federal agencies to use wireless mobile technologies that are spectrum efficient a...

David Anderson and David J. Cohen, “Digital Emission Spectrum Model,” Technical Report TR-93-298, September 1993

The Digital Emission Spectrum Model report was released in September 1993. A computer program was developed to calculate the power spectral density (PSD) and the fractional power containment bandwidth for various digital modulation techniques. The po...

Jeffery A. Wepman, J. Randy Hoffman, Lynette H. Loew, and Vincent S. Lawrence, “Comparison of Wideband Propagation in the 902–928 and 1850–1990 MHz bands in Various Macrocellular Environments,” Technical Report TR-93-299, September 1993

Impulse response measurements were taken simultaneously in both the 902–928 and 1850–1990 MHz bands using a wideband measurement system consisting of a fixed transmitter and a mobile receiver. Four different macrocells representing typical semi-rural...

This report presents an analysis and explanation of the system performance calculations performed by the reliability and service probability subroutines of the Ionospheric Communication Analysis and Prediction Program "IONCAP" and an IONCAP derivativ...

Robert F. Linfield, “Present Status and Future Trends in Telecommunications,” Technical Report TR-93-296, May 1993

The purpose here is to define the present and examine the future of telecommunications over the next ten years. Emerging and anticipated products and services are viewed from both a technical and a social impact perspective. Systems including those p...

Raymond D. Jennings, Robert F. Linfield, and Michael D. Meister, “Network management: A review of emerging concepts, standards, and products,” Technical Report TR-93-295, April 1993

The objectives of this report are (1) to identify and examine various divergent perspectives that exist about the technology termed network management; (2) to develop a conceptual definition and understanding of network management that is rational an...

Ernesto A. Cerezo and Robert C. Wilson, “Federal Government Spectrum Usage in the 902–928, 2400–2500, and 5725–5875 MHz bands,” Technical Report TR-93-294, February 1993

The Federal Government Spectrum Usage in the 902–928, 2400–2500 and 5725–5875 MHz Bands report was released in February 1993. This report assesses the Federal Government spectrum usage of these three bands. Current rules and regulations, allocations,...

David A. Sutherland Jr., “Simulated effects of sounding on automatic link establishment HF radio network performance,” Technical Report TR-93-291/NCS Technical Information Bulletin 92-21, January 1993

A discrete event simulation model for an HF Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) radio network is described. The simulation model is based on Federal Standard 1045 "Telecommunications: HF Radio Automatic Link Establishment." The simulation is used to s...

Peter B. Papazian et al., “Wideband Propagation Measurements for Wireless Indoor Communication,” Technical Report TR-93-292, January 1993

Wideband impulse response measurements were made to characterize proposed radio data channels in three indoor environments. The measurement system employed a 1.5 GHz carrier which was biphase shift key (BPSK) modulated using a 100 Mb/s pseudo-random ...

Christopher J. Behm and John J. Lemmon, “Wideband HF Noise/Interference Modeling, Part II: Higher-Order Statistics,” Technical Report TR-93-293, January 1993

This report is the second in a series of reports which describe the development of a wideband HF noise/interference mode. The model is based on measured data and is suitable for implementation in a wideband HF channel simulator. The measured data, an...

Christopher Redding and William J. Pomper, “Linking protection in Federal Standard 1045 HF radios using the data encryption standard,” Technical Report TR-92-289, December 1992

A method of utilizing the Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm for linking protection in HF radios complying with Federal Standard 1045 is described. The unique DES encryption method, which permits a codebook type of encryption of 24-bit words, i...

David Anderson and David J. Cohen, “Digital emission spectrum model,” Technical Report TR-92-288, November 1992

A computer program was developed to calculate the power spectral density (PSD) and the fractional power containment bandwidth for various digital modulation techniques. The power containment capability was used to provide guidance for determination o...

Peter B. Papazian, David L. Jones, and Richard H. Espeland, “Wideband Propagation Measurements at 30.3 GHz Through a Pecan Orchard in Texas,” Technical Report TR-92-287, September 1992

Wideband propagation measurements were made in a pecan orchard in Texas during April and August of 1990 to examine the propagation characteristics of millimeter–wave signals through vegetation. Measurements were made on tree obstructed paths with and...

Gerald F. Hurt and Philip E. Gawthrop, “Feasibility of Relocating Non-Government Fixed Systems into the 1710–1850 MHz Band,” Technical Report TR-92-286, August 1992

Lewis E. Vogler and James A. Hoffmeyer, “A New Approach to HF Channel Modeling and Simulation. Part 3: Transfer Function,” Technical Report TR-92-284, March 1992

This is the third in a series of reports which describe a new and unique approach for modeling either narrowband or wideband high frequency (HF) channels. Although narrowband models of the HF channel have existed for many years, they are applicable t...

Ernesto A. Cerezo, “Federal Spectrum Usage of the 1710–1850 and 2200–2290 MHz Bands,” Technical Report TR-92-285, March 1992

The Spectrum Resource Assessment (SRA) is an integral part of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Office of Spectrum Management (OSM) long-range planning process related to national and international interests that ...

Evan J. Dutton, Thomas G. Hoople, and Michael P. Roadifer, “An Analysis of Reception Variability Due to Terrain Multipath on Microwave Common Carrier Links,” Technical Report TR-92-283, January 1992

The error variability of received PSK (MSK), QAM and QPR modulations on digital microwave common carrier links resulting from transmitted power variations and the dispersive effects of terrain multipath using a two–ray model is analyzed. These result...

George A. Hufford and Francis K. Steele, “Tabulations of propagation data over irregular terrain in the 75- to 8400-MHz frequency range Part 5: Virginia,” Technical Report TR-91-282, December 1991

This is a supplementary fifth part to a series of reports containing tabulations and graphs of transmission loss data resulting from propagation experiments which have emphasized the UHF frequency band. The first four reports described data taken in ...

Motivated by recognized vulnerabilities of the terrestrial public networks, this report addresses the question whether an appropriate introduction of advanced satellite systems would or would not benefit the telecommunication services for the current...

Gary M. Patrick and Michael Richmond, “Assessment of the 216–225, 400.15–406, 420–450 MHz Band for Possible Wind Profiler Accommodations,” Technical Report TR-91-280, September 1991

This report presents an assessment of three candidate bands (216–225, 400.15–406, and 420–450 MHz) for the potential accommodation of Wind Profilers nationally, with consideration worldwide. The approach used to evaluate each band was based on two ma...

Jeffery A. Wepman, Robert J. Matheson, Kenneth C. Allen, and Robert J. Achatz, “Spectrum Usage Measurements in Potential PCS Frequency Bands,” Technical Report TR-91-279, September 1991

Spectrum usage measurements were made in several potential Personal Communication Services (PCS) frequency bands in the 600 to 2600 MHz range in five U.S. cities. Geographic dependence (within a city) of spectrum usage was determined for all of the c...

George A. Hufford, John R. Godwin, and Vincent S. Lawrence, “Characterization of the HDTV Channel in the San Francisco Area,” Technical Report TR-91-278, July 1991

If over–the–air High Definition Television (HDTV) is to become a reality it would be useful to know the multipath characteristics of the radio channel over which it will be carried. The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) has begun a progr...

John J. Lemmon and Christopher J. Behm, “Wideband HF Noise/Interference Modeling. Part I: First–Order Statistics,” Technical Report TR-91-277, May 1991

This report discusses the development of a wideband HF noise/interference model. The model is based on measured data and is suitable for implementation in a wideband HF channel simulator. The measured data are described and analyses performed on the ...

Leslie A. Berry, F. Kenneth Steele, and William B. Grant, “Frequency Assignment Summary for 1.435 GHz–2.5 GHz Band,” Technical Report TR-91-274, May 1991

Allocations and assignments for frequencies in the United States between 1435 MHz and 2500 MHz are reviewed and summarized. The summarized data come from the FCC data base and the Government Master File.

Rapid development of personal, portable, radio communications is expected during this decade. A primary example of this is the emergence of personal communication networks (PCN). These networks are similar to today's cellular telephone technology. Ho...

Susan L. Rothschild and Joseph E. Farrow, “The RAIDER Program: Radio Algorithms for Integration and Design of Engineering Requirements,” Technical Report TR-91-276, April 1991

The Radio Algorithms for Integration and Design of Engineering Requirements (RAIDER) program consists of a set of modules which provide an easy to use and precise approach to the complete design and documentation of terrestrial radio links operating ...

Hans J. Liebe, George A. Hufford, and Robert O. DeBolt, “The Atmospheric 60-GHz Oxygen Spectrum: Modeling and Laboratory Measurements,” Technical Report TR-91-272, March 1991

Molecular oxygen dominates the attenuation and delay rates of dry air throughout the V band (5075 GHz). Both rates display as a function of altitude an intricate pattern which, for the most part, has never been confirmed by experiment. The collective...

Martin Nesenbergs and Darren L. Smith, “Mean Synchronization Times for ATM Cells: Derivations and Computational Background,” Technical Report TR-91-273, March 1991

The mean synchronization (sync) duration time and the mean sync acquisition times are derived and computed for the Asynchronous Transfer Mode of the proposed Broadband ISDN. These waiting times are expressed as functions of channel quality, i.e., the...

Robert F. Linfield, “Telecommunications Networks: Services, Architectures, and Implementations,” Technical Report TR-90-270, December 1990

Telecommunications networks are shown to exhibit three attributes that distinguish them from each other, namely, the service offered, the functional architecture necessary to provide this service, and the hardware and software that implements this ar...

George A. Hufford et al., “Characterization of the HDTV Channel in the Denver Area,” Technical Report TR-90-271, December 1990

Development and testing of various implementations of High Definition Television (HDTV) require knowledge of the multipath characteristics of the radio channel over which the proposed signal will be carried. The Institute for Telecommunication Scienc...

Robert D. Cass and Martin J. Miles, “Telecommunications Networks: Services, Architectures, and Implementations,” Technical Report TR-90-269, November 1990

This report describes the steps for designing experiments to quantify the performance of a communication satellite system according to the methods specified by ANS X3.l4l. Performance is described in terms of performance parameters that are user–orie...

James S. Washburn, Gregory R. Hand, Leslie A. Berry, and Jeanne M. Ratzloff, “Spectrum Required for HF Broadcasting,” Technical Report TR-90-268, October 1990

The minimum amount of spectrum to satisfy worldwide broadcasting requirements in the high–frequency (HF) bands is estimated. This analysis provides technical bases for the U.S. allocation proposal$ being developed in preparations for the World Admini...

Charles Samora and Michael A. Province, “An Extended Database of Microwave Common Carrier Antenna Gain Patterns,” Technical Report TR-90-267, August 1990

This report discusses a collection of microwave common carrier azimuthal antenna patterns. The patterns were digitized and stored into a uniformly formatted database. The primary application of this database is for interference prediction among commo...

Stephen Wolf, “Features for Automated Quality Assessment of Digitally Transmitted Video,” Technical Report TR-90-264, June 1990

This report describes an automated method of video quality assessment based on extraction and classification of features from sampled input and output video. The first subsystem of the automated video quality measurement system is the feature extract...

This report describes the results of an 18-month digital microwave radio performance and propagation measurement project that was conducted on a portion of the Defense Communications System in Germany. More than 6 gigabytes of data were collected ...

This report describes the results of an 18-month digital microwave radio performance and propagation measurement project· that was conducted on a portion of the Defense Communications System in Germany. More than 6 gigabytes of data were collected...

This report describes the results of an 18-month digital microwave radio performance and propagation measurement project that was conducted on a portion I of the Defense Communications System in Germany. More than 6 gigabytes of data were collecte...

Richard N. Statz, “Transmission Monitor and Control Software Reference Manual,” Technical Report TR-90-266, June 1990

This manual describes the functions of the TRAMCON (TRAnsmission Monitor and CONtrol) On#8211;Line software and the steps necessary to maintain the software. This document emphasizes the software semantics rather than the syntax. The structure of the...

A summary is presented of a series of monitoring campaigns held between 1984 and 1989 to locate the sources of intentional harmful interference to the HF broadcast spectrum. The monitoring programs were organized under the auspices of the Internation...

Mary W. Sowers and Margo PoKempner, “Distribution of the Daily foF2 About the Monthly Median,” Technical Report TR-90-263, May 1990

Data from 21 ionospheric sounding stations in the northern and southern hemispheres were used to characterize the day to day variation in the critical frequency of the F2 layer of the ionosphere. Variability in the critical frequencies are analyzed m...

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) has performed a number of technical tasks as part of the responsibilities of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for re–establishing the Pan-Pacific Educational and ...

Jack Cole, “International Value-Added Network Services — An Introduction,” Technical Report TR-90-258, March 1990

This report provides a descriptive overview of the factors affecting the development of international value-added network services (IVANS). The paper first addresses terminology and describes the legal and regulatory environment in the United States...

Cesar A. Filippi, Gary M. Patrick, Ernesto A. Cerezo, and Robert C. Wilson, “Hydrologic and Meteorological Operations in the 162–174 and 406.1–420 MHz Bands,” Technical Report TR-90-259, March 1990

This report presents a detailed assessment of the hydrologic and meteorological operations in the 162–174 MHz (VHF) and 406.1–420 MHz (UHF) bands. These operations are currently supported by hydrologic and quasi-hydrologic channel assignments in thes...

Philip E. Gawthrop and Gary M. Patrick, “Ground–Based Weather Radar Compatibility with Digital Radio–Relay Microwave Systems,” Technical Report TR-90-260, March 1990

This report examines the potential for ground–based weather radar (meteorological radar) interference to digital microwave systems in the common carrier bands of 3700–4200 MHz and 5925–6425 MHz. Reported cases of interference to microwave common carr...

Lewis E. Vogler and James A. Hoffmeyer, “A New Approach to HF Channel Modeling and Simulation. Part 2: Stochastic Model,” Technical Report TR-90-255, February 1990

This report is the second report in a series of reports which describe a new and unique approach for modeling either narrowband or wideband high frequency (HF) channels. Although narrowband models of the HF channel have existed for many years, they a...

Joseph E. Farrow, “Design and Performance of a Long, Over–Water Microwave Radio Link,” Technical Report TR-90-256, February 1990

This paper discusses the design and the measured performance of a 76.8-kIn (47.7-mi) over–water 2.3 GHz microwave radio link. Since one of the terminals was located on an ocean tower, the maximum antenna height at that location was restricted to 49 m...

This report covers the first task of a three–task effort designed to explore the potential of using advanced satellite system technologies to enhance the rapid restoration of telecommunication services that may be disrupted due to traffic congestion ...

James S. Washburn et al., “Planning for Frequency Continuity in HF Broadcasting,” Technical Report TR-89-254, December 1989

The Second Session of the High Frequency Broadcasting Conference held in Geneva, Switzerland, in February 1987, resolved a need for an improved system to plan the radio frequencies allocated exclusively to the HF broadcasting service. The Final Acts ...

The current status of fiber optic and related broadband terrestrial networks is reviewed. That includes summaries of link and switch capabilities as well as present and future standards for broadband systems. In the domain of communication satellites...

Martin Nesenbergs, Darren L. Smith, and L. Thomas Jones, “Power Spectral Densities for Selected Digital Phase–Continuous MFSK Emissions,” Technical Report TR-89-250, October 1989

This report is a brief outline and a catalog o full power spectral densities for certain M–ary frequency shift keying waveforms. Spectral equations are displayed in graphical form for easy visualization . The spectra pertain to real signals centered ...

David L. Jones, Richard H. Espeland, and Edmond J. Violette, “Vegetation Loss Measurements at 9.6, 28.8, 57.6, and 96.1 GHz Through a Conifer Orchard in Washington State,” Technical Report TR-89-251, October 1989

Propagation measurements were made in the Olympic National Forest of Washington state during October 1987 to examine millimeter-wave signal propagation through conifer vegetation. Linearly polarized continuous-wave signals at 9.6. 28.8. 57.6. and 96....

Martin Nesenbergs, “Image Data Compression Overview: Issues and Partial Solutions,” Technical Report TR-89-252, October 1989

This report presents an overview of moving image (video) data compression. Because this report deals with a subtask of a major program, a limited number of the most pertinent topics and issues have been addressed. These topics include a listing of hu...

Robin H. Haines and Steven E. Litts, “The SUM Land Mobile Model: Application of the Spectrum Use Measure to the Land Mobile Service,” Technical Report TR-89-248, September 1989

George A. Hufford and Hans J. Liebe, “Millimeter-Wave Propagation in the Mesosphere,” Technical Report TR-89-249, September 1989

At heights between 30 and 100 km above Earth, the oxygen absorption lines near 60 GHz together with the geomagnetic field cause the atmosphere to become an anisotropic medium. This report discusses why this is so and how to compute the consequent eff...

Joseph E. Farrow and Susan L. Rothschild, “User–Friendly Software for the Design of Digital Line–of–Sight Radio Links,” Technical Report TR-89-246, August 1989

This report provides a description of and operating instructions for Digital Line–of–Sight (DLOS) programs. These programs, which run on a desk–top computer, automate the calculations involved in design of line–of–sight microwave radio relay paths. T...

James A. Hoffmeyer and Timothy J. Riley, “Digital European Backbone Performance: A 12–Month Summary for the Frankfurt North Segment,” Technical Report TR-89-247, August 1989

This report describes the interim results of an 18–month digital microwave transmission network performance and propagation measurement project that was conducted on a portion of the Defense Communications System (DCS) in West Germany. Only the first...

Nicholas DeMinco, “Automated Steerable Nulling Antenna Processor (SNAP) Model,” Technical Report TR-89-245, July 1989

This report describes an adaptive antenna computer model that simulates the behavior of a steerable–nulling antenna processor (SNAP) in a jamming or interference environment. The model predicts the signal–to– (interference–plus–noise) ratio as a func...

Mary W. Sowers, Gregory R. Hand, and Charles M. Rush, “Monitoring of Harmful Interference to the HF Broadcast Service: IV. Results of the July 1988 Coordinated Monitoring Period,” Technical Report TR-89-244, June 1989

This is the fourth in a series of reports describing the results of studies to determine the location of sources of harmful interference to the high frequency (HF) broadcasting service. Using observations recorded during the July 1988 monitoring prog...

Robert L. Hinkle and Andrew Farrar, “Spectrum-Conservation Techniques for Fixed Microwave Systems,” Technical Report TR-89-243, May 1989

Since the spectrum is a limited natural resource, the spectrum management community has a major interest in identifying spectrum conservation techniques that will provide more efficient spectrum utilization. Advances in new technology for fixed micro...

David J. Cohen, William B. Grant, and Francis K. Steele, “Meteor Burst System Communications Compatibility,” Technical Report TR-89-241, March 1989

The technical and operating characteristics of meteor burst systems of importance for spectrum management applications are identified. A technical assessment is included which identifies the most appropriate frequency subbands within the VHF spectrum...

Edmond J. Violette, Richard H. Espeland, and Kenneth C. Allen, “Millimeter-Wave Propagation Characteristics and Channel Performance for Urban-Suburban Environments,” Technical Report TR-88-239, December 1988

Measurements were performed in an urban-suburban environment with narrowband and wideband RF probes, which include millimeter-wave frequencies, in order to study propagation characteristics for street level paths. The primary objective of this report...

Lewis E. Vogler and James A. Hoffmeyer, “A New Approach to HF Channel Modeling and Simulation, Part 1: Deterministic Model,” Technical Report TR-88-240, December 1988

This report describes a new and unique approach for modeling either narrowband or wideband high frequency (HF) channels. Although narrowband models of the HF channel have existed for many years, they are applicable to only a limited set of actual pro...

This report details a study on the application of American National Standards X3.l02 and X3.l4l to various classes of communication satellite systems from the simple analog "bent–pipe" to NASA's Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS). Th...

Fredrick Matos, “NTIA Information Services Report,” Technical Report TR-88-235, August 1988

The NITA Information Services Report is a study of the information services available via telecommunications networks in the United States and a number of foreign countries. It presents a review of the information services available in the United Sta...

Robert J. Mayher et al., “The SUM Data Base: A New Measure of Spectrum Use,” Technical Report TR-88-236, August 1988

This report describes a new technique for calculating the spectrum space used by existing frequency assignments. The Spectrum Use Measure (SUM) model determines the amount of spectrum used at a given location or the probability that a given location ...

Eldon J. Haakinson, Susan L. Rothschild, and Brent L. Bedford, “MF Broadcasting System Performance Model,” Technical Report TR-88-237, August 1988

An interactive program has been developed to evaluate the performance of medium frequency (MF) broadcasting systems. The model calculates both ground–wave and sky–wave signals. The user can select from three ground–wave methods: (1) smooth Earth, hom...

This report presents results of a multiyear data communication performance measurement program conducted at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, the research and engineering arm of the National Telecommunications and Information Administrati...

Important changes in the video market, particularly with respect to cable television over the last ten years, have raised several policy issues. The expanded technological capabilities of optical fibers and computers create new ways to transport and ...

David F. Peach and Robert T. Adair, “Multitier Specification Applied to Modify the Hardness of an Essential NSEP Fiber Optic Link,” Technical Report TR-88-231, March 1988

The Mu1itier Specification was developed to provide guidelines and recommendations for improving the durability of the communication installations necessary for National Security/Emergency Preparedness (NSEP). The application of the Multitier Specifi...

John J. Lemmon and Timothy J. Riley, “Propagation and Performance Measurements Over the Berlin–Bocksberg Digital Troposcatter Communications Link,” Technical Report TR-88-232, March 1988

This report discusses propagation and performance measurements that were obtained over a digital troposcatter communication link between Bocksberg, West Germany, and West Berlin. The measurements were unusual because three general types of data were ...

Hiroshi Akima, “Use of Precalculated Data of Minimum Elliptical Beams of Satellite Antennas,” Technical Report TR-88-230, February 1988

Minimum (or "best–fit") elliptical beams of satellite antennas have been used for the planning of space services utilizing the geostationary–satellite orbit. In such a planning, beam parameters of minimum elliptical beams are necessary for all possib...

Fiber optic telecommunication systems are susceptible to both natural and man-made stress. national Security/Emergency Preparedness (NSEP) is a function of how durable these systems are in light of projected levels of stress. Emergency Preparedness i...

Fiber optic telecommunication systems are susceptible to both natural and man-made stress. national Security/Emergency Preparedness (NSEP) is a function of how durable these systems are in light of projected levels of stress. Emergency Preparedness i...

The National Communications System (NCS) is responsible for defining reasonable enhancements that could be applied to commercial common carrier (or carriers' –carrier) fiber optic systems that will be leased or owned by government agencies and which ...

Evan J. Dutton, Harold T. Dougherty, and Duane C. Hyovalti, “Some Models for Rain and Cloud Attenuation of Millimeter Waves,” Technical Report TR-87-225, November 1987

In the first section of this report, rainfall observational data are processed by least-squares curve-fitting to call attention to some of the desireable aspects of such fittin. The curve fitting techniques are illustrated for annual rainfall and wor...

Hans J. Liebe and Donald H. Layton, “Millimeter-Wave Properties of the Atmosphere: Laboratory Studies and Propagation Modeling,” Technical Report TR-87-224, October 1987

Laboratory measurements have been performed at 138 GHz of water vapor attenuation αx for pure vapor (H2O) and its mixtures with air, nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), and Argon (Ar). Temperatures ranged from 8 to 43 °C, relative humidities from 0 to 95% an...

Molecular absorption lines in the millimeter-wave band make the atmosphere dispersive, thus causing the distortion of transmitted signal shapes. To better understand how severe this distortion is and what form it takes, it seems useful to examine the...

Raymond D. Jennings, “Investigations of Test Methodology for the Stress Loading Facility,” Technical Report TR-87-228, September 1987

The U.S. Army Electronic Proving Ground (USAEPG) is planning the development of a new test facility to be known as the Stress Loading Facility (SLF). This facility is envisioned as an integrated and automated test capability that will generate a dens...

Jean E. Adams et al., “Performance of Single and Multiple System AM Stereo Decoder Receivers,” Technical Report TR-87-223, August 1987

In order to determine the feasibility of multiple system decoders for AM stereo receivers, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences made a series of laboratory and field tests on certain commercially available AM stereo receivers. We also made te...

This report, an assessment of the telecommunications system in the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC), identifies areas of technical cooperation in telecommunications sciences between the U.S. and China and recommends strategies for improvement and exp...

George A. Hufford, “A General Theory of Radio Propagation Through a Stratified Atmosphere,” Technical Report TR-87-219, July 1987

When wave propagation through a stratified atmosphere is formulated in operator theoretic terms, it becomes evident that the problem does not follow the guide of the usual examples of mathematical physics. Nevertheless, such a formulation is useful t...

Eldon J. Haakinson, Susan L. Rothschild, and John R. Godwin, “User’s Guide for the HF Broadcast Antenna Design and Validation Summary Programs,” Technical Report TR-87-220, July 1987

A series of programs have been developed by the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) that assist the Voice of America (VOA) to plan and operate high frequency (HF) broadcast stations. The VOA has specific broadcast bands available for use a...

James A. Hoffmeyer and Martin Nesenbergs, “Wideband HF Modeling and Simulation,” Technical Report TR-87-221, July 1987

Laboratory testing of proposed and new wideband (e. g., spread spectrum) high frequency (HF) systems is currently not possible because wideband HF channel simulators do not exist. Moreover, there are no validated HF channel models for bandwidth on th...

NTIA Regulatory Review Staff, “NTIA Regulatory Alternatives Report,” Technical Report TR-87-222, July 1987

NTIA Regulatory Review Staff

This report describes a fiber optics system model and its computer implementation. This implementation can calculate the bit error ratio (BER) versus time for optical fibers that have been exposed to gamma radiation. The program is designed so that t...

James S. Washburn, Leslie A. Berry, and Charles M. Rush, “The HF Broadcasting Planning Model: A Comparison of Two Versions,” Technical Report TR-87-217, June 1987

The First Session of the World Administrative Radio Conference for the planning of the high frequency (HF) bands allocated exclusively to the broadcasting service held in Geneva, Switzerland, in January and February of 1984, established the technical...

Nancy A. Kuester, “Gain Evaluation for an Idealized Curtain Array Antenna,” Technical Report TR-87-215, May 1987

An expression for the gain of a curtain array antenna over a perfectly conducting, flat Earth with no mutual impedance between elements is derived in this report. A FORTRAN computer subroutine created to calculate the expression is described here. Th...

Mary W. Sowers, Gregory R. Hand, and Charles M. Rush, “Monitoring of Harmful Interference to the HF Broadcasting Service: III. Results of the June 1986 Coordinated Monitoring Period,” Technical Report TR-87-213, March 1987

This is the third in a series of reports describing the results of studies to determine the location of sources of harmful interference to the HF broadcasting service. Using observations recorded during the June 1986 monitoring program conducted unde...

Martin Nesenbergs, “Fiber Optic Networks and Their Service Survival,” Technical Report TR-87-214, March 1987

The objective of this study is to look at fiber optics networks in a predominately functional domain and to assess their potential survivability advantages from that point of view. As a consequence, service survivability is emphasized far more than p...

Alfred Lee and Timothy Sloan, “Competition in the Local Exchange Market,” Technical Report NTIA TR-87-210, January 1987

NTIA gathered revenue and market data from the Bell Operating Companies (“BOCs”), their competitors, long distance telephone carriers and large communications user groups. From this database some useful conclusions are drawm about the characteristics...

Donald V. Glen, “Reference Manual for Packet Mode Standards,” Technical Report TR-87-211, January 1987

American National Standard (ANS) X3.100 will be adopted as Federal Information Processing Standards Publication (FIPS PUB) 100 and Federal Standard (FED STD) 1041. These standards are based on CCITT Recommendation X.25 and ISO Standards 7776 and 8208...

Arthur D. Spaulding and Frank G. Stewart, “An Updated Noise Model for Use in IONCAP,” Technical Report TR-87-212, January 1987

This report presents an updated and improved noise model designed for use in the HF propagation prediction program, IONCAP. The model has, however, much more general applicability, since the frequency range 10 kHz to 30 MHz is covered. The report giv...

Nicholas DeMinco, “Automated Performance Analysis Model for Ground-Wave Communication Systems,” Technical Report TR-86-209, December 1986

An automated analysis model is presented for the prediction of system performance of communication circuits that use the ground wave as the primary mode of propagation. The computer program Ground Wave Automated Performance Analysis (GWAPA) is a user...

A method of interpolation that accurately interpolates data values that satisfy a function is said to have the accuracy of that function. The desired or required properties for a univariate interpolation method are reviewed, and the accuracy of a thi...

Jerry D. Hopponen and Hans J. Liebe, “A Computational Model for the Simulation of Millimeter-Wave Propagation Through the Clear Atmosphere,” Technical Report TR-86-204, October 1986

Prediction of propagation effects (i.e., path attenuation, phase delay, ray bending and medium noise) over the 1 to 300 GHz frequency range through the clear, nonturbulent atmosphere is accomplished by combining a spectroscopic data base with a compu...

Terry Monroe, “Telephone Competition and Regulation: A Survey of the United States,” Technical Report TR-86-205, October 1986

Mary W. Sowers, Gregory R. Hand, and Charles M. Rush, “Monitoring of Harmful Interference to the HF Broadcasting Service: I. Results of the Jan. 1986 Coordinated Monitoring Period,” Technical Report TR-86-206, October 1986

This is the second in a series of reports describing the results of studies to determine the location of sources of harmful interference to the HF broadcasting services. Using observations recorded during the January 1986 monitoring program conducted...

Laurance G. Hause, “Algorithms Used in ARROWS: Autodesign of Radio Relay Optimum Wideband Systems,” Technical Report TR-86-207, October 1986

This report describes the mathematical models used in the ARROWS programs. These programs, which run on a desktop computer, automate the calculations involved in the design of line–of–sight microwave radio relay links. The programs calculate, tabulat...

Nicholas DeMinco, “Ground-wave Analysis Model for MF Broadcast Systems,” Technical Report TR-86-203, September 1986

An automated analysis model is presented for the prediction of system performance of communications circuits that use the ground wave as the primary mode of propagation. The computer program Ground Wave for Voice of America (GWVOA) is a user–friendly...

The distribution of raindrop sizes in a given volume of air remains an unknown aspect of critical importance to the prediction of rain attenuation at millimeter–wave frequencies. Thus, in this report, the search continues for a methodology of predict...

This report describes a set of receiver transfer characteristic (RTC) algorithms developed at NTIA for the analytical assessment of mutual interference effects in satellite communication services. The RTC algorithms convert the input carrier-to-inter...

Andrew Farrar, “Calculation of Power Flux-Density Levels in the 2 GHz Band, Phase Three,” Technical Report NTIA TR-86-199, August 1986

The analysis technique developed and discussed in two earlier NTIA reports (Farrar, 1984; Farrar, 1983) was used in conjunction with the data obtained from a number of different countries to calculate the power flux-density (pfd) levels in the 2 GHz ...

Harold T. Dougherty and Evan J. Dutton, “Quantifying the Effects of Terrain for VHF and Higher Frequency Application,” Technical Report TR-86-200, July 1986

This report is tutorial in presentation, with emphasis on the application of engineering formulations of the effects of terrain upon terrestrial microwave systems. Many of these formulas have been available for a decade and longer, but they have not ...

Lewis E. Vogler, “An Extended Single–Error–State Model for Bit Error Statistics,” Technical Report TR-86-195, July 1986

Fritchman's single–error–state (SES) model for describing the error statistics of digital communication channels is modified to allow the prediction of error statistics as a function of the bit error rate (BER). From the data samples of a measurement...

John M. Harman and Raymond D. Jennings, “Sidelobe Gain Characteristics for Ku–Band Earth Station Antennas,” Technical Report TR-86-196, July 1986

Measured analog data showing gain as a function of angle away from the mainbeam (maximum gain) axis have been obtained for 14 models of reflector antennas designed for operation at 11/12 GHz for reception and at 14 GHz for transmission. The antennas ...

For efficient use of the geostationary satellite orbit, mutual interference among satellite systems must be analyzed in the planning stage of the systems. To conserve the transmitter power, many satellite antennas in the FSS (fixed–satellite service)...

Comparisons of Fritchman's single-error-state model with the two-state Markov model are presented in graphical form for a number of statistical functions, e.g., the error gap distribution (EGD), the block error probability (BLER), and the probability...

David Middleton and Arthur D. Spaulding, “A Tutorial Review of Elements of Weak Signal Detection in Non–Gaussian EMI Environments,” Technical Report TR-86-194, May 1986

New models of electromagnetic interference (EMI) have been developed by Middleton [1-11 ,48,49] over the last decade (1974–1983), which have provided canonical, analytically tractable, and experimentally well established quantitative descriptions of ...

Kenneth C. Allen, “EHF Telecommunication System Engineering Model,” Technical Report TR-86-192, April 1986

An EHF Telecommunication System Engineering Model (ETSEM) has been developed as an aid in the design of line-of-sight (LOS) communication systems from 10 to 100 GHz. ETSEM provides tabulation of path geometry parameters and analyzes ray-path and Fres...

Richard H. Espeland, Edmond J. Violette, and Kenneth C. Allen, “Rain Attenuation Measurements at 28.8, 57.6, and 96.1 GHz on a 1-km Path,” Technical Report TR-86-190, February 1986

An experimental millimeter-wave propagation link was installed on a 1-km path in the northern California area (Gasquet) to compare rain rate and attenuation at 28.8, 57.6, and 96.1 GHz. During the monitoring period (January 26 through April 14), rain...

Donald V. Glen, “Networks, Signaling, and Switches for Post–Divestiture and the ISDN,” Technical Report TR-86-191, February 1986

There has been a significant internationa1 effort to develop standards for Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDNs) at the same time that events leading to the divestiture of the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) Company were occurring in t...

The millimeter-wave behavior of rain attenuation based on recent experimental data, Jan. 1986

The results of a detailed investigation to isolate the location of sources of intentional interference to the HF broadcasting service are presented. The investigation was conducted using observations of intentional harmful interference observed at nu...

James A. Hoffmeyer, “Voiceband Quality–Of–Service Issues in the Post Divestiture Environment,” Technical Report TR-85-188, December 1985

This report discusses quality–of–service (QOS) issues for telephone networks. Deregulation and divestiture have fostered increased competition in the United States in the telephone equipment and service industries. There are many economic, policy, an...

Val J. Pietrasiewicz, J. Jay Austin, and Robert F. Linfield, “ISDN: Numbering, Addressing, and Interworking,” Technical Report TR-85-182, November 1985

The factors that affect the design of a numbering plan for the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) involved a complex interplay between existing plans, national priorities, and technical system limitations. These factors are the subject of thi...

Edmond J. Violette, Richard H. Espeland, and Gregory R. Hand, “Millimeter-Wave Urban and Suburban Propagation Measurements Using Narrow and Wide Bandwidth Channel Probes,” Technical Report TR-85-184, November 1985

Measurements reported are part of a study of propagation characteristics for millimeter-wave communication links operating in an urban-suburban environment. Absorption data were collected for signals propagated through some common building materials...

Robert F. Linfield and Martin Nesenbergs, “Military Access Area Characterization,” Technical Report TR-85-185, November 1985

This report addresses the concepts, the justification, and the eventual configuration of military access areas. Many factors enter into this access area characterization effort. The key factors emphasized here are: the current telecommunications envi...

The OSI Network Layer Addressing Scheme, Its Implications, and Considerations for Implementation, Nov. 1985

William B. Grant and Ray E. Thompson, “An Assessment of the Future of Travelers' Information Stations,” Technical Report TR-85-178, September 1985

This report is a study of Travelers' Information Stations (TIS) operating in the 525–535 and 1605–1615 kHz bands. It was prompted by the expansion of the AM broadcasting band from 1605 to 1705 kHz. Included is information on rules and regulations, al...

Charles J. Chilton, Karl B. Nebbia, and William B. Grant, “Spectrum Resource Assessment of the Fixed and Mobile Services in the 947–17,700 MHz Band, Phase II,” Technical Report TR-85-179, September 1985

A Phase I spectrum resource assessment based upon use of the bands containing fixed and mobile services in the 947–17,700 MHz portion of the radio frequency spectrum was completed in 1984. From the total number of fixed and mobile bands, four bands (...

Andrew Farrar, Herb Dobson, and Fredrick Wentland, “Evaluation Techniques—Fixed Service Systems to Power-Line-Carrier Circuits,” Technical Report TR-85-181, September 1985

Several methods for estimating the potential interference from systems in the Fixed Service to Power-Line–Carrier (PLC) circuits were developed. The Numerical Electromagnetic Code (NEC) computer program, originally developed by the Navy, was used to ...

Jean E. Adams and Kenneth H. Cavcey, “Communication Probability for the U.S. Coast Guard Digital Selective Calling System in the North Atlantic,” Technical Report TR-85-176, June 1985

The combined communications probabilities (Cm) have been calculated for 56 Simulated Ship Positions (SSP's) in the North Atlantic to a network of 26 digital selective calling shore stations The Cm are based on individual circuit reliability data obta...

George A. Hufford and Donald R. Ebaugh Jr., “A Study of Interference Fields in a Ducting Environment,” Technical Report TR-85-177, June 1985

In a cooperative program, the Federal Communications Commission and the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences have begun a study of the interference fields that may arise in a ducting environment. This report gives some preliminary thoughts on how...

Arthur D. Spaulding and James S. Washburn, “Atmospheric Radio Noise: Worldwide Levels and Other Characteristics,” Technical Report TR-85-173, April 1985

The determination of radio communication system performance is a matter of proper statistical treatment of both the desired signal and the real-world noise (or interference) processes. System performance is highly dependent on the detailed statistica...

Donald V. Glen, “Local Network Assessment,” Technical Report TR-85-174, April 1985

Local networks, related standards activities of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Project 802, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and other elements are presented. These elements include 1) technology choices...

Ray E. Thompson, William B. Grant, and John C. Carroll, “Spectrum Resource Assessment of the 1605–2000 kHz Band,” Technical Report TR-85-175, April 1985

This report is a spectrum resource assessment of the 1605–2000 kHz band. It includes information on rules, regulations, allocations, technical standards, frequency assignments, system characteristics, and applicable compatibility analyses pertinent t...

Hans J. Liebe et al., “Millimeter-Wave Propagation in Moist Air: Model Versus Path Data,” Technical Report TR-85-171, March 1985

A practical atmospheric millimeter-wave propagation model (MPM) is updated and tested with experimental data from horizontal, line–of–sight links when there is no precipitation. The MPM computer program predicts attenuation and delay properties of mo...

Terry Monroe and Robert Entman, “Summary of state telephone regulatory data,” Technical Report TR-85-172, March 1985

David J. Cohen, “Necessary Bandwidth and Spectral Properties of Digital Modulation,” Technical Report NTIA TR-84-168, February 1985

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) require, for their management of the spectrum, technical guidance concerning the necessary bandwidth and spectral characteri...

Evan J. Dutton and Francis K. Steele, “Some Further Aspects of the Influence of Raindrop–Size Distributions on Millimeter–Wave Propagation,” Technical Report TR-84-169, December 1984

In the presence of rain, millimeter–wave propagation is acutely sensitive to the distribution of raindrop sizes along a given propagation link. This report analyzes the variability of rain attenuation prediction at microwave/millimeter wave frequenci...

Dorothy M. Cerni, “Standards in Process: Foundations and Profiles of ISDN and OSI Studies,” Technical Report TR-84-170, December 1984

Telecommunication and computer technologies are merging, stimulating such global communication projects as the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model. The systems of standards needed to e...

John M. Harman and Raymond D. Jennings, “Earth Station Antenna Sidelobe Characteristics,” Technical Report TR-84-164, December 1984

Measured analog data showing gain as a function of angle away from the mainbeam (maximum gain) axis have been obtained for 22 types of reflector antennas designed for operation at 4 GHz for reception and 6 GHz for transmission. The antennas ranged in...

B. Bulawka, Norbert Schroeder, and Karl B. Nebbia, “Spectrum resource assessment of unlicensed electronic devices,” Technical Report TR-84-166, December 1984

Andrew Farrar, Fredrick Wentland, and Herb Dobson, “Evaluation techniques for fixed-service systems to power line carriers,” Technical Report TR-84-167, December 1984

William B. Grant and Charles J. Chilton, “Spectrum Resource Assessment of Fixed and Mobile Services in the 947-17700 MHz Band, Phase 1,” Technical Report TR-84-161, November 1984

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), in keeping with its responsibility for managing the Government's use of the radio frequency spectrum, researches particular bands when changes in national and/or international all...

Calculating the polarization angles of antennas and radio waves is necessary for analyzing the mutual interference when a linearly polarized emission is used in satellite communications. A method for calculating the polarization angle has been develo...

This report is a spectrum resource assessment of the Aeronautical Mobile Service between 400 MHz and 17.7 GHz, which addresses the long-range planning of this service. It presents an assessment of 15 Federal Government frequency bands that are alloca...

Jay S. Levy, “Spectrum Resource Assessment of the 1530–1660.5 MHz Band,” Technical Report TR-84-160, September 1984

This report documents a spectrum resource assessment of the 1530–1660.5 MHz band. The impact of allocation changes resulting from the WARC-79 are addressed. Information is included on allocations, frequency assignments, system characteristics, and sp...

Gordon A. Crandall III, “Spectrum Resource Assessment of the 7125–8500 MHz Band,” Technical Report TR-84-159, September 1984

This. report is a spectrum resource assessment of the 7125–8500 MHz band. Included is information on frequency allocations, technical standards, spectrum usage, and identification of spectrum-management issues pertaining to this band. The spectrum-ma...

Charles M. Rush et al., “Study of Factors Affecting an HF/VHF Direct Broadcasting Satellite Service,” Technical Report TR-84-158, September 1984

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences has undertaken an assessment of the link margin required for the satisfactory performance of a direct broadcasting satellite service operating in the high frequency (HF) and in the very high frequency (VHF...

John J. Sell, “Measurement Procedures for the Radar Spectrum Engineering Criteria,” Technical Report TR-84-157, August 1984

NTIA and member agencies of the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) have long recognized the need for a set of measurement procedures to augment the Radar Spectrum Engineering Criteria (RSEC). In light of this, a Working Party was formed ...

Karl B. Nebbia and Norbert Schroeder, “Spectrum Resource Assessment of the Frequency Bands from 17.7 to 40.5 GHz,” Technical Report TR-84-155, August 1984

This report constitutes a Spectrum Resource Assessment (SRA) of the band 17.7-40.5 GHz. Included is information on rules and regulations, allocations, technical standards, current and proposed usage, and planning and coordination procedures. Major is...

William Shelton et al., “Assessment of Narrow-Band Modulation Technologies for Government Land-Mobile Operations,” Technical Report TR-84-156, August 1984

This report examines the use of Amplitude Compandored Single Sideband (ACSB) and/or 12.5 kHz FM (NBFM) as possible solutions to the spectrum congestion in the Government Land Mobile Service in the VHF bands. These narrowband modulation techniques are...

Martin J. Miles, “Sample Size and Precision in Communication Performance Measurements,” Technical Report TR-84-153, August 1984

This report describes an interactive computer program that facilitates efficient measurement of communication system performance parameters. The program performs three primary functions: (1) determines the minimum sample size required to achieve a de...

Joseph A. Hull and A. Glenn Hanson, “Optical Fiber Communications Link Design in Compliance with Systems Performance Standards,” Technical Report TR-84-154, August 1984

An engineering approach to the design of optical fiber communication links to meet mandated specifications for performance and interoperability is described. The report follows and expands upon technical guidance originally developed for MIL-STD-188-...

Measurements of radio propagation path loss were made over four paths in the 3 to 30 MHz band. The paths were of lengths up to 45 km in the Boulder, CO, area. They ranged from smooth to mountainous terrain, from open areas with few or no man-made str...

The power flux-density (pfd) limits for satellites operating in the 2025–2300 MHz frequency range were calculated. Two computer models, one developed by the Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL) and the other by the Systematics General Corporation (SGC),...

Evan J. Dutton and Charles Samora, “Modeling Rain Polarization Effects to Millimeter Wave Frequencies,” Technical Report TR-84-150, June 1984

The attenuation of a received signal on a millimeter wave (above 30 GHz) link probably will be considerably more sensitive to transmitted polarization of the signal than is the case on a microwave (below 30 GHz) link. The introduction of this report ...

Carl F. Stubenrauch and Michael H. Francis, “Comparison of Measured and Calculated Mutual Coupling in the Near Field Between Microwave Antennas,” Technical Report NBSR 84-3010, June 1984

Measurements of near-field mutual coupling were performed between two moderate sized microwave antennas and compared to coupling calculated using recently developed computer programs. Input data for the programs are the complex far-field radiation p...

Evan J. Dutton, “Microwave Terrestrial Link Rain Attenuation Prediction Parameter Analysis,” Technical Report TR-84-148, April 1984

Because rain attenuation continues to be a problem for the operation of microwave links worldwide, this report examines the behavior and the prediction of rain rate and rain attenuation·distributions on a worldwide basis. Particular emphasis is pl...

Richard H. Espeland, Edmond J. Violette, and Kenneth C. Allen, “Atmospheric Channel Performance Measurements at 10 to 100 GHz,” Technical Report TR-84-149, April 1984

A diagnostic probe designed to investigate propagation at millimeter wavelengths was operated on 11.8 and 27.2-km line-of-sight paths near Boulder, CO. A 30.3-GHz carrier is biphase-shift-keying modulated at a 500 Mb/s with bit error rates less than ...

Joseph E. Farrow and Richard E. Skerjanec, “A Computer-based Transmission Monitor and Control System,” Technical Report TR-84-147, April 1984

This paper describes a minicomputer-based communication system monitor used by the U.S. Department of Defense to improve the performance and reduce the operating costs of the new multi-channel digital transmission systems. A brief history of the deve...

Gregory R. Hand and Jean E. Adams, “NETWORK: A User-Oriented, Interactive, Station-Siting Program for NOAA VHF Weather Radio,” Technical Report TR-84-146, April 1984

NETWORK is an interactive computer program designed to help the National Weather Service expand the NOAA Weather Radio Network to obtain the desired coverage at minimum spectrum usage. For each active station, areas of predicted service and co-channe...

Francis P. Flynn and William M. Moran, “Spectrum Resource Assessment in the 162-174 MHz Frequency Band,” Technical Report TR-84-143, February 1984

This report is a spectrum resource assessment of the 162–174 MHz band. Included is information on allocation, frequency assignments and agency equipment usage, along with the results of agency interviews. Present spectrum management techniques and as...

Roger K. Salaman and E. C. Hettinger, “Policy implications of information technology,” Technical Report TR-84-144, February 1984

Today, three–quarters of the U.S. employment and one–half of the Gross National Product (GNP) are associated with services. In 1981, services employment predominated, for the first time, over both agriculture and manufacturing, even in the Third Worl...

Harold T. Dougherty and Evan J. Dutton, “The evaluation of prediction models for microwave attenuation by rainfall,” Technical Report TR-84-145, January 1984

The evaluation of prediction models for microwave attenuation by rainfall Jan. 1984

Charles M. Rush et al., “Global Maps of foF2 Derived from Observations and Theoretical Values,” Technical Report TR-84-140, January 1984

Observations of the F2-region critical frequency, foF2, and values determined from,the time-dependent continuity equation for ions and electrons in the ionosphere have been used to develop a new set of numerical coefficients to represent the global v...

This report is an update of a previous report of the same title published by the former Office of Telecommunications Policy. It provides guidance to Federal system planners in securing spectrum support for proposed new or modified telecommunications ...

Since the normally assumed with Gaussian interference is the most destructive in terms of minimizing channel capacity, substantial improvement can usually be obtained if the real-word interference environment (non-Gaussian) is properly taken into acc...

Daniel H. Cronin and Leslie A. Berry, “The Effect of Bandwidth and Interference Rejection on the Spectrum Efficiency of Land Mobile Radio Systems,” Technical Report TR-83-139, December 1983

Analytical and empirical results concerning the relative spectrum efficiency of twogenerjc (wideband and narrowband) land mobile radio systems are presented. Graph theoretic frequency assignment techniques are used to relate spectrum usage to transmi...

Hans J. Liebe, “An Atmospheric Millimeter Wave Propagation Model,” Technical Report TR-83-137, December 1983

The neutral atmosphere is characterized for the frequency range from 1 to 300 GHz as a nonturbulent propagation medium. Attenuation and propagation delay effects are predicted from meteorological data sets: pressure, temperature, humidity, suspended ...

John L. Lloyd, “Computation of Linear Communication Antennas,” Technical Report TR-83-136, November 1983

This report contains a consolidation of practical engineering equations for linear communication antennas suitable for use in the prediction and analysis of the system performance of high frequency communication equipment. The theoretical background ...

Neal B. Seitz and D. S. Grubb, “American National Standard X3.102 User Reference Manual,” Technical Report TR-83-125, November 1983

American National Standard X3.102 defines a set of 21 standard parameters that provide a uniform means of specifying the performance of data communication systems and services as seen by users. This report is basically an explanation and elaboration ...

Cesar A. Filippi, “FM Spectral Modeling and FDM/FM Simulation Programs,” Technical Report TR-83-134, October 1983

This report is concerned with the spectral representation of analog frequency modulated (FM) signals, with particular attention to frequency division multiplexing (FDM)/FM satellite communication systems. The FM spectral modeling and gaussian approxi...

An assessment of the line-of-sight (LOS) power flux-density (pfd) limits for satellites operating in the 2025–2300 MHz frequency range was conducted. Two computer models, one developed by the Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL) and the other by the Sys...

The problem of counting the occurrences of bit errors, block errors, bit additions or deletions and block additions or deletions is considered. A general method is developed for counting such occurrences for cases when the occurrences are not excessi...

Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, “A Primer on Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDN): Implications for Future Global Communications,” Technical Report TR-83-138, September 1983

The report is a primer on Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDN's). The ISDN concept is believed by many to be the communication means for the future information age. A number of national ISDN's interconnected together can provide a high-perform...

Edmond J. Violette, Richard H. Espeland, and Kenneth C. Allen, “A Diagnostic Probe to Investigate Propagation at Millimeter Wavelengths,” Technical Report TR-83-128, August 1983

A diagnostic probe used to fully describe the propagation characteristics of a millimeter wave channel by nearly simultaneous recording of an impulse response, frequency spectra, amplitude response, and bit error rate is discussed. A 30.3 GHz carrier...

Evan J. Dutton, C. E. Lewis, and Francis K. Steele, “Climatological Coefficients for Rain Attenuation at Millimeter Wavelengths,” Technical Report TR-83-129, August 1983

It is demonstrated that most of the classical raindrop-size distribution formulations give inconsistent results when used to calculate specific attenuations at millimeter-wave frequencies. For this reason, it was decided it might be desirable to subc...

George A. Hufford, William A. Kissick, Anita G. Longley, and Harold T. Dougherty, “The Use of Burst Transmission to Increase Communication Range – A Feasibility Study,” Technical Report TR-83-130, August 1983

Although the use of transmissions that are composed of bursts of information is not new, its application in a terrestrial environment at VHF and UHF is. The usual way of expressing the variabilities in received signal level due to propagation effects...

Frank G. Stewart, Leslie A. Berry, Charles M. Rush, and Vaughn L. Agy, “An Air-to-Ground HF Propagation Prediction Model for Fast Multicircuit Computation,” Technical Report TR-83-131, August 1983

A radio propagation prediction computer code has been developed to permit rapid simulation of HF air-to-ground telecommunication circuits. This prediction program provides estimates of both skywave and groundwave HF propagation parameters. The skywav...

Kenneth C. Allen, “Attenuation of Millimeter Waves on Earth–Space Paths by Rain Clouds,” Technical Report TR-83-132, August 1983

A simple model of the attenuation of millimeter waves by precipitating liquid water clouds is presented. As frequency increases from the microwave band into the millimeter wave band, the model indicates a significant increase in the relative importan...

This report describes the operation and use of the Ionospheric Communications Analysis and Prediction Program (IONCAP). The computer program is an integrated system of subroutines designed to predict high-frequency (HF) skywave system performance and...

This report describes an experiment designed to measure the performance of digital microwave radio systems in a line-of-sight (LOS) link that is subject to strong atmospheric multipath. It outlines the measurements made to characterize the propagatio...

This report discusses the different types of interoperability requirements, summarizes several related research and development projects, and presents alternatives for aachieving interoperability between the Defense Communications System and the TRI-...

Lewis E. Vogler, “Further Investigations of the Multiple Knife-Edge Attenuation Function,” Technical Report TR-83-124, May 1983

The multiple knife-edge (MKE) attenuation function is derived from Fresnel-Kirchhoff theory and compared with the original derivation from Furutsu’s generalized residue series. It is shown that the two methods give complex attenuations with the same ...

Kenneth C. Allen, Hans J. Liebe, and Charles M. Rush, “Estimates of Millimeter Wave Attenuation for 18 United States Cities,” Technical Report TR-83-119, May 1983

Attenuation by the atmosphere can severely limit the use of the radio spectrum above 10 GHz for telecommunication purposes. In this report brief discussions of three mechanisms that attenuate millimeter waves in the atmosphere are presented: rain att...

In this second part of an ongoing study, the general problem of optimum and suboptimum detection of threshold (i.e. weak) signals in highly nongaussian interference environments is further, developed from earlier work ([la],[lb];[34]). Both signal pr...

Joseph A. Hull, A. Glenn Hanson, and L. R. Bloom, “Alternative Transmission Media for Third-Generation Interface Standards,” Technical Report TR-83-121, May 1983

A review of EIA and CCITT data interface standards identifies three generations namely: first (1960's), second (1970's), and third (1980's and beyond). The User/Network physical interference for the pending Integrated Services Digital Network is an e...

Robert L. Hinkle, “Background Study on Efficient Use of the 2700–2900 MHz Band,” Technical Report TR-83-117, April 1983

In early 1980, NTIA, through the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) Spectrum Planning Subcommittee (SPS), became cognizant of several new major radar systems being developed by Government agencies in the 2700–2900 MHz band. In light of t...

M. Barmat, “Price of international satellite service: COMSAT vs INTELSAT,” Technical Report TR-83-122, April 1983

Price of international satellite service: COMSAT vs INTELSAT, April 1983

Martin Nesenbergs and Peter M. McManamon, “An Introduction to the Technology of Intra– and Interexchange Area Telephone Networks,” Technical Report TR-83-118, March 1983

This report presents an overview of the 1982 telephone network technology. Many physical facilities constitute the public switched telephone network. Their respective roles in support of voice services and related traffic are reviewed. Essential inte...

Eldon J. Haakinson, “Meteor Burst Communications Model,” Technical Report TR-83-116, February 1983

The meteor burst communications model is a user-interactive computer model that predicts the reliability of a communications system that uses meteor bursts as the communications channel. The model predicts the waiting times required to complete the t...

William B. Grant, John C. Carroll, and Charles J. Chilton, “Spectrum Resource Assessment in the 5650–5925 MHz Band,” Technical Report TR-83-115, January 1983

This report is a spectrum resource assessment of the 5650–5925 MHz band. Included within is information on rules and regulations, allocations, technical standards, frequency assignments, system characteristics, and applicable compatibility analysis.

D. A. Hill, “HF Ground Wave Propagation Over Forested and Built-up Terrain,” Technical Report TR-82-114, December 1982

An integral equation method is presented for computing the vertically polarized field strength over irregular terrain which is covered with forest, buildings, or snow. The terrain cover is modeled as an equivalent slab, and a general computer code, W...

The burning of an Atlas-Centaur rocket in the ionospheric F–region was used to determine the extent of HF propagation anomalies associated with the resultant drop in ionospheric electron content. This "ionospheric hole" grew to encompass the control ...

General Docket 81-414, Notice of Inquiry and Proposed Rulemaking, proposes allowing the Amateur Radio Service to use spread spectrum techniques in three bands. This report reviews the Docket's proposals and the public's reaction, reviews direct seque...

David R. Wortendyke et al., “User-Oriented Performance Measurements of the ARPANET: The Testing of a Proposed Federal Standard,” Technical Report TR-82-112, November 1982

This report presents the results of a trial implementation of a newly developed data communication performance measurement methodology which has been proposed as Federal Standard 1043. In this experiment, a prototype data communication performance me...

H. M. Gates, E. J. Alberts, A. P. Zollinger, and H. D. Mead, “Modeling the Telephone Traffic for a National Forest,” Technical Report TR-82-113, November 1982

The Forest Service is in the process of updating its telecommunication and information systems. Included in this update are proposed changes to the telephone systems of selected National Forests with an eye toward telephone cost reductions over curre...

Comparisons of theoretical attenuation based on multiple knifeedge diffraction with measured values of median propagation loss are presented for a number of different propagation paths. In general the knife-edge predictions tend to overestimate recei...

K. J. Gamauf, “Revised Program FOOTPRINTS User’s Manual,” Technical Report TR-82-109, November 1982

This report describes use of the revised computer program FOOTPRINTS. The program automatically computes and plots earth footprints and service area polygons on a map projection of the earth's surface. The program can be used as a design tool to maxi...

PRODSIR is a procedure for computing the probability distribution of the signal-to-interference ratio in a congested radio environment. Most of the independent variables in the usual signal-to-interference equation are assumed to be random variables,...

Evan J. Dutton and Francis K. Steele, “Bibliography and Synopsis of Literature Concerned with Microwave and Millimeter Wave Propagation Effects,” Technical Report TR-82-107, September 1982

This report presents an extensive bibliography, categorized by effect, of radio propagation through the atmosphere, for the frequency region of 10 to 300 GHz. Preceding the bibliographic presentation is an article-by-article synopsis of that literatu...

H. M. Gates and D. A. Hill, “Technical Sharing Issues Between Broadcast-Satellite and Fixed Services,” Technical Report TR-82-105, August 1982

The Regional Administrative Radio Conference will be convened in 1983 for planning broadcasting-satellite service in the International Telecommunication Union Region 2 to resolve the issue of allocating orbital positions and radio frequencies in the ...

William J. Hartman, “An Experimental Study of Monte Carlo Factoring Techniques,” Technical Report TR-82-104, July 1982

Pollard (1975) describes a "Monte Carlo" factoring algorithm based on iterating some specific quadratic polynomials. In this paper different polynomials are tested in the algorithm to see if a more efficient factoring can be obtained. The results are...

Arthur D. Spaulding, “Fading Signals in the MF Band,” Technical Report TR-82-102, June 1982

In the MF band, interfering signals from one or more broadcast stations can be received. During nighttime periods, this interference is caused by fading signals, propagated from distances of more than about 200 miles. It is the purpose of this report...

Donald V. Glen, “Integrated Services Digital Networks, Standards, and Related Technology,” Technical Report TR-82-103, June 1982

National and international work toward an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and the progress toward its implementation is described. Standards activity and technology relating to the ISDN, in the United States and abroad, are presented.

R. Alderich, “Privacy Protection Law in the U.S.,” Technical Report TR-82-98, May 1982

Privacy protection law in the U.S., May 1982

George A. Hufford, Anita G. Longley, and William A. Kissick, “A Guide to the Use of the ITS Irregular Terrain Model in the Area Prediction Mode,” Technical Report TR-82-100, April 1982

The ITS model of radio propagation for frequencies between 20 MHz and 20 GHz (the Longley- Rice model) is a general purpose model that can be applied to a large variety of engineering problems. The model, which is based on electromagnetic theory and ...

Dorothy M. Cerni, “The CCITT: Organization, U.S. Participation, and Studies Toward the ISDN,” Technical Report TR-82-101, April 1982

The possibility of an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) encircling the globe by the year 2000 is of increasing interest to the worldwide telecommunication community—developers, carriers, manufacturers, and users. Accelerating telecommunicati...

Arthur D. Spaulding, “Digital System Performance Software Utilizing Noise Measurement Data,” Technical Report TR-82-95, February 1982

This report summarizes techniques that use the measured instantaneous envelope statistics of arbitrary noise or interference processes to calculate the degradation these processes cause to digital communication systems. Computer implementation of the...

Hans J. Liebe, “Molecular Absorption Test at 35 GHz,” Technical Report TR-82-96, February 1982

This report describes a laboratory experiment which was conducted to find out if the absolute attenuation of a 35 GHz signal by the molecular species H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide), HNO3 (nitric acid), NO2 (nitrogen dioxide), N2O (nitrous oxide) exceeds a ...

Burgette A. Hart, A. M. Nave, A. W. Raskob Jr., and J. C. Thomason, “Telephone Areas Serviced by Bell and Independent Companies in the United States,” Technical Report TR-82-97, February 1982

The geographic coverage of all telephone companies in the United States is presented in a series of maps depicting the operating areas served by Bell and each of the various independent telephone companies. Tables are also presented of state-by-state...

Raymond D. Jennings, “Parametric Approach to Thin-Route Earth-Station Requirements,” Technical Report TR-82-99, January 1982

Satellite communications are likely to be used to provide thin–route telephone service in developing countries only if the cost of earth stations can be substantially reduced. A parametric analysis of earth–station design and service capabilities is ...

James S. Washburn, Charles M. Rush, and Frank G. Stewart, “Development of Techniques to Assess Interference to the MF Broadcasting Services,” Technical Report TR-82-90, January 1982

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences has embarked upon a program to improve the techniques that are used to determine medium frequency broadcasting parameters. This work is motivated by the fact that increased transmitter power which is plann...

Robert J. Matheson, John D. Smilley, Glenn D. Falcon, and Vincent S. Lawrence, “Output Tube Emission Characteristics of Operational Radars,” Technical Report TR-82-92, January 1982

During the past several years, the Radio Spectrum Measurement System (RSMS) of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has measured the emission spectra and other characteristics of many radars operating in the governmen...

Charles M. Rush, Margo PoKempner, D. N. Anderson, and Frank G. Stewart, “The Use of Theoretical Models to Improve Global Maps of foF2,” Technical Report TR-82-93, January 1982

In this report, the results of a study to improve the global maps of monthly median values of the F2 region critical frequency, foF2, using values determined from a theoretical model, are presented. The object of the study was to obtain values of the...

Charles M. Rush et al., “A Simplified Model of the High Latitude Ionosphere for Telecommunications Applications,” Technical Report TR-82-94, January 1982

A model of the parameters that specify the structure of the electron density in the polar ionosphere has been developed. The model is based upon the modification of monthly median ionospheric parameters given by the CCIR by use of formulations that c...

Evan J. Dutton, Duane C. Hyovalti, C. E. Lewis, and Francis K. Steele, “Elevated Duct Data-Base Improvement,” Technical Report TR-81-89, December 1981

Elevated Duct Data-Base Improvement, Dec. 1981

Lewis E. Vogler, “The Attenuation of Electromagnetic Waves by Multiple Knife-Edge Diffraction,” Technical Report TR-81-86, October 1981

Starting from work by Furutsu, a multiple knife-edge attenuation function is derived. A series representation of the function is developed which is amenable to computer implementation. Comparisons of computer-generated numerical values with known res...

The purposes of this study (and subsequent efforts) are several: (1), to extend earlier models of the FM reception process, to include as much II "realism" – i.e., non-ideality of both the linear and nonlinear elements of the typical FM receiver – as...

Hiroshi Akima, “A Method for Determining the Minimum Elliptical Beam of a Satellite Antenna,” Technical Report TR-81-88, October 1981

The 1977 World Administrative Radio Conference for the Planning of the Broadcasting-Satellite Service decided that elliptical antenna beams should be used for satellite antennas for planning purposes. Since it is desirable to minimize the antenna bea...

R. T. Watson, “Spectrum resource assessment in the 2300–2450 MHz band,” Technical Report TR-81-78, September 1981

Spectrum resource assessment in the 2300–2450 MHz band, Sep. 1981

Francis P. Flynn, “Spectrum resource assessment in the 1660-1710 MHz band,” Technical Report TR-81-80, September 1981

Spectrum resource assessment in the 1660-1710 MHz band, Sep. 1981

John E. Hershey, “The Discrete Logarithm Public Cryptographic System,” Technical Report TR-81-81, September 1981

The report is a study and primer of the discrete logarithm public key cryptographic system. Implementation and strengths and weaknesses are discussed.

H. J. Ng, “Spectrum resource assessment in the 4400-4990 MHz band,” Technical Report TR-81-82, September 1981

Spectrum resource assessment in the 4400-4990 MHz band, Sep. 1981

Andrew Farrar, “Spectrum resource assessment in the 1215-1400 MHz band,” Technical Report TR-81-83, September 1981

Spectrum resource assessment in the 1215-1400 MHz band, Sep. 1981

Laurance G. Hause, “Selective Fading on a Long 8 GHz Line-of-Sight Path in Europe,” Technical Report TR-81-84, September 1981

This report presents the description, analysis and results of a set of measurements made on a 90 km line-of-sight path in Italy. The measurements were made during the late spring of 1980 by the National Telecommunications and Information Administrati...

Fredrick Matos, “Spectrum Resource Assessment in the 216-225 MHz Band,” Technical Report TR-81-85, September 1981

Spectrum Resource Assessment in the 216-225 MHz Band, Sep. 1981

William J. Hartman, “A Critique of Some Public-Key Cryptosystems,” Technical Report TR-81-79, August 1981

Several of the public-key cryptosystems that received considerable publicity are examined. The uses, implementation, and potential cryptoanalytic attacks are discussed. Since most of the suggested systems depend on the manipulation of large numbers, ...

Eldon J. Haakinson, “Proposed Techniques for Adding FM Broadcast Stations in a Major Market, Part 2,” Technical Report TR-81-77, July 1981

This is a companion document to another NTIA Report, "Proposed Techniques for Adding FM Broadcast Stations in a Major Market." Increasing the number of assignments is possible if: 1) co–siting of second– and third–adjacent–channel transmitters is ...

William B. Grant, E. L. Morrison, and John R. Juroshek, “Effects of the Satellite Power System on Low Earth Orbit and Geosynchronous Satellites,” Technical Report TR-81-75, June 1981

The large amount of power contained in the main beam and principal sidelobes of the proposed Solar Power System (SPS), now under study by DOE and NASA, potentially presents an EMC problem for other satellite systems. This report examines selected geo...

E. L. Morrison, William B. Grant, and Evan J. Dutton, “Electromagnetic Compatibility Analysis for a Satellite Power System Receivlnq Site in the Mojave Desert,” Technical Report NTIA TR-81-76, June 1981

The Department of Energy (DOE), along with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has been evaluating the Satellite Power System (SPS) as a source of baseline electrical power. The objective of the SPS program is to develop an init...

Joseph E. Farrow and Laurance G. Hause, “Recommendations for Digital Radio Common Tactical/Long–Haul Standards,” Technical Report TR-81-74, May 1981

This report is the sum of a three–part effort by the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) to provide technical recommendations for the DCS Long–Haul Tactical Common system, subsystem, and equipment technical standards for digital radio. The...

R. H. Fleming, “Final Report: The NTIA rural communities field studies,” Technical Report TR-81-71, April 1981

Final Report The NTIA rural communities field studies, April 1981

Trade Issues in Telecommunications and Information: Volume I. United States Trade in the Merchandise of Information Industries

Trade Issues in Telecommunications and Information: Volume II. The Employment Effects of Trade in High-Technology Telecommunications and Information Products

Trade Issues in Telecommunications and Information: Volume III. Promoting U.S. Trade in Telecommunications and Information Products with Developing Countries

Trade Issues in Telecommunications and Information: Volume IV. The Role of the United States Government in the Financing of Exports of Major Telecommunications and Information Products

Guidelines for interconnection to the United States Postal Service (USPS) Electronic Computer Originated Mail (E-COM) System via telecommunications carriers are developed. Adescription of the E-COM System is given and the need for telecommunications ...

Charles J. Chilton, “Wave Interaction Observations of Ionospheric Modification in the D-Region,” Technical Report TR-81-66, March 1981

Radio wave interaction measurements using the high power transmitter at Platteville have resulted in cross modulation of up to 30% as compared to the earlier cross modulation measurements of 7% or less at low power. A theory is derived which shows th...

J. G. Williams, “Domestic Interconnection Arrangements for Datel Services,” Technical Report TR-81-67, March 1981

The International Record Carriers have, for a number of years, provided a switched, overseas, voiceband data service called Datel. This report examines changes required in the Bell/Independent domestic MTS network to provide a more advanced form of i...

Throughout an area between Chicago and Peoria, Illinois, approximately 50 measurement locations were selected. At each location measurements were made, typically, for two VHF television broadcasts from Chicago and three UHF television broadcasts from...

Harold T. Dougherty and Evan J. Dutton, “The Role of Elevated Ducting for Radio Service and Interference Fields,” Technical Report TR-81-69, March 1981

This report categorizes the manner in which atmospheric stratification can complicate the problems of frequency allocation and radio regulation by inhibiting service fields and enhancing interference fields. For the United States and its border regio...

Kenneth P. Spies and S. Jean Paulson, “TOPOG: A Computerized Worldwide Terrain Elevation Data Base Generation and Retrieval System,” Technical Report TR-81-61, February 1981

TOPOG is a computerized worldwide terrain elevation data base generation and retrieval system. It consists of software to generate TOPOG tapes from Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) standard terrain elevation data tapes, to create auxiliary random–access ...

Donald V. Glen and Ray E. Thompson, “Need for Telecommunication Standards for Interconnection with the U.S. Postal Service EMSS,” Technical Report TR-81-62, February 1981

This report describes the effort which will be undertaken to determine telecommunication standards necessary for interconnection to the United States Postal Service (USPS) planned long-range Electronic Mail Service System (EMSS). This work is in comp...

John R. Juroshek and Frank G. Stewart, “Analysis of a Phase-Locked Loop to Suppress Interference from a Solar Power Satellite,” Technical Report TR-81-63, February 1981

Interference to radio receivers, such as those used in radio astronomy, can present problems. Adding conventional filters to a radio astronomy receiver's input generally results in an appreciable increase in noise temperature if the filters have any ...

The solar power satellite (SPS) is a concept for generating electrical power from solar energy via a geosynchronous orbiting satellite. A facility, such as this, would be able to send approximately 5 to 10 gigawatts of power to earth on a highly focu...

John R. Juroshek and Francis K. Steele, “Analysis of Interference from the Solar Power Satellite to General Electronics Systems,” Technical Report TR-81-65, February 1981

The concept of collecting solar energy in an orbiting, geostationary, solar power satellite (SPS) and then beaming this power to earth via a focused microwave beam at 2.45 GHz has received considerable attention in recent years. This report examines ...

Charles J. Chilton et al., “Transportable Automated Electromagnetic Compatibility Measurement System (TAEMS),” Technical Report TR-81-58, January 1981

An automated, computer–controlled receiver system developed by ITS for the U.S. Army Communications Command provides a unique solution to such problems as spectrum management, EM hazards measurements, and site surveying. This receiving system is desi...

Robert L. Gallawa, “Estimated Cost of a Submarine Fiber Cable System,” Technical Report TR-81-59, January 1981

Thia report ia based on published cost figures of the TAT-6 submarine coaxial cable system which went into service on July 27, 1976. Assuming readiness of long wavelength (1300 nm) devices by the late 1980s, we project the expected cost of a fiber ca...

Charles J. Chilton, Harris B. Janes, Robert A. McLean, and Darren L. Smith, “Some Mobile VHF Measurements in an Urban Environment,” Technical Report TR-81-60, January 1981

This report presents the results of mobile measurements of VHF signals in the Denver, Colorado, urban environment. The signals monitored were those received from the TV transmissions of KBTV (Channel 9), KMGH (Channel 7), KOA (Channel 4), and KWGN (C...

Martin Nesenbergs, William J. Hartman, and Robert F. Linfield, “Performance Parameters for Digital and Analog Service Modes,” Technical Report TR-81-57, January 1981

As with many technologies, the evolution of telecommunication systems is shaped by two driving forces – performance and cost. There is a real need to bridge the gap between 'performance' as perceived by the user in accomplishing a mission and 'perfor...

Neal B. Seitz, “Interim Federal Standard 1033 Reference Manual,” Technical Report TR-80-55, December 1980

There is a growing need within the Federal government for a user-oriented, system-independent, functional means of specifying data communication performance. A recently published Federal Standard, Interim Federal Standard 1033, defines a set of stand...

John R. Juroshek, Douglass D. Crombie, and G. E. Wasson, “Measurements of Interference Between AM Radios Due to Local Oscillator Radiation,” Technical Report TR-80-56, December 1980

Interference caused by local oscillator radiation from AM radios is a known problem. It is particularly troublesome when the local oscillator frequency of one radio coincides with the tuned frequency of another, nearby AM radio. This condition produc...

Robert M. Pratt and Jay S. Levy, “Evaluation of Discrete Address Beacon Systems (DABS) EMC,” Technical Report TR-80-53, November 1980

The FAA is currently developing the Discrete Address Beacon System (DABS) as an evolutionary upgrading of the Air Traffic Control Radar Beacon System (ATCRBS). Questions have been raised regarding the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) of ATCRBS and...

Robert J. Matheson, “Measurements of Electromagnetic Noise Radiated from Automotive Ignition Systems,” Technical Report TR-80-54, November 1980

Measurements of the amplitude probability distributions and the average crossing rates of the electromagnetic noise radiated by automotive ignition systems were made at 30 MHz, 47 MHz, 147 MHz, 224 MHz, and 445 MHz. The ignition noise from a single c...

L. R. Bloom, A. Glenn Hanson, Robert F. Linfield, and David R. Wortendyke, “VIDEOTEX Systems and Services,” Technical Report TR-80-50, October 1980

A new, consumer–oriented family of innovative information distribution services, generically termed VIDEOTEX, is being offered to the European and Japanese public. Several field trials are underway in the U.S. Normally using a modified home TV receiv...

Kenneth P. Spies and Eldon J. Haakinson, “Calculation of Geostationary Satellite Footprints for Certain Idealized Antennas,” Technical Report TR-80-51, October 1980

This report describes methods for calculating, under certain simplifying assumptions, footprints (contours of constant power density) for idealized models of several common types of transmitting antennas (circular aperture, elliptical aperture, recta...

William A. Kissick, “The Coverages of the MF and VHF Maritime Distress Communication Systems,” Technical Report TR-80-52, October 1980

The radio coverage for two maritime distress communication systems are calculated for those U.S. Coast Guard stations in the contiguous United States. The two systems are: the international MF distress channel and the international VHF distress chann...

Hans J. Liebe, “Field Maxima Inside Habitable Structures Exposed to 2.45 GHz Plane Wave Radiation,” Technical Report NTIA TR-80-49, October 1980

This report discusses microwave engineering data relevant to assess the potential of the Satellite Power System (SPS) to cause microwave field enhancements (so called "hot spots") inside habitable structures (house, trailer, car, etc.) located in the...

B. Bulawka, “Spectrum resource assessment in the 902-928 MHz band,” Technical Report TR-80-46, September 1980

Gerald F. Hurt and Gordon A. Crandall III, “Spectrum Resource Assessment in the 1710–1850 MHz Band,” Technical Report TR-80-47, September 1980

This report describes the spectrum resource assessment of the 1710–1850 MHz band. The Phase I Report [Hurt and Crandall, 1980] provided information on frequency allocations, technical standards, spectrum usage, and identification of key spectrum mana...

Francis P. Flynn, “Spectrum resource assessment in the 2200-2300 MHz band,” Technical Report TR-80-48, September 1980

Spectrum resource assessment in the 2200-2300 MHz band, Sep. 1980

The radio wave propagation path between an earth station and a synchronous satellite 1s described by engineering-type formulas which consolidate all of the known external elements significant for system performance. This UHF/SHF consolidated model, a...

Eldon J. Haakinson, “Proposed Techniques for Adding FM Broadcast Stations in a Major Market,” Technical Report TR-80-44, August 1980

A study was conducted to investigate the technical capacity of the FM broadcast spectrum and to determine if the FM spectrum's utilization could be increased. More assignments are possible if some or all of the following recommendations are adopted: ...

The chronological development of the available methods for predicting medium frequency sky–wave strengths is presented with a brief discussion of each method. Measured field strengths for 36 medium frequency sky–wave paths are compared with the predi...

William J. Hartman, “Measurement of the Effect of Vehicle Ignition Noise on Land-Mobile Voice Channels,” Technical Report TR-80-43, June 1980

Measurements of the voice intelligibility over landmobile systems in the presence of vehicle noise are presented. These are compared with several statistical noise parameters obtained from measured amplitude probability distributions.

Randolph H. Ott et al., “Fading Statistics on a 23 km Link at 9.6 and 28.8 GHz,” Technical Report TR-80-40, June 1980

An experimental study of atmospheric multipath on a 23 km link at 9.6 and 28.8 GHz near Boulder, Colorado, is described. The preliminary observations were made for three days in July 1979 when a strong inversion layer was present, creating an elevate...

Middleton's analytical formula for the probability of communications in a land mobile environment and Berry's computer program for probabilistic calculations of interference are shown to produce identical answers for identical inputs. The assumptions...

Arthur C. Stewart and John B. Heffelfinger, “Effect of Small Frequency Changes on the Radiation Patterns of MF (AM) Directional Antennas,” Technical Report TR-80-39, May 1980

The pressure to provide additional full-time facilities in the AM (standard broadcasting) band in the United States resulted in a rulemaking petition filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by the National Telecommunications and Inform...

This report summarizes the results of experiments undertaken to assess the potential impact of the operation of the Satellite Power System on the D and E regions of the ionosphere, and on telecommunication systems that are dependent upon the structur...

Robert F. Linfield, Martin Nesenbergs, and Peter M. McManamon, “Command Post/Signal Center Bus Distribution System Concept Design,” Technical Report TR-80-36, April 1980

The communications network structures currently used to interconnect terminal clusters and switching nodes within an Army tactical command post and area signal center are reviewed. With this background, five alternative structures are defined in term...

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in the Department of Commerce undertook a detailed program to investigate the feasibility of deploying the Limited Surveillance Radars (LSR) in the 2.7-2.9 GHz band in the Los Ange...

Charles M. Rush, Rayner K. Rosich, and Carlene M. Mellecker, “HF Radio Noise in the Topside Ionosphere,” Technical Report TR-80-33, February 1980

Radio noise of ground-based origin can be observed by a satelliteborne receiver orbiting above the 2 region. The noise that is observed is a function of receiver frequency, satellite position, and local time at the sub-satellite point. A recently lau...

Martin Nesenbergs and Robert F. Linfield, “Three Phases of Teletraffic Congestion in Military Access Areas,” Technical Report TR-80-34, February 1980

In military base access areas, akin to many commercial installations, the telecommunications traffic passes through several concentration and switching stages. Loads to server facilities are formed through mergers and branch outs of offered traffic s...

Eldon J. Haakinson, Edmond J. Violette, and George A. Hufford, “Propagation Effects on an Intervisibility Measurement System Operating in the SHF Band,” Technical Report TR-80-35, February 1980

A study was conducted to determine the limiting propagation effects on the performance of a microwave system that could be used to detect the optical visibility between two vehicles, separated by up to 10 km, in irregular, obstructed terrain. The stu...

The United States Administration has proposed for the 1979 WARC (World Administrative Radio Conference) to move the BSS (broadcasting–satellite service) in ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Region 2 from the band 11.7–12.2 GHz to the band 1...

Joseph E. Farrow and Richard E. Skerjanec, “Performance of a Very Long 8 GHz Microwave Link,” Technical Report TR-79-31, November 1979

This paper discusses measurement of signals received over a 160-km (100-mile) line-of-sight microwave radio link operating at 8.4 GHz. Signals were recorded at both ends of the path at various times over a period of about 18 months. The effects of ma...

John R. Juroshek, “Measurements of an FM receiver in FM interference,” Technical Report TR-79-27, October 1979

This report investigates the performance of an FM, landmobile, receiver in FM interference. Measurements are described showing the effects of multiple interfering FM signals as a function of modulation index, signal-to-interference ratio, signal-to-n...

Richard G. FitzGerrell, “Indoor Television Antenna Performance,” Technical Report TR-79-28, October 1979

The ability of a television receiving antenna to deliver adequate signal power to the terminals of its receiver is determined by its gain relative to a lossless half-wave dipole antenna. This report presents measured gain data for indoor television r...

Clark C. Watterson, “Methods of Improving the Performances of HF Digital Radio Systems,” Technical Report TR-79-29, October 1979

The bit–error–probability performances of HF digital radio systems with respect to channel and equipment additive, multiplicative, and nonlinear distortions are evaluated with respect to the nine system design features that affect the performances. T...

David R. Wortendyke, Albrecht P. Barsis, and R. R. Larsen, “Signal Level Distributions and Fade Event Analyses for a 5 GHz Microwave Link Across the English Channel,” Technical Report TR-79-30, October 1979

This report describes instrumentation for fading studies and measurement results over an 88-km multiple-diversity line-of-sight microwave link across the English Channel operating in the 4 to 5 GHz frequency range. Signal level and fade, duration sta...

Robert F. Linfield and Martin Nesenbergs, “Switch Element Capacities in Access Area Digital Switching Systems,” Technical Report TR-79-26, September 1979

The capacity of a digital circuit switching system is defined in terms of its four major elements: the traffic offered by the interface element, the maximum traffic carried by the switch matrix, the maximum number of call attempts handled by the cont...

John R. Juroshek, “A Compatibility Analysis of Spread-spectrum and FM Land Mobile Radio Systems,” Technical Report TR-79-23, August 1979

The possibility of overlaying a spread-spectrum system into frequency bands containing conventional FM land-mobile systems is examined. Overlaying here is interpreted as meaning the unrestricted operation of spread-spectrum and FM mobiles throughout ...

This report describes an experiment conducted over a LOS microwave link off the coast of southern California. The objective was to determine the effect of known anomalous propagating conditions, caused by persistent temperature inversions in the atmo...

Robert L. Hinkle, Robert M. Pratt, and Jay S. Levy, “Spectrum resource assessment in the 2.7-2.9 GHz band Phase II: Radar signal processing (Report No. 2),” Technical Report TR-79-25, August 1979

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in the Department of Commerce undertook a detailed program to investigate the signal processing properties of the primary radars in the 2.7 to 2.9 GHz band, and the Automated Radar...

Statistical methods are provided for estimating time and rate parameters of digital communication systems according to the specifications of the Proposed Federal Standard 1033. The methods may be applied to delay, disengagement, transfer and service ...

Richard G. FitzGerrell, Raymond D. Jennings, and John R. Juroshek, “Television Receiving Antenna System Component Measurements,” Technical Report TR-79-22, June 1979

Relative gain of fifteen television receiving antennas was measured as a function of frequency and azimuth angle. Input voltage standing-wave ratio was measured as a function of frequency to determine the scalar impedance properties of the antennas. ...

Randolph H. Ott, Lewis E. Vogler, and George A. Hufford, “Ground Wave Propagation Over Irregular, Inhomogeneous Terrain: Comparisons of Calculations and Measurements,” Technical Report TR-79-20, May 1979

An algorithm (PROGRAM WAGNER) that evaluates HF ground–wave attenuation over irregular, inhomogeneous terrain is used to compare calculated field strengths with observed measurements for 9 actual paths and frequencies ranging from 120 kHz to 50 MHz. ...

This report summarizes activities associated with the Federal Government's program to assess the biological effects of nonionizing electromagnetic radiation being coordinated by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). I...

Laurance G. Hause and David R. Wortendyke, “Automated Digital System Engineering Model,” Technical Report TR-79-18, March 1979

This report describes a desk-top computer system and mathematical models which were used in seven of its programs. These programs make key calculations in the design of line-of-sight microwave systems. The models have the following ranges; bit rates ...

David R. Wortendyke and T. H. Hildebrandt, “Received Signal Level (RSL) Measurements and Analysis with a Desk–Top Computer,” Technical Report TR-79-17, February 1979

A software package of programs has been developed which automatically measures and analyzes the received signal level of four microwave communication receivers. The package will run on the Test and Acceptance Calculator Instrumentation which the USAF...

Hans J. Liebe and Douglass D. Crombie, “Estimates of Maximum Electric Field Strengths in the Automobile Environment,” Technical Report TR-79-16, February 1979

Strong electromagnetic (EM) energy sources up into the microwave range are examined and estimates are made of maximum EM field conditions to which automobiles could be exposed. The results are meant to alert automotive engineers to potentially hazard...

Robert F. Linfield, “Control Signaling in a Military Switching Environment,” Technical Report TR-79-13, January 1979

A number of factors, including network topology, traffic characteristics, switching technology, and transmission media, affect the choice of control signaling techniques to be used in networks of the future. In this report these factors are considere...

Richard E. Skerjanec and Robert W. Hubbard, “Aircraft Obstruction of Microwave Links,” Technical Report TR-79-14, January 1979

Conversion to digital transmission has renewed the concerns about what effects aircraft obstruction of microwave links have on user quality. This is of particular concern where it is necessary to install a telecommunication system that crosses runway...

Jack T. Collins and Francis K. Steele, “An Additional Catalog of Programs and Data for 100 MHz - 100 GHz Radio System Predictions,” Technical Report TR-79-15, January 1979

The sole purpose of this publication is to provide the public with a list of existing computer aids for the evaluation of radio systems which operate in any part of the radio spectrum. Consequently, neither the Department of Commerce (DoC), nor t...

Leslie A. Berry and Eldon J. Haakinson, “Spectrum Efficiency for Multiple Independent Spread-spectrum Land Mobile Radio Systems,” Technical Report TR-78-11, November 1978

The use of spread-spectrum modulation in a common type of land-mobile radio service is studied. The radio service contains many networks operated independently, similar to the business land-mobile radio service. Network independence implies (among ot...

William A. Kissick, Eldon J. Haakinson, and Garth Hill Stonehocker, “Measurements of LF and MF Radio Propagation over Irregular, Inhomogeneous Terrain,” Technical Report TR-78-12, November 1978

Measurements of radio propagation path loss and local ground conductivity were made over four paths in the 100 to 2000 kHz band. The paths were of lengths up to 50 km and were chosen to represent both extreme and typical topography and conductivity c...

The previously developed Rice-Holmberg (RR) rainrate model and the Dutton-Dougherty (DD) attenuation model for earth-space links, and their subsequent modifications, are reviewed. Predictions are compared with data observed both from the Communicatio...

Methods of determining the first-order parameters of both the approximate and exact Class A and B models are derived, for both the ideal case of infinite sample data the practical cases of finite data samples. It is shown that all (first order) param...

This report discusses the recent, current, and planned activities in domestic satellite communications in the United States. The present satellites in the domestic satellite service are discussed and the general technical characteristics are pres...

Evan J. Dutton and Harold T. Dougherty, “Estimates of the Atmospheric Transfer Function at SHF and EHF,” Technical Report TR-78-8, August 1978

Known theory is applied to examine the channel transfer function for earth/space propagation paths through the atmosphere and over t he frequency range from 10 to 350 GHz. The associated attenuation and phase-delay characteristics are separated into ...

Robert F. Linfield and Thijs de Haas, “Interfacing the Automated Maritime Mobile Telephone System with the U.S. public switched telephone network,” Technical Report TR-78-7, August 1978

This report summarizes the characteristics of the U. S. public switched network and the maritime radio service, which impact the development of an Automated Maritime Mobile Telephone System (AMMTS). Features and performance parameters which appear de...

John R. Juroshek, “A Preliminary Estimate of the Effects of Spread–spectrum Interference on TV,” Technical Report TR-78-6, June 1978

The report examines the conditions under which spread–spectrum, land–mobile radio, and television can share spectrum. After a preliminary assessment, the report concludes that the interference caused by a constant amplitude, spread–spectrum system sh...

This report is the third in a continuing series devoted to the development of analytically tractable, statistical-physical models of man-made and natural electromagnetic interference. Here, the first-order statistical probability densities (PDFs) and...

Robert W. Hubbard, Robert F. Linfield, and William J. Hartman, “Measuring Characteristics of Microwave Mobile Channels,” Technical Report TR-78-5, June 1978

This report describes the application of a high resolution (6 ns) pseudo-random noise (PN) channel probe for evaluating the transmission character of a land–mobile communication channel. Preliminary measurements were performed at a microwave frequenc...

There is a growing need within the Federal Government for uniform means of specifying and measuring the performance of data communication systems from the point of view of the digital services delivered to the end user. This report presents results o...

This volume presents three examples of the use of proposed Federal Standard 1033, "Digital Communication Performance Parameters," in specifying end-to-end telecommunication system performance. The examples illustrate, for the particular configuration...

Judd A. Payne, “ARPANET Host to Host Access and Disengagement Measurements,” Technical Report TR-78-3, May 1978

A set of telecommunications performance parameters have been developed for proposed Federal Standard 1033. The measurement of five of these parameters, access time, incorrect access time, access denial probability, disengagement time and disengagemen...

Robert F. Linfield and Martin Nesenbergs, “Access Area Switching and Signaling: Concepts, Issues, and Alternatives,” Technical Report TR-78-2, May 1978

This report covers two key tasks of the Access Area Digital Switch (AADSS) program being conducted by NTIA/ITS for the U.S. Army Communications Systems Agency. First, a brief introduction to digital electronic private automatic branch exchanges (PAB...

Leslie A. Berry, “Effects of Local and Skywave Interference on CB Radio Range,” Technical Report TR-78-1, May 1978

The combined effects of local interference, skywave ("skip") interference, and radio noise on Citizens Band radio range are calculated. If the ionosphere reflectivity is normal or above normal during the next solar cycle, and CB use does not decrease...

Anita G. Longley, “Radio Propagation in Urban Areas,” Technical Report OT-78-144, April 1978

This report reviews much of the earlier work on radio propagation in urban areas, including a good deal of data from measurement programs, careful studies of multipath propagation, and techniques to reduce multipath fading. A number of investigators ...

Edwin L. Crow and Martin J. Miles, “Confidence Limits for Digital Error Rates from Dependent Transmissions,” Technical Report OT-77-118, March 1977

Approximate confidence limits for error rates (probabilities of an error) of digital communication systems are derived under the assumptions that the sample is large , the error rate is constant and the dependence between transmission s is governed b...

The report describes a simplified method of estimating the performance of coherent phase-shift keyed (CPSK) and noncoherent frequency-shift keyed systems (NCFSK) in interference. The method used is based on the eye diagram bound and provides an upper...

Harold T. Dougherty and Burgette A. Hart, “Anomalous Propagation and Interference Fields,” Technical Report OT-76-107, December 1976

This report presents some estimates of the enhanced fields deduced from the presently available theory and observational data. The fields of interest are the enhanced fields that are encountered in the presence of the stratified atmosphere, the ducti...

John R. Juroshek and G. E. Wasson, “Measurements of Digital Systems in Gaussian Additive Noise and Interference,” Technical Report OT 76-104, September 1976

A series of experimental measurements are described that examine the performance of the five different digital modems in Gaussian noise and additive interference. These experimental results are then compared with theoretical predictions to determine ...

Anita G. Longley, “Location Variability of Transmission Loss Land Mobile and Broadcast Systems ,” Technical Report OT 76-87, May 1976

This report summarizes the results of a number of studies of path-to-path, or location, variability of transmission loss at 20 MHz to 10 GHz. The studies show that such variability appears to be normally distributed and can, therefore, be represented...

Most man-made and natural electromagnetic interferences are highly non-gaussian random processes, whose degrading effects on system performance can be severe, particularly on most conventional systems, which are designed for optimal or near optimal p...

Raymond D. Jennings, Lewis E. Vogler, and Judith J. Stephenson, “Statistical Frequency-Distance Curves, Initial Model,” Technical Report OT-76-84, April 1976

This report describes an initial computer program that produces statistical frequency-distance curves. The computer program has been developed as a tool for use by the frequency managers' community of OTP/IRAC. The statistical frequency-distance curv...

John R. Juroshek, “Performance of Digital Modems with Co-channel Interference and Gaussian Noise,” Technical Report OT 76-82, February 1976

An approximate method for estimating the performance of digital systems operating with co-channel interference and Gaussian additive noise is described. The method uses Monte-Carlo techniques and an approximation, based on the geometrical characteriz...

Anita G. Longley and George A. Hufford, “Sensor Path Loss Measurements Analysis and Comparison with Propagation Models,” Technical Report OT-75-74, October 1975

The data from a large measurement program at VHF and UHF are carefully evaluated , summarized and compared with values predicted from models of radio propagation over irregular terrain. Particular problems of low antennas and the effects of vegetatio...

R. Michael Jones and Judith J. Stephenson, “A Versatile Three-Dimensional Ray Tracing Computer Program for Radio Waves in the Ionosphere,” Technical Report OT-75-76, October 1975

This report documents the latest version of the three-dimensional ray tracing program originally described in “A Three-Dimensional Ray Tracing Computer Program,” by R. M. Jones, ESSA Technical Report IER 17 -IT SA 17, and later modified in “Modificat...

A method of bivariate interpolation and smooth surface fitting is developed for z values given at points irregularly distributed in the x-y plane. The interpolating function is a fifth-degree polynomial in x and y defined in each triangular cell whic...

Atmospheric radio wave propagation in the 40 to 140 GHz band is influenced by microwave spectra of oxygen (O2-MS) and water vapor. The report treats the complementary roles of controlled laboratory experiments and computer analysis for providing deta...

Charles A. Samson, “Atmospheric Considerations in Radio System Engineering at 10 to 30 GHz,” Technical Report OT 75-66, June 1975

The effects of the atmosphere on radio propagation at frequencies of 10 GHz to 30 GHZ include attenuation and depolarization by precipitation, absorption by water vapor and oxygen, and multipath fading related to refractivity gradients in stratified ...

Frank G. Stewart, Larry R. Teters, and L. Roger Espeland, “Numerical Mapping Methods to Reduce OMEGA Propagation Correction Tabulations ,” Technical Report OT Report 75-62, May 1975

This report is a study of the feasibility of applying numerical mapping techniques to the storage and handling of OMEGA propagation corrections. Using the techniques discussed in the report, it is possible to represent the 110,592 propagation corecti...

F. Kenneth Steele and S. F. Van Horn, “A Bibliography of Recent Work on Propagation in the Radio Spectrum from 10 to 100 GHz,” Technical Report OT Report 75-57, January 1975

References are presented on the subject of recent (1971 to mid-1974) work on radio propagation through the atmosphere at frequencies from 10 to 100 GHz. The references are separated into six major categories covering propagation through precipitati...

Historically, multipath problems have been handled on an ad hoc basis requiring liberal portions of hindsight, engineering ingenuity and serendipity. However, as is often the case, once the underlying principles are identified, theoretical developmen...

Arthur D. Spaulding and Robert T. Disney, “Man-Made Radio Noise – Part I: Estimates for Business, Residential, and Rural Areas,” Technical Report OT-74-38, June 1974

The Office of Telecommunications, Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (OT/ITS), over the past several years, has accumulated a data base of man-made radio noise measurements in the frequency range from 250 kHz through 250 MHz taken in a number o...

A general statistical-physical model of man-made radio noise processes appearing in the input stages of a typical receiver is described analytically. The first-order statistics of the se random processes are developed in detail for narrow-band recept...

Donald R. Ewing and Leslie A. Berry, “Metrics for Spectrum-Space Usage,” Technical Report OT 73-24, November 1973

A generally accepted spectrum use metric (unit of spectrum-space use) would expedite efficient allocation and management of the spectrum resource. It would be useful for quantitative studies of spectrum congestion, and for economic analysis of the re...

It is well known that the amplitude-probability distribution (APD) function of atmospheric radio noise can be closely represented by a curve that one can select from a family of curves by specifying the ratio of rms to average voltage, usually expres...

Lewis E. Vogler and S. F. Van Horn, “Bibliography on Propagation Effects from 10 GHz to 1000 THz,” Technical Report OT/TRER 30, March 1972

A bibliography is presented on the subject of electromagnetic wave propagation over line-of-sight paths through the troposphere at frequencies above 10 GHz. The references are divided into three main categories covering the areas of propagation throu...

Robert T. Disney, “Correlation of Man-Made Radio Noise Received on Two Antennas,” Technical Report OT TM 74, January 1972

The correlation of the man-made radio noise envelope voltage from two receiving systems was measured as a function of the antenna configuration of the systems. Combinations of vertical omnidirectional antennas and half-wave dipole antennas in corner...

G. D. Gierhart et al., “Analysis of Air-ground Radio Wave Propagation Measurements at 800 MHz,” Technical Report OT/TRER 21, November 1971

An analysis is presented of air-ground radio wave propagation measurements, which were performed using an airborne transmission source at approximately 6,400 m above msl. Receiving antennas were slightly within and beyond line-of-sight of the airborn...

Burgette A. Hart, G. D. Thayer, and Harold T. Dougherty, “Local and Diurnal Variations in Ground-based Radio Refractivity Gradients at Tropical Locations,” Technical Report OT TRER 23, November 1971

Telecommunication technology and its applications are rapidly expanding in the new or developing nations, many of which are located in tropical climates; so a knowledge of the behavior of refractivity gradients, directly related to establishing and m...

Anita G. Longley, R. K. Reasoner, and V. L. Fuller, “Measured and Predicted Long-Term Distributions of Tropospheric Transmission Loss,” Technical Report OT/TRER 16, October 1971

This report summarizes measurements of tropospheric transmission loss and its long-term variability for nearly 800 paths in various parts of the world. The measurements were made at frequencies from 40 MHz to 10 GHz over distances which range from 10...

Paul L. McQuate, John M. Harman, and M. E. McClanahan, “Tabulations of Propagation Data over Irregular Terrain in the 230 to 9200 MHz Frequency Range Part 4: Receiver Site in Grove of Trees,” Technical Report OT/TRER 19, July 1971

This is the fourth part of a four-part report containing tabulations and graphs of transmission loss data resulting from propagation experiments in the 230 - to 9200-MHz frequency range conducted over irregular terrain in Colorado. This part presents...

Arthur D. Spaulding, William H. Ahlbeck, and L. Roger Espeland, “Urban Residential Man-Made Radio Noise Analysis and Predictions,” Technical Report OT/TRER 14, June 1971

During May and June of 1968, OT/ITS conducted a man-made radio noise survey of San Antonio, Texas. The results of part of this survey of residential urban man-made radio noise are given, along with the correlations of the measured values of noise pow...

Randolph H. Ott, “A New Method for Predicting HF Ground Wave Attenuation Over Inhomogenous, Irregular Terrain,” Technical Report OT/ITS Research Report 7, January 1971

Several examples of the numerical evaluation of an integral equation for the calculation of the attenuation of a radio wave are given. These waves are assumed to be propagated over realistic, smoothly varying irregular, inhomogeneous terrain. Results...

Donald H. Zacharisen and William B. Jones, “World Maps of Atmospheric Radio Noise in Universal Time by Numerical Mapping,” Technical Report OTS/ITS RR 2, October 1970

Worldwide atmospheric noise at 1 MHz, as presented in CCIR Report 3 22 (1963), has been numerically mapped in universal time. The mapping technique and representative contour maps for January and July, are presented. Fourier analyses were performed s...

This is the third part of a four–part report containing tabulations and graphs of transmission loss data resulting from propagation experiments in the 230- to 9200- MHz frequency range conducted over irregular terrain in Colorado. This part describes...

Anita G. Longley and R. K. Reasoner, “Comparison of Propagation Measurements with Predicted Values in the 20 to 10,000 MHz Range,” Technical Report ERL 148-ITS 97, January 1970

Predictions of tropospheric transmission loss over irregular terrain using the computer methods described by Longley and Rice (1968) are compared with measurements, to determine their limits of applicability and define the boundary conditions for the...

G. D. Gierhart and M. E. Johnson, “Interference Predictions for VHF/UHF Air Navigation Aids (Companion Report to IER 26-ITSA 26),” Technical Report ERL 138-ITS 95, November 1969

Desired-to-undesired signal ratio predictions for the VHF Omnirange (VOR) and Instrument Landing System (ILS) air navigation aids are presented. The parameters involved in these systems are given first. Propagation mechanisms applicable to VHF /UHF a...

Laurance G. Hause, F. George Kimmett, and John M. Harman, “UHF Radio Propagation Data for Low Antenna Heights Volume I,” Technical Report ERL 134 ITS 93-1, November 1969

This report is a presentation in two volumes of measurement techniques, data, comparisons, and conclusions obtained from a UHF propagation measurement program at 230 and 415.9 MHz. Antenna heights were 3 m or less above ground. Vertical polarization ...

Laurance G. Hause, F. George Kimmett, and John M. Harman, “UHF Radio Propagation Data for Low Antenna Heights Volume II,” Technical Report ERL 134 ITS 93-2, November 1969

This report is a presentation in two volumes of measurement techniques, data, comparisons, and conclusions obtained from a UHF propagation measurement program at 230 and 415.9 MHz. Antenna heights were 3 m or less above ground. Vertical polarization ...

Judith J. Stephenson and T. M. Georges, “Computer Routines for Synthesizing Ground Backscatter from Three-Dimensional Raysets,” Technical Report ERL 120-ITS 84, July 1969

The report describes a series of computer routines for analyzing HF radio propagation in an arbitrary ionosphere - in particular, the echoes obtained in ionospherically propagated ground backscatter experiments. With the aid of a plotting routine t...

Randolph H. Ott and Janet E. Herman, “Terrain Effects on Antenna Radiation Patterns Part II: Analysis of Scattered Fields,” Technical Report ERL 109-ITS 77, April 1969

A numerical method for calculating the scattering and diffraction at an antenna site to be used in a sky-wave communication link is derived. The method of physical optics is used to treat the scattering by the terrain surrounding the antenna site. ...

Paul L. McQuate, John M. Harman, M. E. Johnson, and Albrecht P. Barsis, “Tabulations of Propagation Data Over Irregular Terrain in the 230 to 9200 MHz Frequency Range Part 2: Fritz Peak Receiver Site,” Technical Report ERL 65-ITS 58-2, December 1968

This is the second part of a four-part report containing tabulations and graphs of transmission loss data resulting from propagation experiments in the 230 to 9200 MHz frequency range conducted over irregular terrain in Colorado. This part describes ...

Anita G. Longley and Philip L. Rice, “Prediction of Tropospheric Radio Transmission Loss Over Irregular Terrain: A Computer Method - 1968,” Technical Report ERL 79-ITS 67, July 1968

This report describes a computer method for predicting long-term median transmission loss over irregular terrain. The method is applicable for radio frequencies above 20 MHz and may be used either with detailed terrain profiles for actual paths or wi...

Harold T. Dougherty, “A Survey of Microwave Fading Mechanisms Remedies and Applications,” Technical Report ERL 69-WPL 4, March 1968

After a brief description of the significance of the radio refractive index and its variation in the lower troposphere, a catalog of fading mechanisms is presented. Attention is directed to the supporting refractive index structure, the characteristi...

Paul L. McQuate, John M. Harman, and Albrecht P. Barsis, “Tabulations of Propagation Data over Irregular Terrain in the 230 to 9200 MHz Frequency Range Part 1: Gunbarrel Hill Receiver Site,” Technical Report ERL 65-ITS 58, March 1968

This four-part report contains tabulations and graphs of transmission loss data resulting from propagation experiments in the 230 to 9200 MHz range conducted over irregular terrain in Colorado. Each part of the report deals with data obtained at a si...

M. E. Johnson, Martin J. Miles, Paul L. McQuate, and Albrecht P. Barsis, “Tabulations of VHF Propagation Data Obtained Over Irregular Terrain at 20, 50, and 100 MHz Part 3: Ohio Data,” Technical Report IER 38-ITSA 38-3, December 1967

This report contains tabulations of transmission loss data resulting from propagation experiments at 20, 50, and 100 MHz conducted over irregular and partly wooded terrain in northeastern Ohio. Raw data from measurements described in this report is a...

Harold T. Dougherty, “Microwave Fading with Airborne Terminals,” Technical Report IER 58 ITSA 55, October 1967

After a brief description of the significance of the radio refractive index and its variation in the atmosphere, a brief catalogue of fading mechanisms is presented. Attention is directed to the variety of fading mechanisms that are pertinent for th...

M. E. Johnson, Martin J. Miles, Paul L. McQuate, and Albrecht P. Barsis, “Tabulations of VHF Propagation Data Obtained Over Irregular Terrain at 20, 50, and 100 MHz Part 2: Colorado Mountain Data,” Technical Report IER 38-ITSA 38-2, August 1967

This report contains tabulations of transmission loss data resulting from propagation experiments at 20, 50, and 100 MHz conducted over irregular terrain in the Colorado Mountains primarily east of the Continental Divide.Raw data from measurements de...

M. E. Johnson, Martin J. Miles, Paul L. McQuate, and Albrecht P. Barsis, “Tabulations of VHF Propagation Data Obtained Over Irregular Terrain at 20, 50, and 100 MHz,” Technical Report IER 38-ITSA 38, May 1967

This report contains tabulations of transmission loss data resulting from propagation experiments at 20, 50, and 100 MHz conducted over irregular terrain in the Colorado high plains east of the Continental Divide.Raw data from measurements described ...

G. D. Gierhart and M. E. Johnson, “Interference Predictions for VHF/UHF Navigation Aids,” Technical Report IER 26-ITSA 26, March 1967

Desired-to-undesired signal ratio predictions for the VHF Omnirange (VOR), Tactical Air Navigation (TACAN) and Instrument Landing Systems (ILS) air navigation aids are presented in this report. The parameters involved in the various systems are given...

Leslie A. Berry, “Linear High Frequency Antennas over a Finitely Conducting Spherical Earth,” Technical Report IER 8 ITSA 8, September 1966

Vertical radiation patterns of vertical quarter-wave monopoles, and of vertical and horizontal half-wave dipoles located at various heights up to twenty wavelengths over several typical types of ground are shown. Vertical antennas have the best low-...

Donald L. Lucas and John D. Harper, “A Numerical Representation of CCIR Report 322 High Frequency (3-30 MC/S) Atmospheric Radio Noise Data,” Technical Report NBS Technical Note 318, August 1965

Geographic and frequency dependent distributions of atmospheric noise power enumerated in CCIR Report 322 [1964] are approximated by series expansions for use in electronic computers. Coefficients of Fourier series representation of worldwide geograp...

Objective: To develop the concept for a system which will provide the Naval communication a capability for the selection of best operating frequencies for Navy HF circuits; and for predicting the time of onset, the intensity and duration of ionospher...

William J. Hartman and Martin T. Decker, “Experiments for Feasibility Study of Tropospheric Scatter Propogation between the Earth and Satellites,” Technical Report NBS Report 7625, December 1962

The proposed experiments described in this report are designed to obtain information concerning the feasibility of tropospheric scatter transmission between an earth terminal and a satellite. These experiments are suggested in lieu of experiments uti...

G. D. Gierhart, Laurance G. Hause, Joseph E. Farrow, and Martin T. Decker, “Insertion Loss of a Brick Wall at UHF,” Technical Report NBS Report 7272, June 1962

Measurements of the effects of inserting a brick wall into a radio propagation path are reported. The technique used for measuring “insertion loss” at frequencies of 518 Mc/s and 1046 Mc/s is described. Distributions of the resulting data indicate th...

Martin T. Decker, “R. F. Attentuation by Building Materials,” Technical Report NBS Report 6003, September 1958

A comparison is made at X-band frequencies of the theoretical and measured transmission and reflection coefficients for a parallel wire grid. The methods used are applicable to the measurement of these factors for various building materials.

Philip L. Rice, Anita G. Longley, and Kenneth Alva Norton, “Prediction of the Cumulative Distribution with Time of Ground Wave and Tropospheric Wave Transmission Loss,” Technical Report NBS Report 5582, June 1958

Part I of this report describes a method for predicting the cumulative distribution with time of transmission loss at frequencies above 10 megacycles per second over paths of arbitrary length. The method makes use of available information about terra...

Albrecht P. Barsis, “Long-Distance Tropospheric Propagation Data over Cheyenne Mountain Paths,” Technical Report NBS Report 5072, May 1957

Results of measurements of basin transmission loss over 400 and 600 miles paths are presented in the form of distributions of hourly medians for frequencies in the 100 to 1000 Mc range. The paths extend southeastward from the Front Range of the Colo...

A solution is presented in this paper, with all of the variable subject to error, for the general leased squares porblem of determining consistent estimates of the parameters of a functional relationship which is expected to fit exactly the average o...

James R. Wait, “The Insulated Loop Antenna Immersed in a Conducting Medium,” Technical Report NBS Report 5042, January 1957

A solution is given for fields of a circular loop in a conducting medium. The loop is assumed to have a uniform current and it is enclosed by a spherical insulating cavity. The impedance of the loop is also considered. It is shown that the power ...

“Radio Studies of Atmospheric Turbulence, Volumes I and II,” Technical Report NBS Report 3579, May 1956

A different author or authors wrote each section of this report or its appendices. Volume II is Appendices.

Richard C. Kirby, “VHF Propagation by Ionospheric Scattering: A Survey of Experimental Results,” Technical Report NBS Report 3565, November 1955

A brief survey is given of results from an experimental program extending over the last five years to investigate the nature and characteristics of high-loss regular VHF propagation by means of scatteriung and other mechanisms in the lower ionosphere...

Initial results through December 1954 are reported from a continuing investigation of the extreme distance range of regular VHF propagation by scattering in the lower ionosphere. Signal strength observed at 36/Mc/s over an experimental path from New...

Albrecht P. Barsis, Bradford R. Bean, and K. O. Hornberg, “Cheyenne Mountain Tropospheric Propagation Data February - March 1954,” Technical Report NBS Report 3536, May 1955

This report describes tropospheric propagation measurements taken over the Cheyenne Mountain paths on frequencies between 92 and 1046 Mc during February 1954. The results of the measurements are given in terms of cumulative distributions of hourly me...

G. R. Chambers, J. W. Herbstreit, and Kenneth Alva Norton, “Preliminary Report on Propagation Measurements from 92-1046 Mc at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado,” Technical Report NBS Report 1826, July 1952

A description is given of the facilities provided by the National Bureau of Standards on Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado and in its vicinity which are used for the measurement of the transmission loss on radio transmission circuits operated in the freq...

In this paper there is derived an approximate formulation of the problem of a scalar wave propagated over an irregular bounding surface. This formulation takes the form of a one-dimensional Volterra integral equation, which can, or so it appears, be...

Central Radio Propagation Laboratory, “Basic Radio Propagation Predictions for June 1947 Three Months In Advance,” Technical Report CRPL-D-31, March 1947

Basic Radio Propagation Predictions are prepared by the staff of the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory of the National Bureau of Standards under the direction of J. Howard Dellinger, Chief, and Newbern Smith, Assistant Chief. The monthly reports o...

Technical Memorandum

Stephen D. Voran and Jaden Pieper, “A Powerful, Fixed-Size Modulation Spectrum Representation for Perceptually Consistent Speech Evaluation,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-24-274, September 2024

We develop the wideband fixed-size modulation spectra (FMS) and show that they contain the necessary information to perform perceptually consistent evaluation of speech. We compare FMS with the already established frame-based modula-tion spectra as r...

Recently, prerecorded audio and video presentations, as well as virtual meetings, have become a common component of professional life, due to health and environmental considerations. This places new responsibility on participants to generate audio th...

Robert Grosso and Margaret H. Pinson, “COCRID: A Challenging Optical Character Recognition Image Dataset,” Technical Memorandum TM-23-569, August 2023

This memorandum provides technical details for the image quality experiment COCRID: A Challenging Optical Character Recognition Dataset. The design goals of the COCRID dataset are (1) to train no-reference metrics that track the quality of recognized...

Today’s mobile wireless networks comprise many proprietary solutions with custom, closed-source software and hardware. Changes to these proprietary elements require complex and meticulous verification of the entire network. This dynamic increases cos...

Geoffrey A. Sanders et al., “Examining the Effects of Resolution Bandwidth when Measuring Compound Radar Waveforms,” Technical Memorandum TM-23-566, April 2023

This study examines the effects of resolution bandwidth (RBW) when using the measurement methods described in National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Technical Report 05-420 to measure the emission spectra of compound radar ...

Jaden Pieper and Stephen D. Voran, “Relationships between Gilbert-Elliot Burst Error Model Parameters and Error Statistics,” Technical Memorandum TM-23-565, January 2023

The Gilbert-Elliot model is a popular and effective tool for treating bursty (nonindependent) errors in communication links. This memorandum provides linkages between model parameters and error statistics. The motivation is that these linkages can al...

Robert Grosso and Margaret H. Pinson, “VMAF Compression Ratings that Disregard Camera Impairments (VCRDCI) Dataset,” Technical Memorandum TM-22-564, September 2022

This memorandum provides technical details of the VCRDCI dataset. This dataset was designed similarly to a video quality subjective experiment, but the VMAF metric was used to create simulated subjective data. The VCRDCI dataset contains 130 scenes t...

Joel Dumke and Margaret H. Pinson, “ITSnoise: An Image Quality Dataset With Sensor Noise,” Technical Memorandum TM-22-563, September 2022

This technical memorandum provides details for the image quality subjective experiment ITSnoise. This experiment includes 24 scenes, each digitally photographed using 12 different Image Capture Methods (ICMs) for a total of 288 images. The ICMs were ...

Eric D. Nelson, “LTE Uplink Aggregate Interference Measurement System,” Technical Memorandum TM-21-552, February 2021

This technical memorandum describes a method to design, characterize and optimize a system for performing field measurements of aggregate interference from LTE user equipment transmissions. It explains the computation of the system’s antenna gain ove...

Edward F. Drocella Jr., Cou-Way Wang, and Nickolas LaSorte, “Assessment of Compatibility between Global Positioning System Receivers and Adjacent Band Base Station and User Equipment Transmitters,” Technical Memorandum TM-20-536, December 2020

This technical memorandum provides the results of a compatibility assessment between terrestrial GPS L1 coarse/acquisition (C/A) code receivers operating in the 1559-1610 MHz RNSS band and terrestrial operations in the 1526-1536 MHz, 1627.5 1637.5 MH...

Margaret H. Pinson, “Analysis of No-Reference Metrics for Image and Video Quality of Consumer Applications,” Technical Memorandum TM-20-547, January 2020

This paper analyzes the performance of eight no-reference (NR) metrics. Seven assess image quality (BRISQUE, CurveletQA, IL-NIQE, NIQE, OG-IQA, QAC and SSEQ) and one assesses video quality (VIIDEO). The challenge we address in this paper is moving fr...

Margaret H. Pinson and Samuel Elting, “ITS4S4: A Video Quality Study of Camera Pans,” Technical Memorandum TM-20-545, December 2019

This technical memorandum provides technical details for the video quality subjective experiment its4s4. This experiment includes 196 videos, each 4 seconds in duration, depicting camera pans at different speeds. Other impairments are avoided where p...

This technical memorandum provides technical details for the video quality subjective experiment its4s3. This experiment includes 594 videos, each 4 seconds in duration. The experiment consists of six sessions, each portraying a different public safe...

Margaret H. Pinson, “ITS4S2: An Image Quality Dataset With Unrepeated Images From Consumer Cameras,” Technical Memorandum TM-19-537, April 2019

This technical memorandum provides technical details for the image quality subjective experiment its4s2. This experiment contains 1,473 still images that were presented to subjects for 4 seconds each, as per still video. The goals are (1) to train no...

Geoffrey A. Sanders, Anna E. Paulson, and Douglas J. Anderson, “Dual-band Tactical Radio Feasibility Study,” Technical Memorandum TM-19-539, January 2019

In support of the Network Universal Persistence (Network UP) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) was asked to perform a dual-band tacti...

Chriss A. Hammerschmidt, Robert T. Johnk, Paul M. McKenna, and Christopher R. Anderson, “Best Practices for Radio Propagation Measurements,” Technical Memorandum TM-19-535, November 2018

This report describes a set of best practices for the preparation and verification of radio propagation measurement systems. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of various channel sounders, the common components used in these systems, and measure...

Frank H. Sanders, Robert L. Sole, Geoffrey A. Sanders, and John E. Carroll, “Further Procedures for Laboratory Testing of Environmental Sensing Capability Sensor Devices,” Technical Memorandum TM-18-534, June 2018

NTIA Technical Memorandum TM-18-527 describes procedures for testing the functionality of Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) sensors that will detect 3.5 GHz radar signals for future spectrum sharing systems. The present document describes addit...

Margaret H. Pinson, “ITS4S: A Video Quality Dataset with Four-Second Unrepeated Scenes,” Technical Memorandum TM-18-532, February 2018

This report describes the video quality subjective test its4s, including the experiment design and footage attribution. Subjective experiment its4s includes 813 unique video sequences, each four seconds in duration. No video sequences are repeated. T...

J. Wayde Allen, “The Dish Antenna at the Table Mountain I10C Site,” Technical Memorandum TM-18-531, February 2018

This paper describes the design and retrofit of the 3.7 meter (12-foot) dish antenna located near building I10C at the U.S. Department of Commerce Table Mountain Field Site and Radio Quiet Zone.

Frank H. Sanders et al., “Procedures for Laboratory Testing of Environmental Sensing Capability Sensor Devices,” Technical Memorandum TM-18-527, November 2017

A planned procedure is described for testing 3.5 GHz environmental sensing capability (ESC) devices for their responses to radar pulses in a laboratory environment. These test procedures will be used to gather data on ESC pulse-detection performance....

Future 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service Device (CBSD) transmitters in the U.S. will share spectrum with incumbent Federal radar systems. To avoid interfering with radar receivers in exclusion zones, CBSDs will be deployed in conjunction with ...

Margaret H. Pinson, “Technology Gaps in First Responder Cameras,” Technical Memorandum TM-17-524, May 2017

This report identifies camera technology gaps that impact first responders. These technology gaps were identified by interviewing first responders about images, video, and camera systems in general. This is a working document that is intended to fost...

Stephen D. Voran and Andrew A. Catellier, “A Crowdsourced Speech Intelligibility Test that Agrees with, Has Higher Repeatability than, Lab Tests,” Technical Memorandum TM-17-523, February 2017

Crowdsourcing of subjective speech, audio, and video quality of experience (QoE) tests has received much interest and study, but crowdsourcing of speech intelligibility testing has not. We hypothesize that speech intelligibility tests offer a unique ...

Margaret H. Pinson and Lucjan Janowski, “AGH/NTIA: A Video Quality Subjective Test with Repeated Sequences,” Technical Memorandum TM-14-505, June 2014

This report provides full technical details for the video quality subjective test AGH/NTIA. Analyses of this dataset appear in separate publications. The purpose of this document is to provide design details that are beyond the scope of a conference ...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Fast Low Bandwidth Model: A Reduced Reference Video Quality Metric,” Technical Memorandum TM-13-497, June 2013

This memorandum describes the Fast Low Bandwidth model. This summary is intended to help the reader understand the model from an algorithmic standpoint. Some knowledge of prior NTIA objective video quality models is necessary for the understanding of...

Frank H. Sanders, “Antenna Selection for Monitoring of Airborne Radio Systems,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-13-492, November 2012

This Technical Memorandum describes a process for selecting an appropriate antenna for monitoring radio signals from airborne transmitters. A mathematical formula for the optimal receiver antenna gain is presented. This formula takes into account the...

Cou-Way Wang and T. Keech, “Antenna Models for Electromagnetic Compatibility Analyses,” Technical Memorandum TM-13-489, October 2012

This memorandum contains two compilations of antenna parameters. The first one is the collection of rules, regulations, and recommendations regarding antennas that are published by authoritative institutions such as NTIAthe FCC, International Telecom...

Stephen Wolf and Margaret H. Pinson, “Video Quality Model for Variable Frame Delay (VQM_VFD),” Technical Memorandum TM-11-482, September 2011

Time varying delays of the output (or processed) video frames with respect to the input (i.e., the original or reference) video frames present significant challenges for Full Reference (FR) video quality measurement systems. Time alignment errors bet...

Christopher Redding, Christopher J. Behm, Timothy J. Riley, and Robert B. Stafford, “Examining the Validity of Rayleigh Distribution Assumptions in Characterizing the Fading Channel at 162 and 793 MHz,” Technical Memorandum TM-11-477, June 2011

Wireless communications experience temporal variations in received signal level that are characteristic of the propagation channel. Propagation channel fading at VHF and above is predominantly caused by the complex scattering environment through whic...

Stephen Wolf, “Variable Frame Delay (VFD) Parameters for Video Quality Measurements,” Technical Memorandum TM-11-475, April 2011

Digital video transmission systems consisting of a video encoder, a digital transmission method (e.g., Internet Protocol—IP), and a video decoder can produce pauses in the video presentation, after which the video may continue with or without skippin...

Margaret H. Pinson, Arthur A. Webster, and William J. Ingram, “Preliminary Investigation into the Impact of Audiovisual Synchronization of Impaired Audiovisual Sequences,” Technical Memorandum TM-11-474, March 2011

The quality perception of an audiovisual sequence is heavily influenced by the quality of the audio, the quality of the video, and the audiovisual time synchronization. The questions then arise: what is the relative importance of each factor, and can...

Mark A. McFarland et al., “Relating Audio and Video Quality Using CIF Video,” Technical Memorandum TM-10-472, September 2010

NTIA/ITS has conducted a series of studies to quantify the effects that individual audio and video qualities have on the overall Mean Opinion Score (MOS) for a given set of audiovisual clips. The experiment described in this report studies the effect...

This NTIA Technical Memorandum provides a single, comprehensive set of derivations of the mathematical relationships among power in a radio transmitter or measurement circuit, the associated incident field strength in space, transmitter-receiver ante...

This technical memorandum examines issues related to the potential interference impact of a specific Cellular Radiotelephone Service (Cellular) and Personal Communications Service (PCS) jammer transmitter on selected out-of-band and in-band receivers...

Edward F. Drocella Jr. and David S. Anderson, “Correction Factors and Measurement Procedure To Assess the Interference Impact of Linear Swept Frequency Signals on Radio Receivers,” Technical Memorandum TM-10-464 [dc], December 2009

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is developing a handbook documenting the best practices in spectrum engineering. This technical memorandum provides a methodology to determine the average and peak power level at t...

Carolyn Ford et al., “Multimedia Synchronization Study,” Technical Memorandum TM-10-464, November 2009

ITS is conducting a series of studies to quantify the effects of the separate audio and video compression qualities, and the differential delay in their synchronization, to the perceived aesthetic quality of a multimedia signal. The experiment descri...

Digital video transmission systems consisting of a video encoder, a digital transmission method (e.g., Internet Protocol – IP), and a video decoder can produce pauses in the video presentation, after which the video may continue with or without skipp...

In 1997, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized the use of Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) devices in the 5150–5250 MHz, 5250–5350 MHz, and 5725–5825 MHz bands. The technical and operational requirements are dif...

Digital video transmission systems consisting of a video encoder, a digital transmission method (e.g., Internet Protocol – IP), and a video decoder can produce pauses in the video presentation that result from dropped or repeated video frames. For ex...

This report presents four sets of equations developed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Office of Spectrum Management (OSM) to compute the bandwidth correction factor (BWCF) for peak and average power levels and...

Frank H. Sanders, J. Randy Hoffman, and Yeh Lo, “Resolving Interference from an Airport Surveillance Radar to a Weather Radar,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-06-439, April 2006

In response to interference from an S–band (2700–2900 MHz) airport surveillance radar (ASR) to a meteorological (weather) radar in the same band, measurements were performed at the field location of the two radars to determine the interference mechan...

Frank H. Sanders and Bradley J. Ramsey, “Comparison of Radar Spectra on Varying Azimuths Relative to the Base of the Antenna Rotary Joint,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-05-430, August 2005

This technical memorandum describes the results of radiated measurements of the emission spectrum of a maritime radar at varying azimuths relative to the base of the radar transmitter antenna rotary joint. The measurements were performed to address t...

Frank H. Sanders, “Bandwidth Dependence of Emission Spectra of Selected Pulsed-CW Radars,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-05-431, August 2005

This technical memorandum describes measurements of the radiated emission spectra of selected maritime radiolocation radar transmitters in multiple bandwidths. The results support published criteria for selection of measurement bandwidths for emissio...

John J. Lemmon, “Radiation Pattern Analysis of a Four-Element Linear Array,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-05-426, July 2005

The effects of mutual coupling on the radiation pattern of a four-element linear array were investigated. The objective was to improve the angular resolution of the array for direction-of-arrival estimation by compensating for mutual coupling. It is ...

Roger A. Dalke and George A. Hufford, “Analysis of the Markov Character of a General Rayleigh Fading Channel,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-05-423, April 2005

It has been proposed that first–order Markov channel models can be used to adequately predict the behavior of a mobile "Rayleigh" fading channel and hence improve the reliability of bidirectional mobile communications systems. Previous authors have a...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Video scaling estimation technique,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-05-417, January 2005

Digital video compression algorithms are being deployed that spatially stretch or shrink the video picture. Although small changes in spatial scaling are not usually noticeable to viewers, objective video quality measurement systems may be adversely ...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “The impact of monitor resolution and type on subjective video quality testing,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-04-412, March 2004

This memorandum compares subjective video quality test results from a professional cathode ray tube (CRT) television monitor with that of a consumer liquid crystal display (LCD) video phone monitor. The CRT monitor supported the full ITU-R Recommenda...

Stephen Wolf, “Color correction matrix for digital still and video imaging systems,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-04-406, December 2003

This document discusses a method for correcting inaccurate color output by digital still and video imaging systems. The method uses a known reference image together with a least–squares algorithm to estimate the optimal color channel mixing matrix th...

J. Wayde Allen and Ted Mullen, “Digital television (DTV) field strength and video quality study,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-03-405, August 2003

A particular concern about digital television (DTV) broadcasts is whether such broadcasts have sufficient power to be received using inexpensive indoor antennas located inside a typical home. To test this, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences...

Stephen D. Voran, “An Iterated Nested Least-Squares Algorithm for Fitting Multiple Data Sets,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-03-397, October 2002

A multiple data set fitting problem often arises in conjunction with the development of objective estimators of perceived audio or video quality. In such development work, we often seek the best linear relationship between a set of objective audio or...

Stephen D. Voran, “Compensating for System Gain: Motivations, Derivations, and Relations for Three Common Solutions,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-03-398, October 2002

It is often desirable to compensate for system gain, especially before objectively estimating perceived audio or video quality from system inputs and outputs. A common approach is to scale the system output to compensate for system gain. One can take...

This report assesses the expansion of the Earth Exploration-Satellite Service in the 8025–8400 MHz frequency range. The report identifies allocations, standards, regulations and current and planned spectrum usage applicable to this range for Governme...

Eric E. Johnson, Christopher Redding, David F. Peach, and Robert T. Adair, “Implementation Guide for Federal Standard 1049 Section 1, Linking Protection,” Technical Memorandum TM-95-166, June 1995

Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) technology automates the selection of channels and establishment of links among high-frequency radios, but creates a vulnerability in such automated networks to hostile manipulation of network operations. The Linkin...

Herbert K. Kobayashi and Ernesto A. Cerezo, “Federal Government spectrum usage in the 138–150.8 MHz band,” Technical Memorandum TM-95-165, November 1994

Robert J. Mayher, L. C. Brown, K. A. Kensinger, and Carl A. Winkler, “Evaluation of Spectrum Management in Romania,” Technical Memorandum TM-94-164, October 1994

Eric E. Johnson, David F. Peach, and Robert T. Adair, “High Frequency Radio Channel and Modem Simulator,” Technical Memorandum TM-94-163, August 1994

Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) technology automates the selection of channels and establishment of links among high-frequency (HF) radios. This report describes software that simulates fading channels and the Federal Standard ALE modem used over ...

Eric E. Johnson, David F. Peach, and Robert T. Adair, “A Software Simulator for High Frequency Radio Automatic Link Establishment,” Technical Memorandum TM-94-162, May 1994

Marjorie L. Weibel, “Test Plan for Experiments to Provide Preliminary Characterization of ACTS Performance,” Technical Memorandum TM-94-161, February 1994

William D. Speights, Ernesto A. Cerezo, Richard J. Orsulak, and Robert C. Wilson, “National Land Mobile Radio Spectrum Requirements,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-94-160, January 1994

The National Land Mobile Spectrum Requirements report was released in January 1994. This report describes the Federal Government's land mobile radio (LMR) usage and trends in the following bands: 30–50, 138–150.8, 162–174, 220–222 and 406.1–420 MHz. ...

Eric E. Johnson, Christopher Redding, David F. Peach, and Robert T. Adair, “Implementation Guide for Federal Standard 1049 Section 1, Linking Protection,” Technical Memorandum TM-93-159, October 1993

Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) technology automates the selection of channels and establishment of links among high-frequencyradios, but creates a vulnerability in such automated networks to hostile manipulation of network operations. The Linking...

Jeanne M. Ratzloff and Gregory R. Hand, “User's Guide and Reference Manual for the VOACAP and REC533 Circuit Analysis Programs,” Technical Memorandum TM-93-157, May 1993

A user's guide and programmer's reference manual is presented to facilitate the use of two high frequency circuit analysis software systems called VOACAP and REC533. The guide shows how to execute the software on laptop computers and personal compute...

Fredrick Wentland, Richard Smith, and Carl A. Winkler, “Evaluation of Spectrum Management in Nicaragua,” Technical Memorandum TM-93-158, January 1993

Robert J. Mayher, John K. Lady, William D. Speights, and R. E. Buss Jr., “Evaluation of Spectrum Management in Poland,” Technical Memorandum TM-92-156, May 1992

Herbert K. Kobayashi and Gary M. Patrick, “Preliminary Building Attenuation Model,” Technical Memorandum TM-92-155, May 1992

In this technical report, preliminary graphical models spanning approximately 1 MHz to 30 GHz are developed for commercial and residential building attenuation. The models are least-square fits to the data available from the open literature. An estim...

Cesar A. Filippi et al., “Accommodation of Broadcast Satellite (sound) and Mobile SatelliteServices in the 2300–2450 MHz Band,” Technical Memorandum TM-92-154, January 1992

This report provides a feasibility assessment of accommodating the Broadcast Satellite (Sound) Service and a Mobile Satellite Service uplink in the 2300–2450 MHz range. The assessment is based upon measurements by the Institute for Telecommunication ...

Nancy A. Kuester, “Fading Allowance for Lower Decile SNR Calculations for HF Propagation Models,” Technical Memorandum TM-92-153, January 1992

Karl B. Nebbia, “Assessment of Technological Forecasting for Use in Spectrum Management,” Technical Memorandum TM-91-152, December 1991

Jeanne M. Ratzloff, Gregory R. Hand, and James S. Washburn, “User's Guide and Reference Manual for the Improved High-Frequency Spectrum Use Model,” Technical Memorandum TM-91-151, November 1991

In light of the decisions made by the Administrative Council of the International Telecommunications Union to postpone the high-frequency (HF) broadcast conference scheduled for 1993 the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences documents its improved...

James S. Washburn, Brent L. Bedford, and John R. Godwin, “HF Broadcast SSB Receiver Study: A Program Plan,” Technical Memorandum TM-91-150, November 1991

A program plan and its rationale are presented to determine estimates of the resources needed to test existing high-frequency (HF) broadcast receivers and to develop a single-sideband (SSB) HF broadcast "low-cost" prototype receiver. The plan include...

Nancy A. Kuester, “AMOS User's Manual,” Technical Memorandum TM-91-148, October 1991

F. Kenneth Steele, William B. Grant, and William E. Frazier, “Measured Characteristics of Selected Non-Licensed Radio Devices,” Technical Memorandum TM-91-149, April 1991

This report includes NTIA measurements of characteristics of nonlicensed devices. These devices are authorized under the FCC Rules in CFR 47, Part 15. The measured values are intended for use by the Government in analysis of potential interference be...

Evan J. Dutton and Michael A. Province, “An Automated Wide Area Prediction Model for Microwave Common Carrier Links,” Technical Memorandum TM-90-147, November 1990

A fully automated version of a model to predict relative received powers and bit error rates from microwave common carrier transmissions between e and er GHz is developed. Earlier computer programs that were not fully automated are discussed in the s...

The geostationary Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (GSOAP) analyzes system performance and mutual interference of communication satellites using the geostationary satellite orbit. This manual presents information necessary to the user of GSOAP, Versi...

Herbert K. Kobayashi, “Procedure for Calculating Power Density of a Parabolic Circular Reflector Antenna,” Technical Memorandum TM-90-145, February 1990

This technical report details a procedure for calculating the mainbeam off-axis power density in the near- and far-field of a parabolic circular reflector antenna. In the report, the on-axis procedures of an earlier report are extended to off-axis an...

Cesar A. Filippi, Steven E. Litts, Mary Jo Clarke, and Robert Gruendl, “Single and Aggregate Emission Level Models for Interference Analysis,” Technical Memorandum TM-89-139, March 1989

This report describes analysis models and software packages developed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for the assessment of single-entry and aggregate interference from terrestrial emitters into terrestrial or...

[to be added]

Karl B. Nebbia, Kenwyn J. Long, and Merton Sussman, “Spectrum Resource Assessment of the Federal Government Fixed Service (Bands above 400 MHz),” Technical Memorandum TM-87-127, September 1987

This report documents a spectrum resource assessment of the bands allocated to the Federal Government fixed service above 400 MHz on a primary basis. The assessment identifies allocations, standards, channeling plans and technological trends pertaini...

Andrew Farrar and Eugene Chang, “Procedures for Calculating Field Intensities of Antennas,” Technical Memorandum TM-87-129, September 1987

This report discusses simplified procedures for calculating near and far field intensities of several types of aperture and wire antennas. The antenna technical characteristics listed in the Government Master File (GMF) were reviewed. For this analy...

This report is a study of the potential for sharing in the 4500–4800 MHz band between the fixed-satellite service (FSS) and terrestrial (fixed and mobile) services. The report focuses on decisions of the WARC-ORB-85 concerning planning of the FSS in ...

William D. Speights, “NTIA Task Force Measurement Report: Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, MD,” Technical Memorandum TM-87-123, August 1987

This report documents the NTIA Task Force visit to the Naval Air Test Center (NATC), Patuxent River, MD, from January 13 through February 12, 1986, in response to a request from NATC, the Mid-Atlantic Area Frequency Coordinator, and the Navy Interdep...

Gordon A. Crandall III, “Assessment of Digital Radio Voice Protection for Government Land-Mobile Use,” Technical Memorandum TM-87-122, July 1987

This report documents an effort to measure the operational and performance characteristics of radios equipped with the Data Encryption Standard (DES), as applied to government land-mobile operations.

William D. Speights, “Application of Trunking to Government Land-Mobile Communications,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM-87-121, February 1987

Before 1987 no commercial trunking systems were available in any Government or non-Government band below 800 MHz. This study examines the application of trunking to the Government band 406–420 MHz. As a result of this study and subsequent discussions...

This report presents a bibliography, categorized by region, of some recent work on the high-latitude ionosphere. It contains a brief introduction to the characteristics of the ionosphere at high latitudes, and a synopsis of a few articles. The approa...

The possibility of allowing shipborne navigation radars within the 9300–9320 MHz band is being considered within Study Group 8 of the International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR) and within the United States preparation for the 1987 Mobile World...

The Technical Spectrum Efficiency Factor (TSEF) concept was developed in the Technical Subcommittee (TSC) of the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) and was applied, by NTIA, to government fixed telecommunications systems in the 7–8 GHz b...

Robert J. Mayher and John K. Lady, “Evaluation of Computer-Aided Spectrum Management in Venezuela,” Technical Memorandum TM-85-111, April 1985

This evaluation consisted of an on-site visit to the Ministerio de Transporte y Comunicaciones (MTC) in Venezuela in November 1984 and subsequent discussion between the representatives of the MTC and National Telecommunications and Information Admini...

Robert J. Mayher, John K. Lady, and Carl A. Winkler, “Evaluation of Computer-Aided Spectrum Management in Papua New Guinea ,” Technical Memorandum TM-85-109, February 1985

This report evaluates the spectrum management structure in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and recommends methods to improve spectrum management procedures and computer-aided techniques used by PNG. This evaluation consisted of an on-site visit to the Post a...

Hans J. Liebe and Gary G. Gimmestad, “EHF Transfer and Shielding Properties of Air: Summary of 1974–1977 Activities,” Technical Memorandum TM-77-242, October 1977

This is the final report on work performed at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences on “Atmospheric Transfer and Shielding Properties in the 50 to 75 GHz Band” (ARO Proposal NR. 12233 GS). The microwave spectrum of oxygen (02—MS ) was in...

Moody C. Thompson Jr., Lockett E. Wood, and Kenneth C. Allen, “A Calibrated Test Range for Evaluation of Refraction Correction Methods,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 77-235, May 1977

A 64 km path between the islands of Hawaiʻi and Maui was measured using a Geodimeter with refractive index correction based on airborne measurements of temperature along the line. The standard deviation of the slant range is estimaged as about 0.9 p...

Evan J. Dutton, Charles J. Chilton, and R. F. Martin Jr., “Computation of Propagation Effects for an Advanced Phased-Array Radar System, Volume I and II,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 75-209, October 1975

A theoretical expression for the received signal by a radar is reduced to a utilitarian form by the introduction of feasible approximations and assumptions, with concern expressed for the need for evaluation of errors caused by these approximations...

Vaughn L. Agy, “A review of land mobile radio,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 200, June 1975

This report summarizes non-government use of Land Mobile Radio. The services provided by LMR are described and the spectrum allocations are outlined. A brief discussion of the present overcrowding of the LMR bands is given along with suggestions that...

Darren L. Smith, F. George Kimmett, Charles A. Samson, and Albrecht P. Barsis, “Digital transmission test results over a long ll-GHz line-of-sight link,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 75 201, June 1975

Digital data transmission tests using a 12.6 Mb/s data stream (3-level partial response) were performed over a l16-kmline­of-sight link in northeastern Colorado using a carrier fre­quency in the 11.2 -11.45 GHz band. During the first four days of a f...

George A. Hufford, “Radio propagation to the offshore extended area,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 75 196, April 1975

The extended offshore test range proposed for the Pacific Missile Range will use high altitude aircraft to relay signals for tracking, telemetry, and control. This report treats the reliability of the radio propagation paths between these relays and ...

Evan J. Dutton and Charles J. Chilton, “Modeling propagation effects for an advanced phased-array radar system,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 75 195, March 1975

A theoretical expression for the received signal by a radar is reduced to a utilitarian form by the introduction of feasible first order approximations, and specifying where other common assumptions are made, with concern expressed for the need for e...

Darren L. Smith, “Measurement of interfer­ence effects between TDM-FM and FDM-FM microwave systems ,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 75 194, March 1975

Following the alignment and tuning of an analog FM microwave radio to handle a 12.6 Mb/s, 3-level partial response base­band, the effects of various types of interference on system performance were investigated. Since TDM-FM and FDM-FM microwave syst...

A computer procedure called program AREAPOP is used to count the number of persons and housing units within Grade A and Grade B service contours of 294 Public Broadcasting Service television stations in the United States. These population statistics ...

This memorandum is concerned with scintillation effects on digital multiple phase shift keying (MPSK) channels in presence of additive Gaussian noise. The basic channel statistics, such as the correlation bandwidth and related spreads, are introduce...

The Born approximation is used to derive a general expression for a radio wave passing through a random medium. The medium is characterized by a random index of refraction. An explicit transfer function is derived using the Fremouw and Rino model for...

Ernest K. Smith, “Considerations for digital encoding of the NTSC color television signal,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 74 189, December 1974

This report considers the minimum bit-rate required for trans­mission of NTSC video color standard when used for tele­conferencing. The smallest values are found for fixed cameras. The use of split screen images will increase the required bit­rate by...

This study concerns ionospheric scintillation as it affects satellite communications between about 100 MHz and 30 GHz. It is divided into three parts. The first part reviews the pertinent physics and suggests some boundaries and values for some of th...

Randolph H. Ott and James R. Wait, “A first approach to the propagation of lateral waves in an inhomogeneous jungle,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 73 154, November 1974

Estimates for the effects on a lateral wave of a clearing in a foliage layer are considered. A first-order solution to the integral equation for the mixed-path problem is derived and two examples are considered. They show that a m.id-path clearing ha...

Joseph E. Farrow, “AN/FRC-80(V)3 retune and time division multiplex interface investigation,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 74 182, October 1974

An analog FM microwave radio was tuned and tested to published specifications. Appropriate interface changes were determined and made to permit this radio to handle a 12.6 Mb/s 3-level partial response digital baseband. Pilot, orderwire, and combiner...

HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for Voice of America circuits using the OT/ITS prediction program. Some of the parameter s given are maximum usable frequency (MUF), the optimum traffic fre­quency (FOT), the lowest useful frequency (LU...

Earl C. Bolton, “Simulating Atmospheric Radio Noise at 60 kHz, 200 kHz, and 5 MHz,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 74 177, August 1974

Due to seasonal variations of thunderstorm activity, and owing to the nonstationary conditions of atmospheric radio noise, it generally is not feasible to conduct performance tests of radio communications systems during periods of actual thunderstorm...

VOLUME I: HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for Voice of America circuits using the OT/ITS prediction program. Some of the parameters given are maximum usable frequency, the optimum traffic frequency, the lowest useful frequency, availa...

W. M. Roberts and Garth Hill Stonehocker, “An analysis of the predicted HF station/frequency usage for the USCG SSB small craft communication system,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 75 193, August 1974

A study of the HF propagation using SSB voice communications for the U.S. Coast Guard's Automated Merchant Vessel Reporting (AMVER), voluntary weather observations n1.ETEO), and search and rescue (SAR) is presented in this paper. Charts of the Atlant...

This report contains a summary of work performed for the United States Information Agency, Voice of America, under contract IA-16744-23 for the period July 1973 through June 1974.

Martin Nesenbergs, “A first look at certain wideband detec­tion problems,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 74 175, June 1974

We consider a wideband detection problem where the number and struc­ture of the received signal set is arbitrary. A particular spectral weighting approach is taken and the processing results are found to be inadequate. The search for substantially be...

Randolph H. Ott, “The radiation fields from HF coastal antennas,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 74 174, June 1974

The radiation fields (i. e., elevation patterns) of HF coastal antennas are computed for several possible terrain profiles near land-sea bound­aries. The numerical technique for evaluating the radiation fields is compared with analytical formulas if ...

This report reviews the available documentation for two links of the FACSFAC microwave system and the findings of on-site inspections. It is recommended that the present maintenance program be supplemented by additional performance monitoring. This s...

HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for 35 circuits from the Voice of America transmitting facility at Tinang, P. I. and 30 circuits from their facility at Kava1a, Greece, using the OT/ITS prediction program. The program selects the optim...

Paul I. Wells, “A summary report on the digital selective calling program at ITS,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 74 163, April 1974

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences provided technical assistance to the Maritime Administration in the development of a digital selective calling system for use by the maritime mobile service. This report summarizes the work performed on th...

Eldon J. Haakinson, “Spectrum resource assessment for the 1535-1660 MHz band, Phase II -Analysis,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 74 165, March 1974

The potential interference between systems in the 1535-1660 MHz bands was investigated. This investigation shows that all intersystem inter­actions could be placed in Serious, Manageable or No Problem categories. The single serious problem results fr...

W. M. Roberts and T. A. Harr Jr., “Calculations of inter­ference potential between geostationary satellite networks: program WARC 71.A29 user's manual,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 74 161, March 1974

This user's manual contains a program description of what the "WARC 71.A29" does, a sample calculation, explanations, and instructions for use of the program. Guidance is provided as to the various sources of information needed to operate the program...

Jean E. Adams and J. E. Falcon, “An analysis of the pre­dicted HF station/frequency usage for the USCG Pacific AMVER communication system,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 74 162, February 1974

The Pacific Basin AMVER communications system was examined over extremes of ionospheric and noise parameters. An analysis was made of the station-frequency pairs available for communicating to 286 simu­lated ship positions in the area and recommendat...

VOLUME I: HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for Voice of America circuits using the OT/ITS prediction program. Some of the parameters given are maximum usable frequency, the optimum traffic frequency, the lowest useful frequency, availa...

HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for Voice of America circuits using the OT/ITS prediction program. Some of the parameters given are maximum usable frequency, the optimum traffic frequency, the lowest useful frequency, available signal...

HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for 35 circuits from the Voice of America transmitting facility at Tinang, P. I. and 30 circuits from their facility at Kava1a, Greece, using the OT/ITS prediction program. The program selects the optim...

HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for 35 circuits from the Voice of America transmitting facility at Tinang, P. I. and 30 circuits from their facility at Kavala, Greece, using the OT/ITS prediction program. The program selects the optim...

HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for Voice of America circuits using the OT/ITS prediction program. Some of the parameters given are maximum usable frequency, the optimum traffic frequency, the lowest useful frequency, available signal...

Alfred F. Barghausen and Robert J. Matheson, “Measurement report on radar operations in Washington, D.C., and vicinity, March-May 1974,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 74 176R, January 1974

This report contains a summary of work performed for the United States Information Agency, Voice of America, under contract IA-16129-23 for the period July 1972 through June 1973.

HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for Voice of America circuits using the OT/ITS prediction program. Some of the parameters given are maximum usable frequency (MUF), the optimum traffic fre­quency (FOT), the lowest useful frequency (LUF...

Donald R. Ewing, “Computer access to geographic distribution of the population,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 73 146, July 1973

A computer procedure is described which provides a map of population and/ or housing units. Another procedure finds the population within arbi­trary circles. The data base is the 1970 Master Enumeration District List, with coordinates, furnished by t...

Ernest K. Smith, “Pirate radio broadcasting: some technical comments on a current case in point,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 73 150, April 1973

M. F. broadcasting from. so-called "pirate" radio stations has plagued many of the advanced countries of the world. With the final disposition of the WXUR case in June 1973, Dr. Carl McIntire appears to be making good his proposal to resume broadcast...

HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for Voice of America circuits using the OT/ITS prediction program. Some of the parameters given are maximum usable frequency (MUF), the· optimum traffic fre­quency (FOT), the lowest useful frequency (LU...

HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for circuits from the Voice of America transmitting facility at Tinang, P. I. and 25 circuits from their facility at Kavala, Greece, using the OT/ITS prediction pro­gram. The program selects the optimum...

HF radio propagation predictions are calculated for 35 circuits from the Voice of America transmitting facility at Tinang, p. I. and 30 circuits from their facility at Kavala, Greece, using the OT/ITS prediction pro­gram. The program selects the opti...

Herman V. Cottony, “Evaluation of Beverage antennas for HF, over-the-horizon radar applications,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 73 145C, January 1973

A novel, five-wire, rhomboid-shaped Beverage developed at Rome Air Development Center, Griffiss AFB, is examined from the standpoint of its applicability to HF, over-the-horizon radar. Both receiving and transmitting applications are considered. The ...

George A. Hufford, “A User’s Guide to Path Loss Computations,” Technical Memorandum OT TM 104, September 1972

Program LOSS was designed to compute estimated statistics of the path loss between two radio antennas operating at frequencies between 20 MHz and 20 GHz. It was written specifically for the CDC 3000 and 6000 series of computers. This "User’s Gu...

Hiroshi Akima, “Proposed code for the decision information distribution system,” Technical Memorandum OT ITSTM 34, April 1971

A binary code that satisfies requirements for the Decision Information Distribution System (DIDS) is generated. Requirements for the code, procedure for generating such a code, and resulting code are described. Comparison with the theoretical bounds ...

Donald R. Ewing, “The population with various distances of selected radio and television stations,” Technical Memorandum OT ITSTM 31, April 1971

This report tabulate s population data for the area surrounding 322 selected radio and television stations in the continental United States. Specifically, the population within 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70 miles is estimated. Associated rankings an...

Robert W. Hubbard, Joseph A. Hull, G. D. Thayer, and Philip L. Rice, “An experimental study of the temporal statistics of radio signals scattered by rain,” Technical Memorandum OT ITSTM 37, March 1971

A fixed-beam, bistatic CW experiment designed to measure the temporal statistics of the volume reflectivity produced by hydrometeors at several selected altitudes, scattering angles and at two frequencies (3. 6 and 7. 8 GHz) is described. Surface rai...

J. Ralph Johler and Carlene M. Mellecker, “Computer programs for theoretical LF, VLF field calculations with spherical wave functions of integer order,” Technical Memorandum OT ITS TM 24, February 1971

The subject computer programs are described and the FORTRAN source decks are Listed. The physical problem solved by the computer program is described. It allows an anisotropic ionospheric model, and variations in the model along the propagation path....

Robert T. Disney, “Electromagnetic interference environment measurement and prediction considerations,” Technical Memorandum OT ITS TM 28, February 1971

The determination of an optimum receiving system for a given class of signals or how satisfactorily a given receiving system will operate requires information on the interference environment in which the system must operate. The important interferenc...

G. D. Gierhart and M. E. Johnson, “Interference Predictions for VHF/UHF Air Navigation Aids (Supplement to IER 26-ITSA 26 and ERL 138-ITS 95),” Technical Memorandum OT/ITSTM 19, January 1971

This report supplements information previously developed by the authors on interference predictions for VHF/UHF air navigation aids, Included are (a) radiation patterns needed to adapt curves previously developed for the Instrument Landing System (IL...

William J. Hartman, “A Study and Forecast of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Technology (Part III),” Technical Memorandum OT ITSTM 25, January 1971

Some factors which could or should affect frequency allocations and assignments in the future are considered. These include propagation predictions, modulation, coding and information processing. In addition a forecast of the use of cables as replace...

Jean E. Adams and Dale N. Hatfield, “Optimum HF frequencies for U. S. Coast Guard ice broadcasts on CW and FAX for 1971,” Technical Memorandum OT ITS TM 15, January 1971

A computer based simulation model (Hatfield and Adams, 1970) was used to analyze the coverage obtained in the Command and Control and Arctic areas when transmitting CW and FAX from the U.S. Coast Guard's Otis AFB, Cape Cod, Massachusetts facility. Th...

Jean E. Adams and Dale N. Hatfield, “A site selection study for a U. S. Coast Guard, East Coast, long range radio station, Part 2 of 2,” Technical Memorandum OT ITS TM 23, January 1971

The three sites selected by USCS as a result of Part 1 have been simulated in combination with the seven existing radio stations. The HF (4-22 MHz) predicted performance for all such combinations has been computed for the worst case propagation condi...

Roger K. Salaman, Gene G. Ax, and Arthur C. Stewart, “Radio Channel Characterization ,” Technical Memorandum OT ITS TM 27, January 1971

The critically increasing demand for radio frequency allocations has stimulated development of information needed to reexamine efficient use of the radio spectrum. The characteristics and limitations, of the radio channel, with emphasis on the transm...

During the Engineering Experimental Phase (1971–73) of the National Data Buoy Development Project, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) will deploy a network of automatic buoys in the Gulf of Mexico. They will gather oceanographic and meteorological data that...

James C. Blair, “Backscatter studies and 3 D ray tracing final report,” Technical Memorandum OT ITSTM 16, November 1970

Azimuth and spectrum spread was measured from sidescatter and great circle signals over two transmission paths: Washington, D. C. to Boulder, Colorado, and Long Branch, Illinois, to Boulder. Both Doppler and fading spread were measured. The effective...

Clark C. Watterson, “Simulation of ionospheric dispersion,” Technical Memorandum OT ITS TM 7, November 1970

An ideal dispersion filter for simulating ionospheric dispersion is defined as one with constant dispersion in a channel frequency band and zero dispersion outside the band. An optimum lumped-element all-pass filter that approximates this ideal has a...

Leslie A. Berry and R. Michael Jones, “A time-varying electron density model for LF/VLF propagation calculations,,” Technical Memorandum OT ITSTM 3, October 1970

Published measured profiles of the lower ionosphere are used as the basis of an analytic model of the D-region electron density which varies with the sun’s zenith angle. The model is the sum of an exponential layer and a daytime Chapman-like C-layer....

L. Roger Espeland and Arthur D. Spaulding, “Amplitude and Time Statistics for Atmospheric Radio Noise,” Technical Memorandum ESSA ERLTM-ITS 253, September 1970

Typical amplitude and time statistics of atmospheric radio noise for the four seasons, spring, summer fall, and winter, are given. The statistics were obtained from detailed computer analysis of high-dynamic range tape recordings of the noise process...

Douglass D. Crombie, “Further HF tests on the Wyoming Buried Dipole,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 250, September 1970

Tests of the radiation efficiency of a dipole antenna 100 ft. long and buried in Sherman granite are described. The measurements were taken under winter conditions as a comparison with earlier measure­ments made in summertime; this determines whether...

Jean E. Adams and Dale N. Hatfield, “A Site Selection Study for a U.S. Coast Guard, East Coast, Long Range Radio Station, Part 1 of 2,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM 245, August 1970

A total of six possible pairs of sites for a new U.S. Coast Guard, long ­range, HF radio station is evaluated. These six pairs of sites are made up of different combinations of four different transmitter sites and six different receiver sites. The an...

Donald H. Zacharisen, Rayner K. Rosich, and G. R. Enoch, “A Numerical Method for Predicting the F1 Layer Critical Frequency,” Technical Memorandum NTIA TM 243, August 1970

The F1 layer is not explicitly included in current ITS high frequency radio propagation predictions. Numerical maps of F1 layer characteristics, similar to those for F2, E, and Es characteristics now in use, were rejected in favor of a more concise r...

Jean E. Adams, “Ketchikan 2182 kHz communication,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 241, July 1970

The present 2182 kHz communication between Ketchikan, Alaska, and ships or boats within 300 nautical miles of Ketchikan Coast Guard Station is poor. Calculations have been made of predicted sky-wave mode performance for representative circuits with s...

Leslie A. Berry and Gene G. Ax, “Coast Guard Communication Coverage of the Gulf of Mexico at 500 kHz,” Technical Memorandum ERLTM-ITS 242, July 1970

The area in the Gulf of Mexico covered 85 percent of the time in the noisiest CCIR time block by the Coast Guard is calculated based on standard ground wave propagation and CCIR noise predictions. Most of the Gulf within 300 miles of the shore is cov...

J. Ralph Johler and Duane C. Hyovalti, “Radio Navigation Coordinate Corrections for Excess Phase Accumulation Over Irregular, Inhomogeneous Terrain,” Technical Memorandum ERLTM-ITS 220, July 1970

Radio navigation systems such as Loran C,D operate on ground waves over distances up to 3000 or 4000 km from the transmitters. If the ground is inhomogeneous and irregular, the wave propagation may be considerably different from the classical smooth,...

High altitude nuclear detonations yield X-rays which produce intense ionization in about 1 μs at heights much lower than those of the normal D region. The ionization begins to decay immediately. This leads to a very complicated profile of ionization ...

Arthur D. Spaulding, “Measured versus theoretical performance of receivers of the minuteman launch control type,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 234, May 1970

Comparisons are made between all the past measurements of Minuteman launch control type receivers, and these measurements are compared with the theoretical performance for receivers of this type acting in atmospheric noise. Comparisons are made for b...

Paul L. McQuate, “Feasibility of Angle Diversity Operation over a Long Obstacle-Diffraction Link,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS, May 1970

The feasibility of angle diversity reception over a 404 km obstacle­-diffraction link in southern Europe was investigated during the summer of 1969. The primary objective of the measurement program was to determine the effectiveness of an experimenta...

T. Layne Livingston and Donald R. Macken, “Recommendations for expansion of the National Crime Information Center telecommunication network,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 230, April 1970

This report describes a study by the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS), to plan a moderate expansion of the National Crime Information Center communication system. Improvements discussed are transmission of data at higher rates than curr...

Robert W. Hubbard, Donald V. Glen, and William J. Hartman, “Modulation characteristics critical to frequency planning for the aero­nautical services,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 232, April 1970

This report summarizes and presents in mathematical, graphical, and tabular form the fundamental characteristics of basic analog and digital modulation processes used in the Air Traffic Control (ATC) communication system. Single channel modes of ...

John J. Tary and T. Layne Livingston, “A Peak FM Deviation Calibrator Graph,” Technical Memorandum TM ITS 229, April 1970

Use of a decibel plot for the Bessel function makes it a simple task to obtain the single tone peak deviation of FM radio systems. The procedure offers ways to calibrate deviation meters, supplement the carrier disappearance technique, and check the ...

Raymond Gallagher and Martin Nesenbergs, “Error control coding for IGOSS,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 233, April 1970

This study presents one-way error correcting techniques for IGOSS (Integrated Global Ocean Station System) channels. Emphasis is on applicable HF radio experiments and alternative simple implementations. The "most promising" 1/2 rate code for IGOSS i...

T. M. Georges and W. H. Hooke, “Studies in Ionospheric Dynamics,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 233, April 1970

1. The F2-region ionospheric response to individual internal gravity waves is calculated as a function of the azimuth of wave propagation. The physical basis for the great anisotropy of the ionospheric response is discussed. 2. We present computer pl...

Swept frequency (CHIRP) modulation is analyzed as to its suitability for use in the Integrated Global Ocean Station System (IGOSS), a system for the collection of synoptic data from ocean platforms (buoys and/ or ships) using high frequency (HF) radi...

James M. Watts, “Instrumentation for observing HF sea scatter ,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 233, March 1970

This paper describes instrumentation for recording digitally the relative phase and amplitude of MF and HF radio signals back­scattered from ocean waves. Eight stepped frequencies, two spaced receiving antennas, and four different ranges are used. T...

J. B. McCrumb Lt., “A comparison of one-third rate con­volutional codes with the (15,5) BCH Code, ,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 226, March 1970

This report proposes and compares convolutional codes with the (15,5) BCH code. Word-error probabilities are computed for each of the codes with the convolutional codes performing at least an order of magnitude better than the (15,5) BCH code. The co...

Robert J. Matheson and Martin Nesenbergs, “An encoder and mini­mum distance decoder for teleprinter channels with error bursts,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 249, January 1970

An operational one -way error correcting system is described that employs an interleaved block code with one -third rate and minimum distance decoding. For each decoded output character, the receiver also provides the minimum distance count. All timi...

Martin Nesenbergs, “Optimum noncoherent receivers for coded binary FSK ,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 222, January 1970

It is shown that the optimum receiver for coded binary noncoherent Fre­quency Shift Keying (FSK) depends on the Joint probability distribution of mark and space channel phases. Ideal Gaussian noise, steady signal, and perfect timing are assumed throu...

Kenneth Alva Norton, Donald R. Ewing, Peter G. Ratcliffe, and Robert S. Kirby, “The distribution of the population in the continental United States, Canada, and Mexico within various distances from 1361 television market centers,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 244, January 1970

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences with the aid of the U. S. Bureau of the Census has undertaken a study of the distribution of the population within 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70 miles of 1120 selected television market centers within the...

C. F. Peterson, Leo J. Maloney, and Charles A. Samson, “A radio-meteorological investigation of fading at 2 GHz in the Mekong Delta ,” Technical Memorandum ERLTM ITS 248, January 1970

Intensive radio and meteorological measurements were conducted on two beyond-the-horizon links during January, February, and March of 1970 to investigate the possible causes of severe fading and to determine corrective action for existing paths in th...

Joseph A. Hull, Philip L. Rice, Robert W. Hubbard, and G. D. Thayer, “An Experiment for the Study of Earth Station–Terrestrial Station Interference, Part I — Interference Model for Rain Scatter and Fixed-beam Experiment,” Technical Memorandum OT ITS TM 14, January 1970

Rain gauge data measured at the sub-common volume points when converted to an equivalent radar reflectivity and plotted in terms of a cumulative distribution correlates well with the similar cumulative distributions for the bistatic reflectivity for ...

J. Ralph Johler and Duane C. Hyovalti, “Radio navigation coordinate corrections for excess phase accumulation over irregular, inhomogeneous terrain,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 220, January 1970

This report reviews the techniques for calculating position with the Loran navigation system, including the use of phase correction factors computed for ground wave propagation over a smooth spherical earth. If the earth is rough or inhomogeneous, th...

A computer program. for calculating ground wave propagation in an ionized atmosphere is documented and listed. The conductivity of the atmosphere can vary in an arbitrary way with altitude. The notion of continuous stratification of the profile has b...

A description of the development and details of a range estimation computer program is presented. The program was tested with about 1700 range estimates with known sources. While the median range estimate errors generally fell in the 5-10 percent ran...

John J. Tary and R. D. Moody, “Bristol, Tennessee, radio frequency interference environment survey,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 221, December 1969

A theoretical study has been performed of the radio frequency inter­ference (RFI) environment for existing electronic equipment and a proposed WSR-57 /MCW weather radar system installation on Holston Mountain and at Tri-City Airport, Tennessee. There...

F. George Kimmett, Laurance G. Hause, and Paul L. McQuate, “UHF propagation measurements from elevated to buried antennas,” Technical Memorandum ER LTM ITS 210, December 1969

This report describes many of the UHF propagation characteristics between aircraft or satellites and buried antennas. A vertical monopole was used as a reference antenna, and the propagation characteristics of an annular slot and other antennas, omni...

Laurance G. Hause and F. George Kimmett, “UHF Buried Antenna Path Loss Measurements,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 206, October 1969

Ground-to-ground path loss measurements are tabulated and discussed for paths terminated in surface and buried antennas, with and without security fences. Both horizontally and vertically polarized antennas at 415.9 MHz were used. Path lengths varied...

C. F. Peterson, Joseph E. Farrow, and Leo J. Maloney, “Post-acceptance System Performance Measurements on the Integrated Wideband Communication System, Area II,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 199, October 1969

During the spring of 1969, measurements of received signal level, message channel quality, and other pertinent system parameters were made on two radio links of the Integrated Wideband Communication System in Thailand. The program was initiated to in...

Clark C. Watterson, “An ionospheric channel simulator,” Technical Memorandum ERLTM ITS 198, September 1969

An ionospheric channel simulator with characteristics based on an experimentally verified channel model is described. In the channel model, the input (transmitted) signal feeds a delay line that delivers undistorted delayed versions of the input sign...

In this period the HF timeshare program was updated to include circuit reliabilities under Task I. For Task II an investigation showed that variation of foFl could be satisfactorily represented by a formula expressing the dependence of foFl on solar ...

G. D. Gierhart and M. E. Johnson, “Effects of security fences on VHF/UHF propagation,” Technical Memorandum ERLTM ITS 196, August 1969

A method of estimating the basic transmission loss, Lb, for VHF/UHF links that have low or buried antennas surrounded by security fences is presented, Estimates of Lb obtained are compared with experimental data.

Jean E. Adams, Dale N. Hatfield, and Judd A. Payne, “A feasibility study of a proposed national oceanographic data buoy HF communication system,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 205, August 1969

This report describes a feasibility study of an HF telemetry system to be used in gathering oceanographic and meteorological data from 35 buoys. Predictions of long-term circuit performance show that such a telemetry system of nominal characteristics...

Richard E. Skerjanec, “A note on measured spatial correlation coefficients between VHF signals received in irregular terrain,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 197, August 1969

Correlation measurements at a limited number of arbitrary locations were made during the feasibility study of frequency sharing between VHF TV and the Land Mobile Radio Services. Results of the data analysis are presented here in terms of cumulative ...

Paul L. McQuate, “Propagation measure­ments on two line-of-sight paths in Germany,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 192, August 1969

Received signal level recording on two long line-of-sight paths with a common terminal showed that a relatively steep path elevation angle will not eliminate occasional deep fading. Most of the deeper fading occurred during periods of weak winds when...

Laurance G. Hause and F. George Kimmett, “Phase-interference Fading from Multiple Co-channel Sources,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 179, July 1969

Laboratory and field tests were performed to investigate the nature of interference fading from multiple sources. Fading frequency, rates, and depths were measured, and conditions expected at actual sites common to several paths were investigated. Th...

R. Marshall Coon, R. M. Demmer, and Clark C. Watterson, “Performance of a multiple transmitter system in Gaussian noise,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 178, July 1969

A multiple transmitter system, where transmitters at different locations send the same message simultaneously, was tested in the laboratory under simulated typical conditions. The results agreed very closely with those obtained theoretically and show...

J. V. Cateora, “Computer synthesis of simulcast broadcasting,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 180, July 1969

Simulcast is a system of broadcasting in which several carriers, each containing the same information and having equal frequencies, are used. In such a system, transmitter frequency drift, random phase between transmitters, and other factors will cau...

George A. Hufford, “UHF Propagation from Buried Antennas,” Technical Memorandum ERLTM-ITS 191, July 1969

This paper poses, and attempts to answer, some of the questions involved when a UHF antenna is buried in the ground. A description of the basic theory is given, together with illustrative calculations for many situations of interest. Graphs are prese...

Jean E. Adams, “Antennas for an Ocean Buoy HF Telemetry Station,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 183, June 1969

This report reviews antenna configurations for use on an ocean data buoy platform. Both electrical and mechanical requirements are con­sidered. A sleeve dipole antenna appears most suitable for small buoys. For large buoys. a discone antenna should b...

Randolph H. Ott and Janet E. Herman, “Preliminary study of satellite multipath interference characteristics,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 176, June 1969

The effects of multipath arising when a signal transmitted from a User satellite is scattered by the earth before reaching a tracking and delay relay satellite (TRDS) in stationary orbit are considered. An upper bound for the probability of the scatt...

Rayner K. Rosich, “Predicting the power requirements of high-frequency ionospheric telecommunication circuits,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 169, April 1969

An algorithm is presented which permits calculation of the transmitter power required to achieve a given value of circuit reliability or service probability and time availability on high-frequency ionospheric tele­communication systems. The accuracy ...

Moody C. Thompson Jr. and Harris B. Janes, “Effects of sea reflections on phase of arrival of line-of-sight Signals,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 163, April 1969

Continuous wave signals at 9. 6 GHz were propagated over a 97 -KM overwater path extending from 80 m to 3000 IT) above mean sea level. Variations in phase of arrival of the signals received by antennas having 1. 2 and 5* beam widths were recorded sim...

Janet E. Herman and Randolph H. Ott, “Terrain Effects on Antenna Radiation Patterns. Part I: Mapping Irregular Terrain,” Technical Memorandum ERML ITS 160, April 1969

A numerical technique for mapping irregular terrain is described. The input data are fitted with a finite series of Gaussian functions, and a computer program evaluates the unknown constants in the functions. Two numerical examples are considered, ...

Robert T. Disney, Arthur D. Spaulding, and L. Roger Espeland, “High frequency electromagnetic interference environmental changes expected from future developments near U. S. Navy antenna sites,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 165, April 1969

An estimate of the existing HF electromagnetic interference environ­ment was made for the U. S. Navy receiving antenna area in Bremerhaven, Germany. The estimate was based on land use in the area and measure­ments of man-made radio noise from various...

Margo Leftin and Rudolph G. Peterson, “Progress report to Depart­ment of Defense Contract No. 68 LYN/PR-77235,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 164, March 1969

The results of three research projects for the period January 1968 through December 1968 are reviewed. The first was to develop a program (ALLMODES) that presents circuit data for the 7 most probable ionospheric sky-wave transmission modes. The secon...

Donald H. Zacharisen, Sidney Maurice Ostrow, and Gene C. Huang, “Validity of revision factors in updating long-term F2-layer maximum usable frequency predictions, ,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 156, February 1969

Based on trends of recent ionospheric and solar data, the IPR series of Semimonthly Revision Factors for ITS Ionospheric Predictions provides corrections to the monthly ITS Ionospheric Predictions for F2-layer MUF. Accuracy of the IPR revision factor...

Donald R. Ewing, “FORTRAN routines for printer-plotting distribution functions on a normally scaled graph,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 159, February 1969

This memorandum describes FORTRAN routines for printer-plotting distribution functions on a normally scaled graph. Included are related routines for handling distribution functions.

John J. Tary and T. Layne Livingston, “Larch Mountain-Capital Peak radar and communication radio frequency interference survey,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 177, January 1969

A theoretical study of the radio frequency interference (RFI) environment has been performed for an existing communication complex that uses VHF, UHF, and microwave communication equipment and is located On top of Capitol Peak in the State of Washing...

Moody C. Thompson Jr., Lockett E. Wood, and Harris B. Janes, “Use of radio-optical dispersion to study radio range errors on moving paths,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 190, January 1969

Supported by data taken over a 65-km. slant path with fixed terminals, this report suggests exploitation of the dispersion between radio and optical signals for studying the atmospheric errors in radio range measurements over propagation paths with a...

Arthur D. Spaulding, Robert T. Disney, and L. Roger Espeland, “SAMSO Phase C -Final Report noise data and analysis,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 184, January 1969

Atmospheric radio-noise samples were recorded near Boulder, Colorado, and analyzed to obtain amplitude and time statistics of MF and HF noise. Amplitude and time statistics derived from the Hall model were com­pared with the corresponding measured st...

John R. Juroshek, “Analysis of a propagation channel for a digital communication system,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 218, January 1969

A hypothetical aircraft-to-ground communication channel is examined for frequencies in the 2 -30 MHz band, and in the 200 -400 band. The channel is characterized by its correlation function and scatter function. Particular attention is given to the e...

Robert S. Kirby and Charles A. Samson, “A study of radar microwave relay outages On the aurora, Illinois -LaGrange, Indiana, RML System,” Technical Memorandum ERLTM ITS, January 1969

An investigation of radar microwave relay outages resulting from excessive fading on the line-of-sight microwave relay system indicated that most were caused by multipath propagation which resulted in phase interference fading. Rain attenuation was...

Verlyn D. Kuhlmann, “A time-share HF system performance prediction program and its implementation,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 189, January 1969

The ESSA/ITS HF system performance prediction program has been modified and adapted to operate on a time-share computer. The problems and solutions of implementation are discussed. A description is given of the routines used in the prediction program...

Harris B. Janes et al., “Experimental evaluation of several refractivity correctors for microwave slant-range data,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 174, January 1969

An evaluation of three refractivity variables in terms of their value in correcting microwave slant-range data for atmospheric effects is described. Experiments were conducted in Hawaii in 1967 on a fixed, 65 km overwater propagation path. The data o...

Harry E. Petrie and W. M. Roberts, “Telecommunication Services Center User Manual,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 212, January 1969

This manual describes services provided by the Telecommunication Services Center to support operation of high-frequency ionospheric communications systems. The communicator obtains services he requires by a TTY terminal in his facility. Use of a dedi...

James L. Montgomery, “A note on selected definitions of effective antenna heights,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM 158, January 1969

This report describes an experiment in which some computations are compared with available field strength data. Several models are proposed which compute an effective height by using a least squares fit to various sections of the terrain profile. Als...

Martin Nesenbergs, “Word synchronization for IGOSS,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM 182, January 1969

This report is a system description and performance evaluation of a two-way system for communicating between a shore station and one or more ocean buoys or ships. The probabilities of various errors of omission and commission are considered. It is co...

Richard L. Lewis, “Fortran programs for computing spherical Bessel functions,” Technical Memorandum IER TMC ITSA 53, October 1968

Three FORTRAN computer programs for generating spherical Bessel functions are described. A brief discussion of the method of calculation and the capabilities of the programs is followed by a detailed "users manual". The program listings are included ...

Richard E. Skerjanec, Charles A. Samson, and C. F. Peterson, “Space and Frequency diversity measurements on a line-of­-sight path in Ohio,” Technical Memorandum TM ITS 145, October 1968

Propagation measurements were made at 6. 8 GHz during August 1967 over a 65-km. line-of-sight path in Ohio. During three periods of severe fading, both space and frequency diversity provided marked improvement over nondiversity operation. Comparisons...

Pitt W. Arnold and Lillie C. Walters, “Near-zone field strengths at the Platteville, Colorado, HF Radar Site,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 148, October 1968

Near-zone field strengths are calculated both on axis and on a grid behind the high power electronically steerable HF radar array to be erected near Platteville, Colorado. These calculations and measurements of the shielding effectiveness of the buil...

Hiroshi Akima, “A method of high precision arithmetic,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 144, September 1968

A method of high precision arithmetic has been devised for the CDC-3800 computer based on nonstandard type. The precision extends up to 324 bits for normal arithmetic operations, and up to approximately 310 bits for exponentiation.

Donald R. Macken, T. Layne Livingston, and C. L. Harbison, “Acoustic signatures from a 100, OOO-pound TNT explosion recorded at distant locations,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 149, July 1968

Two charges of TNT, each 100,000 Ib in size and hemispherical in shape, were detonated at ground level on the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. One function of the experiment was to measure the propagation and spectral characteristics of the aco...

Jean E. Adams, “Performance Measurements of Two HF Operational Antennas at Chesapeake Beach, Maryland,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 129, June 1968

The radiation patterns and power gains of two HF corner reflector array antennas--a two-element corner-reflector array antenna rotatable in azimuth and operating from 10 to 27 MHz, and a 20-element corner­-reflector array antenna mechanically fixed i...

This report presents the results of laboratory tests conducted to make preliminary determination of the required protection ratios for satisfactory sharing service in a VHF ATC communications system. The data given may be used to predict a quantitati...

Mark T. Ma and Lillie C. Walters, “Additional computed radiation patterns of log-periodic antennas over lossy plane ground,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 126, January 1968

This report is a supplement to ESSA Tech. Report IER 54-ITSA 52 by the same authors. Two additional models of log-periodic dipole arrays over several types of ground are studied in the present work. The total field above the ground is computed and pl...

In this report is described a highly flexible digital data acquisitions system that can be duplicated for $8,000. The system is for VLF research, but it could be easily adapted to a wide variety of problems. It is capable of sampling up to 16 channel...

F. Kenneth Steele and A. H. Diede, “Observations of the multiple frequency omega transmissions,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 132, January 1968

Observations of 9.2, 11. 2, 12.2, 13.6, 15.2, and 17.2 kHz Omega signals radiated from Forestport, New York, and from Haiku, Hawaii, as received at Boulder, Colo., and at Anchorage, Alaska, are presented. Phase and amplitude data collected at these f...

John J. Tary, T. Layne Livingston, and Donald R. Macken, “Application of multiplex channels on FM and TV broadcast stations to educational needs,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 128, January 1968

Most radio systems are designed with bandwidths that are wider than necessary, resulting in wasteful use of the radio spectrum and failure to fully utilize the system capacity. This report reviews efforts to multiplex additional communications channe...

Lowell H. Tveten, Robert D. Hunsucker, W. J. Surtees, and Leslie A. Berry, “Backscatter studies and 3 -D ray tracing final report,” Technical Memorandum ERL TM ITS 136, January 1968

Feasibility of using backscatter to assess the accuracy of simultaneous direction-of-arrival measurements indicates poorer direction-of-arrival readings when backscatter shows travelling ionospheric disturbances. (Applies to simple mode paths.) The t...

Ionospheric irregularities represent departures from the ambient of up to 50% in electron density. Periods of high magnetic activity exhibit direction-of-arrival deviations which are more frequent and of greater magnitude than quiet periods. Mills T ...

Laurance G. Hause and Roger K. Salaman, “Communications Task ­a study of propagation and noise for advanced ICBM weapons systems, Vol. IV Test Plan (Appendix 6),” Technical Memorandum RL TM ITS 110, December 1967

This final report contains the results of an extensive study program, the development of a method for evaluating candidate communication systems, and the design of a test plan to supplement the information from the study program and provide realistic...

Richard E. Skerjanec, “An Interim Report on Nanosecond Pulse Propagation over Line-of-Sight Paths,” Technical Memorandum IER TM ITSA 92, October 1967

During October and November 1966, propagation measurements were made on two-line-of-sight paths between the islands of Maui and Hawaii, utilizing paths of a nominal 1-ns width at a carrier frequency of approxi­mately 9 GHz. Prime objective was to det...

Margo Leftin, Sidney Maurice Ostrow, and C. Preston, “Numerical maps of monthly median h’F, F2 for solar cycle minimum and maximum,” Technical Memorandum IER TM ITSA 69, July 1967

Numerical maps of h IF, F2 were prepared for all 12 months of 1954, a solar cycle minimum year, and of 1958, a solar cycle maximum year. To fill major gaps in the world coverage of observed data for these years, we used some supplementary data observ...

An investigation of the performance of a 405 km obstacle -diffraction radio link between Germany and Italy was made during June and July J 966 to evaluate contributions of both the antenna system and local meteorological conditions to propagation out...

Antenna performance measurements were made on five HF antennas to determine their acceptance as prototype antennas for the Air Force HF communication circuits. The impedances. power gain, and radiation patterns of two of the log periodic antennas are...

Laurance G. Hause and C. F. Peterson, “Passive reflector measurements at 9.2 and 4.6 GHz,” Technical Memorandum IER TM ITSA 64, June 1967

1. Path loss median values can be substantially greater than one might expect from simple line-of-sight calculations especially where one leg of the path is very long. 2. Small passive reflectors have application at frequencies considerably below 4 ...

Herman V. Cottony, “Measurement of antenna radiation efficiencies,” Technical Memorandum IER TM ITSA, May 1967

The definition of radiation efficiency is stated and the principles and practice s in measuring it are reviewed. Particular attention is given to the rhombic antenna because of its practical importance at HF and because its efficiency can be determin...

R. Marshall Coon and W. D. Bensema, “Instrumentation and analysis technique for the measurement of HF channel characteristics,” Technical Memorandum IER TM ITSA 11, March 1967

This report describes a means of measuring and analyzing the transfer characteristic of an HF channel in terms of the effects of the medium on 229 closely spaced sinusoids. The method involves transmission, reception, measurement, and computer analys...

Significant channel characteristics of HF communication circuits are reviewed, with particular emphasis on their importance in the evaluation and selection of useful operating frequencies. Various theoretical and experimental results from several sou...

Robert T. Disney, Arthur D. Spaulding, William Q. Crichlow, and R. C. Davis, “Minuteman Radio Launch Control System Studies and Site Survey,” Technical Memorandum IER TM ITSA 32, March 1967

To evaluate the performance of the Minuteman Radio Launch Control System, a number of factors were investigated. This report gives the results of the field measurement programs conducted by ITSA. In addition to the radio noise evaluation, measurement...

Douglass D. Crombie and James M. Watts, “Observations of coherent backscattering of hectometric radiowaves from along the sea surface,” Technical Memorandum IER TM ITSA, February 1967

Observations of coherent backscatter from the surface of the sea, at range s up to 200 km, using a slightly modified ionosonde are described. The range of frequencies used was between 2.6 and 8.5 MHz corresponding to sea wave lengths of 58 -17m and ...

G. D. Gierhart, “Frequency sharing with air traffic control satellites,” Technical Memorandum IERTM-ITSA-26, January 1967

Technical information relevant to the solution of frequency sharing problems in the VHF band that are associated with the use of VHF for the aircraft/ satellite link of a synchronous satellite air traffic control system is included in this report. Sp...

John S. Nicolis and Carolen Moncure, “Calculation of electrical length variations and focusing-defocusing due to tropospheric layers in microwave propagation,” Technical Memorandum IER TM ITSA 39, January 1967

Numerical results concerning the disturbances caused by a typical category of slightly subrefractive or superrefractive thick tropospheric layers in line-of-sight propagation as well as the importance of total reflection from such layers. These refle...

Donald R. Macken, C. L. Harbison, and John J. Tary, “A tele­communications study for the National Crime Information Center,,” Technical Memorandum TM ITSA 30, January 1967

The National Crime Information Center consists of a real time data acquisition and storage system plus an extensive telecommunications network to permit law enforcement agencies throughout the United States to enter data and to interrogate the system...

George W. Haydon, “Theoretical evaluation of band 7 frequency complements for ocean data communications,” Technical Memorandum IER TM ITSA 54, January 1967

A study has been conducted to evaluate selected complements of Band 7 frequencies (3-30 MHz) by the application of radio propagation data to a hypothetical deployment of ocean buoys about base stations in various geographic areas. The relative utilit...

Robert T. Disney and William Q. Crichlow, “Interference survey NAVCOM Receiving Sites,” Technical Memorandum IER TM ITSA 19, November 1966

To assist NAV/SEEC in the evaluation of locations for a NAVCOM receiving site, the Electromagnetic Interference Environment Program Area personnel conducted a field measurement and analysis program. Interference levels from base supported, man-made n...

Gerald G. Gilbert and Donald L. Lucas, “Theoretical on-axis gain tabulations of terminated horizontal rhombic antennas for the U, S. Air Force,” Technical Memorandum ITSA TM 1, July 1966

The theoretical on-axis gains of 134 terminated rhombic antennas are calculated for vertical radiation angles from 0 degrees to 45 degrees.

D.[onald] W. Patterson, Herman V. Cottony, and L. Lee Proctor, “Antennas for oblique and backscatter ionosphere sounding for U. S. Navy RFP System (SS267),” Technical Memorandum ITSA TM 3, July 1966

The characteristics of oblique sounding and backscatter sounding are discussed. The requirements imposed upon antennas for either form of sounding are considered. The available antenna types are reviewed from the standpoint of their suitability for...

Lowell H. Tveten et al., “High frequency backscatter studies,” Technical Memorandum ITSA TM 8, January 1966

A description of several investigations concerning high frequency backscatter is presented. These deal with travelling ionospheric irregu­larities, topside sounder-bottomside backscatter sounder comparisons, backscatter Doppler observations, ray trac...

Technical Note

J. Wayde Allen, Fred R. Clague, Neil T. Larsen, and Manly P. Weidman, “NIST Microwave Power Standards in Waveguide,” Technical Note NIST TN 1511, February 1999

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) microwave power standards in waveguide consist of automated microcalorimeters and associated transfer standards. Each transfer standard is a bolometric dc substitution power detector (a thermi...

Robert T. Adair and Eleanor M. Livingston, “Coaxial Intrinsic Impedance Standards,” Technical Note NIST TN 1333, October 1989

This paper discusses how impedance standards are derived from basic definition of impedance, constructed and used in metrology with coaxial air-line systems. Basic transmission line equations are reviewed with emphasis given to intrinsic or derived s...

William C. Daywitt, “Design and Error Analysis for the WR10 Thermal Noise Standard,” Technical Note NBS TN 1071, December 1983

This note describes the design and error analysis of a WR10 thermal noise power standard. This standard is designed to operate at the boiling point of liquid nitrogen with a noise temperature output accurate to ± 1 K.

James R. Andrews and M. Gerald Arthur, “Spectrum Amplitude—Definition, Generation and Measurement,” Technical Note NBS TN 699, October 1977

This technical note is a detailed discussion of the electromagnetic quantity, spectrum amplitude, which is used to characterize broadband signals and noise. The definition of spectrum amplitude is presented in detail. Several practical means of gener...

Stanley I. Cohn, C. P. Jacobs, and William M. Moran, “Fixed Radar Spectrum Utilization Model,” Technical Note TN-76-3, June 1976

This report contains a description of the Fixed Radar Spectrum Utilization Model. This model is automated and can be used to obtain: (1) a measure of spectrum crowding in a specific geographic area and radar frequency band, (2) a list of preferab...

General expressions are derived for estimating the errors in the sum or difference far-field pattern of electrically large aperture antennas which measured by planar near-field scanning technique. Upper bounds are determined for the far-field errors...

Philip L. Rice, Anita G. Longley, Kenneth Alva Norton, and Albrecht P. Barsis, “Transmission Loss Predictions for Tropospheric Communication Circuits: Volumes I and II,” Technical Note TN-101 Vols. I and II, January 1967

This report presents comprehensive methods of calculation which have been found useful either for explaining or for predicting cumulative distributions of transmission loss for a wide range of radio frequencies over almost any type of terrain and in ...

Kenneth Alva Norton, “Transmission Loss in Radio Propagation: II,” Technical Note NBS Technical Note No. 12, June 1959

This Technical note was originally given limited distribution as NBS Report No. 5092, dated July 25, 1957. Since that time part of this report have been published in the following references: (1) K. A. Norton, "Low and medium frequency radio prop...

Special Publication

Frank H. Sanders, “Adventures in Radar Spectrum and Radar Coexistence in Today’s World,” Special Publication NTIA SP-25-576, November 2024

Of all the radio system types that occupy the electromagnetic spectrum, perhaps none are so important while also being so generally misunderstood, even within technical communities, as radars. Radar technology, the revolutionary innovation that the A...

Jaden Pieper, Stephen D. Voran, and Kenneth R. Tilley, “Improving Speech Audio for Prerecorded and Live Online Conference Sessions,” Special Publication NTIA SP 24-572, July 2024

Learn how to identify impaired speech and avoid its causes. Listen to audio clips that demonstrate six useful tips for online conference and meeting organizers, as well as contributors who plan to speak during a live online event or submit a pre-reco...

Frank H. Sanders, Kenneth R. Tilley, and Geoffrey A. Sanders, “Further 5G In-Air Field-Strength Measurements for Radar Altimeter Research,” Special Publication SP-23-570, September 2023

Ongoing NTIA/ITS research shows that it can be possible for 5G base stations to safely co-exist with safety-of-life radar altimeters. This video is a follow up to SP-22-560, “5G In-Air Field-Strength CoLT Measurements for Radar Altimeter Research." I...

Frank H. Sanders, Kenneth R. Tilley, and Geoffrey A. Sanders, “5G In-Air Field Strength Measurements for Radar Altimeter Research,” Special Publication SP-22-560, March 2022

This brief video provides an overview of ITS's approach to taking RF measurements to provide data relevant to the topic of radio interference that might possibly occur from some U.S. 5G transmitters to band-adjacent airborne radar altimeter (radalt) ...

Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, “5G Prize Challenge Notice of Inquiry Analysis,” Special Publication SP-21-554, September 2021

This document provides an analysis of responses to the 5G Challenge Notice of Inquiry (NOI) issued by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on behalf of the Department of Defense (DoD). This analysis was created by NTI...

Frank H. Sanders, “Seminar Series on Spectrum Measurement Theory and Techniques,” Special Publication NTIA SP-09-460, November 2008

Have you ever wondered how a spectrum analyzer works, how to properly adjust all of the analyzer’s parameters, or why a stair-step pattern initially appears on a spectrum analyzer screen when you turn it on? Do you know how to precisely calculate the...

Patricia J. Raush and Kristen E. Davis, “Proceedings of the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies February 26–28, 2007,” Special Publication SP-07-445, February 2007

Proceedings of the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies, February 26–28, 2007

The United States’ radiocommunication interests are global. Communications are the backbone of our economic and national security and radiocommunications are a critical component of the United States’ overall communications interests. Radio signals t...

M. E. DeWeese, Margaret A. Luebs, and H. L. McCullough, “Significant Papers from the First 50 years of the Boulder Labs,” Special Publication NTIA SP-04-416, August 2004

The Department of Commerce Boulder Labs were dedicated on September 14, 1954, in the shadow of World War II, and at the dawn of a bright future. This volume presents a snapshot of our research accomplishments in the half century since then. During th...

Thomas L. Chirhart, Charles T. Hoffman, Richard J. Orsulak, and Edward F. Drocella Jr., “Alternative Frequencies for Use by Public Safety Systems: Response to Title XVII, Section 1705 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2001,” Special Publication SP 01-48, December 2001

On behalf of the Secretary of Commerce, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has prepared this report in response to Title XVII, Section 1705 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2001. It represents part of...

David S. Anderson, Edward F. Drocella Jr., Steven K. Jones, and Mark A. Settle, “Assessment of Compatibility Between Ultrawideband Systems and Global Positioning System Receivers,” Special Publication SP 01-47, November 2001

The study described in this report was undertaken by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in response to a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) concerning the operation of a ne...

William T. Druhan Jr., Joseph P. Camacho, Gary M. Patrick, and Robert C. Wilson, “The Potential for Accommodating Third Generation Mobile Systems in the 1710–1850 MHz Band: Federal Operations, Relocation Costs, and Operational Impacts ,” Special Publication SP 01-46, March 2001

The President signed an executive memorandum dated October 13, 2000, that stated the need and urgency for the United States to select radio frequency spectrum to satisfy the future needs of the citizens and businesses for mobile voice, high-speed dat...

David S. Anderson, Edward F. Drocella Jr., Steven K. Jones, and Mark A. Settle, “Assessment of Compatibility between Ultrawideband (UWB) Systems and Global Positioning System (GPS) Receivers,” Special Publication SP 01-45, February 2001

The study described in this report was undertaken by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in response to a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) concerning the operation of a ne...

Gerald F. Hurt, Ernesto A. Cerezo, and W. Russell Slye, “Assessment of Electromagnetic Spectrum Reallocation: Response to Title X of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000,” Special Publication SP 01-44, January 2001

On behalf of the Secretary of Commerce, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has prepared this report to the President and the Congress as required by Title X of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year ...

The 2000 International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies will focus on state-of-the-art and future trends in broadband wireless technologies and applications. Session presentations by leading experts in broadband communications from government...

Joseph P. Camacho, “Federal Radar Spectrum Requirements,” Special Publication SP 00-40, May 2000

The availability of the radio spectrum in the United States is critical to over 40 radio services that provide functions ranging from air traffic control to amateur radio operations. Although the radio frequency spectrum is not a consumable resou...

National Telecommunications and Information Administration and , “Advanced Telecommunications in Rural America,” Special Publication, April 2000

This is a joint report of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) in response to a request by ten U.S. Senators that NTIA and RUS examine six issues related to the availability and d...

NTIA Special Study Staff, “Radio Astronomy Spectrum Planning Options,” Special Publication SP-98-35, April 1998

Edward F. Drocella Jr., Steven K. Jones, and William T. Druhan Jr., “Spectrum Reallocation Report: Response to Title III of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997,” Special Publication SP-98-36, February 1998

On behalf of the Secretary of Commerce, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has prepared this report as required by Title III S Communication and Spectrum Allocation Provisions S of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (T...

National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “Land Mobile Spectrum Planning Options,” Special Publication SP-95-34, October 1995

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), under a mandate from Congress to develop long-range spectrum plans, initiated the Strategic Spectrum Planning Program. As part of this long-term planning effort, NTIA released a r...

Kenneth C. Allen et al., “Survey of Rural Information Infrastructure Technologies,” Special Publication SP-95-33, September 1995

Communication and information technologies can reduce the barriers of distance and space that disadvantage rural areas. This report defines a set of distinct voice, computer, and video telecommunication services; describes several rural information a...

National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “Falling Through the Net: A Survey of the “Have Nots” in Rural and Urban America,” Special Publication Unnumbered, July 1995

This is the first of two profiles of telephone and computer penetration released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The report surveys trends in telephone subscribership, as well as ownership and usage of person...

Connecting every classroom, library, hospital, and clinic in the United States to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) is a priority. It is critical for these public institutions to become and remain active participants in the NII, since the...

This report identifies radio spectrum currently used by the Federal Government for reallocation to the private sector. It provides an overview of the reallocated bands, indicating the Federal usage, transition timetable, and any needed sharing requir...

NTIA Special Study Staff et al., “A Technical Report to the Secretary of Transportation on a National Approach to Augmented GPS Services,” Special Publication SP-94-30, December 1994

This report documents the development of recommendations for a national approach to augmented Global Positioning System (GPS) services. The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences led a study team that included the U. S. Army Topographic Engineering...

Mark Bykowski et al., “Globalization of the Mass Media,” Special Publication SP-93-290, January 1993

This report reassesses U.S. communications and mass media policies in light of the increasingly global nature of the electronic mass media. A basic theme of this report is that the United States cannot afford to be complacent about the success of U.S...

National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “A Summary of the Federal Government’s Use of the Radio Frequency Spectrum,” Special Publication, July 1987

This summary, in brief unclassified form, describes the varied requirements for the use of the radio frequency spectrum by the Departments and agencies of the Federal Government. This spectrum dependence has been dictated by the respective mandated f...

This report documents the learning experience of a group of Federal-agency planners who face upgrading or augmenting existing on-premises communication systems and building wiring. In July 1984, an interagency Fiber Optics Task Group was formed under...

NTIA Special Study Staff, “NTIA Trade Report: Assessing the Effects of Changing the AT&T Antitrust Consent Decree,” Special Publication SP-87-19, February 1987

This report examines the trade and related effects of possible changes in the 1982 AT&T consent decree.

Joseph A. Hull and A. Glenn Hanson, “On-premises Digital Communications Upgrades with Emphasis on Fiber Optics,” Special Publication NTIA SP-86-18, November 1986

The Federal Telecommunications Standards Committee, chaired by the Office of the Manager, National Communications System, has established a Fiber Optics Task Group, one purpose of which is to develop guidelines for Federal agencies planning to use fi...

NTIA Special Study Staff, “NTIA Competition Benefits Report,” Special Publication SP-85-17, November 1985

This report provides an analysis of marketplace developments and procompetitive U.S. policies for the past 15 years, and undertakes a net assessment of the benefits and costs of competition in 14 separate telecommunications and related lines of comme...

NTIA Special Study Staff, “Issues in Domestic Telecommunications: Directions for National Policy,” Special Publication SP-85-16, July 1985

An analysis of issues in domestic telecommunications with recommendations for national policy. The report focuses on seven major areas: (1) development of technology; (2) structural and other constraints on the telecommunications industry; (3) prospe...

Joseph A. Hull, “Fiber Optic Communications – An Update,” Special Publication SP-81-14, October 1981

Microwave Radiation at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and its Biological Implications: An Assessment

Kim E. Degnan, Kenneth R. Dunmore, and Vincent Sardella, “Direct Broadcast Satellites: Policies, Prospects and Potential Competition,” Special Publication SP-81-11, March 1981

William K. Hale, “Frequency Assignment Methodology: An Annotated Bibliography,” Special Publication SP-80-10, November 1980

Jane H. Yurow, “Issues in Information Policy,” Special Publication SP-80-9, October 1980

A nation’s international information policies do not exist in a vacuum, but rather are an extension of its domestic information policy perspectives. Thus, before any nation can adequately represent the interests of its own society in international fo...

Kim E. Degnan and Raymond Gallagher, “Directory of Federal Telecommunications Agencies,” Special Publication SP-80-6, April 1980

H. David Hunt, “Simulation Modeling of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Telecommunication Systems,” Special Publication SP-80-5, January 1980

A. Glenn Hanson et al., “Optical Waveguide Communications Glossary,” Special Publication SP-79-4, September 1979

This document is a technical dictionary containing approximately 300 terms, concisely defined for the communication engineer, covering the field of optical fiber waveguide communications. It was superseded by NBS Handbook 140 of the same title is...

Joseph A. Hull, John M. Harman, Marylyn N. Olson, and H. David Hunt, “Emergency Medical Services Communications System Technical Planning Guide,” Special Publication SP-79-3, March 1979

This document is intended to provide guidance in planning Emergency Medical Systems [sic] (EMS) communications. Processes and and procedures are presented for such planning. Recommendations for obtaining technical, consultative and other assistance i...

Hiroshi Akima, Peter M. McManamon, and Paul I. Wells, “Fixed-Satellite and Broadcasting-Satellite Service Considerations for 1979 GWARC Planning,” Special Publication SP-78-2, October 1978

This publication discusses technical and economic aspects related to the fixed-satellite and broadcasting-satellite services. Planning studies in support of the 1979 General World Administrative Radio Conference (GWARC) are presented for the frequenc...

National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “ A Summary of the Federal Government’s Use of the Radio Frequency Spectrum,” Special Publication, July 1978

This 27-page report details use of the electromagnetic radio spectrum by U.S. Government military services and U.S. Government civil agencies. It also includes a list of Selected Government Frequency Assignment Data as of June 1, 1978.

Eldon J. Haakinson, “Spread Spectrum: An Annotated Bibliography,” Special Publication SP-78-1, May 1978

Spread spectrum (SS) systems either are being planned or are already operational in the communications, radar, and navigation services. Since SS systems tend to increase the efficient use of the increasingly congested radio spectrum, spectrum manage...

M. R. Rubin, “FCC Decisions Interpreting the Communications Act of 1934: An Index vol. I, A-I,” Special Publication OT-SP-78-18, March 1978

M. R. Rubin, “FCC Decisions Interpreting the Communications Act of 1934: An Index vol. II, J-Z,” Special Publication OT-SP-78-18, March 1978

C. K. Wilk, “Selected Foreign National Data Protection Lavws and Bills,” Special Publication OT-SP-78-19, March 1978

John P. Murray, “Needs for the Radio Spectrum and for Radio Spectrum Research,” Special Publication unnumbered, January 1978

This report is an initial attempt to identify and emphasize needs for radio spectrum and for related spectrum research to serve as the basis for planning for Efficient Use of the Spectrum Program at OT/ITS. However, any need or requirement for spectr...

M. Tyler, M. Elton, and A. Cook, “The Contribution of Telecommunications to the Conservation of Energy Resources,” Special Publication OT-SP-77-17, July 1977

Marc Uri Porat, “The Information Economy: Definition and Measurement,” Special Publication OT-SP-77-12 (1), May 1977

This bibliography lists publications describing the scope, time span, depth, variety, and relevance of the satellite work done by the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences from 1958 through 1976. Works cited are listed by author with six categorie...

J. H. Alleman, “The Pricing of Local Telephone Service,” Special Publication OT-SP-77-14, April 1977

Donald R. Ewing and Roger K. Salaman, “The Postal Crisis: The Postal Function as a Communications Device,” Special Publication OT-SP-77-13, January 1977

Douglass D. Crombie, “Lowering Barriers to Telecommunications Growth,” Special Publication OT-SP-76-9, November 1976

Moody C. Thompson Jr., Randolph H. Ott, and Edmond J. Violette, “Report on 1976 Millimeter-Wave Conference,” Special Publication OT-SP-76-11, September 1976

On March 2, 3, and 4, 1976, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences of the Office of Telecommunications, U. S. Department of Commerce, sponsored a conference on "The Use of Millimeter Waves for Communications." The purpose of the meeting was to...

Donald V. Glen, Earl C. Bolton, James C. Blair, and Peter M. McManamon, “Circuit Status for Multiple-Satellite-Hop User Reaction Tests,” Special Publication OT-SP-76-8, January 1976

These user reaction tests involved voice telephone communications that were relayed one, two, or three times through the Westar satellite. The types of connections for the voice transmissions involved Common Control Switching Arrangements

George A. Codding Jr., “The U.S. and the I.T.U. in a Changing World,” Special Publication OT-SP-75-6, December 1975

The purpose of the paper is to explore the nature of the problem and to suggest some measures which might help to restore the U.S. effectiveness in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the oldest of the world's international organizations...

Charles E. Lathey and J. R. Bewick, “Selected Abstracts of Documents Related to Energy Conservation Through Telecommunications,” Special Publication OT-SP-75-5, August 1975

This catalog lists about 495 information products representing the results of the various OT programs.Section I contains an alphabetical listing, by title with abstract and key words, of technical reports, technical memoranda, special publications, c...

R. Harkness, “Telecommunications Substitutes For Travel,” Special Publication OT-SP-73-2, December 1973

Charles E. Lathey, “Telecommunications and the State of Hawaii,” Special Publication OT Analysis Report 2, December 1971

This report presents a compilation and discussion of Hawaiʻi's telecommunications resources and requirements, and of the domestic satellite system applications in FCC Docket No. 16495. This information should be useful in the analysis and planning of...

Handbook

ITS Editorial Review Board, “ITS Publications Handbook Volume I: Policies (Third Edition),” Handbook HB-14-503, March 2014

This is the third edition of a handbook intended to help Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) staff produce reports and papers in accordance with ITS, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Department of Commerce, and F...

ITS Editorial Review Board, “ITS Publications Handbook Volume II: Style Guide (Third Edition),” Handbook HB-14-504, March 2014

This is the third edition of a handbook intended to help Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) staff produce reports and papers in accordance with ITS, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Department of Commerce, and F...

Andrew A. Catellier and Luke Connors, “Web-Enabled Subjective Test (WEST) Research Tools Manual,” Handbook HB-14-501, January 2014

The Web-Enabled Subjective Test software allows researchers to conduct subjective tests on multiple devices with aggregated data collection and reporting. The system leverages modern web technologies and infrastructure to deliver test stimuli to typi...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Batch Video Quality Metric (BVQM) User’s Manual,” Handbook HB-11-441d, September 2011

This handbook provides a user’s manual for the batch video quality metric (BVQM) tool. BVQM runs under the Windows XP® or Windows 7® operating systems. BVQM performs objective automated quality assessments of processed video clip batches (i.e., as ou...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “In-Service Video Quality Metric (IVQM) User’s Manual,” Handbook NTIA HB-09-434b, January 2009

This handbook provides a user’s manual for the batch video quality metric (BVQM) tool. BVQM runs under the Windows XP® or Red Hat Linux® operating systems. BVQM performs objective automated quality assessments of processed video clip batches (i.e., a...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Batch Video Quality Metric (BVQM) User’s Manual,” Handbook HB-09-441c, January 2009

This handbook provides a user’s manual for the batch video quality metric (BVQM) tool. BVQM runs under the Windows XP® or Vista® operating systems. BVQM performs objective automated quality assessments of processed video clip batches (i.e., as output...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Batch Video Quality Metric (BVQM) User’s Manual,” Handbook HB-08-441b, November 2007

This handbook provides a user’s manual for the batch video quality metric (BVQM) tool. BVQM runs under the Windows XP® or Red Hat Linux® operating systems. BVQM performs objective automated quality assessments of processed video clip batches (i.e., a...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “In-Service Video Quality Metric (IVQM) User’s Manual,” Handbook NTIA HB-06-434a, July 2006

The purpose of this handbook is to provide a user’s manual for the in-service video quality metric (IVQM) tool. IVQM performs automated processing of live video signals. This program runs under the Windows XP® operating system on two PCs communicatin...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “In-Service Video Quality Metric (IVQM) User’s Manual,” Handbook NTIA HB-06-434, December 2005

The purpose of this handbook is to provide a user’s manual for the in-service video quality metric (IVQM) tool. IVQM performs automated processing of live video signals. This program runs under the Windows XP® operating system on two PCs communicatin...

Mark A. McFarland, Margaret H. Pinson, and Stephen Wolf, “Batch Video Quality Metric (BVQM) User’s Manual,” Handbook NTIA HB-06-441a, December 2005

This handbook provides a user’s manual for the batch video quality metric (BVQM) tool. BVQM runs under the Windows XP® operating system. BVQM performs objective automated quality assessments of processed video clip batches (i.e., as output by a video...

The purpose of this handbook is to provide a user’s manual for the in-service video quality metric (IVQM) tool. IVQM performs automated processing of live video signals. This program runs under the Windows XP® operating system on two PCs communicatin...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Video Quality Measurement User’s Manual,” Handbook NTIA HB-02-01, February 2002

The purpose of this handbook is to provide a user’s manual for the video quality metric (VQM) tool. The VQM software tool performs automated batch processing of video files. Program VQM runs under the UNIX operating system and uses a control file to ...

William E. Frazier, “Handbook of Radio Wave Propagation Loss, Part ll (100–20,000 MHz),” Handbook HB-89-242, April 1989

This handbook is intended to provide estimates of radio wave propagation loss between transmitting and receiving antennas of various heights and transmission frequencies above the assumed smooth–earth surface calculated using the NLAMBDA computer mod...

Laurance G. Hause and J. E. Frankfurter, “Operators Manual: Refractivity Index Profile,” Handbook, February 1986

This handbook contains instructions for operating the Refractivity Index Profile program. The RIP program is designed to calculate, tabulate, and plot the atmospheric refractivity index profiles for a given set of atmospheric data taken at a particul...

William E. Frazier, “Handbook of Radio Wave Propagation Loss (100-10,000 MHz),” Handbook HB-84-165, December 1984

This handbook is intended to assist in manual analysis techniques that must be used when an automated analysis is not possible. It provides estimates of radio wave propagation loss between transmitting and receiving antennas above the assumed smooth-...

Journal Article

Andrew A. Catellier and Stephen D. Voran, “Wideband Audio Waveform Evaluation Networks: Efficient, Accurate Estimation of Speech Qualities,” IEEE Access, 11 (November 2023): 125576–125592

Speech quality and speech intelligibility can vary dramatically across the wide range of currently available telecommunications systems, devices, and operating environments. This creates a strong demand for efficient real-time measurements of quality...

Margaret H. Pinson, “Why No Reference Metrics for Image and Video Quality Lack Accuracy and Reproducibility,” IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, 69, no. 1 (March 2023): 97–117

This article provides a comprehensive overview of no reference (NR) metrics for image quality analysis (IQA) and video quality analysis (VQA). We examine 26 independent evaluations of NR metrics (previously published) and analyze 32 NR metrics on six...

Margaret H. Pinson, “The Precision and Repeatability of Media Quality Comparisons: Measurements and New Statistical Methods,” IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 378-395, June 2023

This paper calculates confidence intervals for 89 datasets that use the 5-level Absolute Category Rating (ACR) method to evaluate the quality of speech, video, images, and video with audio. This data allows us to compute the subjective test confidence ...

Pablo Pérez, Lucjan Janowski, Narciso García, and Margaret H. Pinson, “Subjective Assessment Experiments That Recruit Few Observers With Repetitions (FOWR) ,” IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 24 (July 2021): 3442–3454

Recent studies have shown that it is possible to characterize subject bias and variance in subjective assessment tests. Apparent differences among subjects can, for the most part, be explained by random factors. Building on that theory, we propose a ...

Chriss A. Hammerschmidt, Robert T. Johnk, Savio Tran, and Mike Chang, “Continuous-Wave Propagation Channel-Sounding Measurement System — Testing, Verification, and Measurements,” Journal of Visualized Experiments, 172 (June 2021): e62124

Channel sounders are used to measure channel characteristics for radio systems. There are several types of channel sounders used today: continuous-wave (CW), direct pulse, frequency domain using a vector network analyzer (VNA), correlation-based, and...

Chriss A. Hammerschmidt, Robert T. Johnk, and Savio Tran, “Calibration of Vector Network Analyzer for Measurements in Radio Frequency Propagation Channels,” Journal of Visualized Experiments, 160 (June 2020): e60874

In situ measurements of radio frequency (RF) spectrum activity provide insight into the physics of radio frequency wave propagation and validate existing and new spectrum propagation models. Both of these parameters are essential to supporting and pr...

Jakub Nawala, Margaret H. Pinson, Mikolaj Leszczuk, and Lucjan Janowski, “Study of Subjective Data Integrity for Image Quality Data Sets with Consumer Camera Content,” Journal of Imaging, 6, no. 3 (February 2020)

We need data sets of images and subjective scores to develop robust no reference (or blind) visual quality metrics for consumer applications. These applications have many uncontrolled variables because the camera creates the original media and the im...

Lucjan Janowski, Ludovic Malfait, and Margaret H. Pinson, “Evaluating Experiment Design with Unrepeated Scenes for Video Quality Subjective Assessment,” Quality and User Experience, 4, no. 2 (June 2019)

The conventional video subjective test design, in which subjects view and rate multiple versions of each source video sequence, was used for decades. New technology, like adaptive streaming, makes it almost impossible to use this design since much lo...

Margaret H. Pinson, “Gaps in Public-Safety Cameras,” MissionCritical Communications, (August 2017): 30–35

A video is not always an accurate representation of what a first responder sees at an incident. New research suggests that first responders would benefit from a camera that removes airborne obscurants and shadows before the video is compressed. Curre...

Lucjan Janowski and Margaret H. Pinson, “The Accuracy of Subjects in a Quality Experiment: A Theoretical Subject Model,” IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 17, no. 12 (December 2015): 2210–2224

How accurately are people able to use the absolute category rating (ACR) 5-level scale? Put another way, how repeatable are an individual subject’s scores? Several subjective experiments have asked subjects to rate the same sequences a couple of time...

Kristen E. Davis, “GIS Plays Critical Role in U.S. Telecommunications Planning & Security,” Directions Magazine, July 1, 2015

This article describes the architecture of ITS-developed Propagation Modeling Website (PMW) tools that use commercial geographic information systems to both acquire geographic data and display geographic coverage areas. The PMW integrates commercial,...

Margaret H. Pinson, Lucjan Janowski, and Zdzislaw Papir, “Video Quality Assessment: Subjective Testing of Entertainment Scenes,” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 32, no. 1 (January 2015): 101–114

This article describes how to perform a video quality subjective test. For companies, these tests can greatly facilitate video product development; for universities, removing perceived barriers to conducting such tests allows expanded research opport...

Margaret H. Pinson and Arthur A. Webster, “T1A1 Validation Test Database,” VQEG eLetter, 1, no. 2 (December 2014): 41–45

During 1993–1994, the T1A1 subcommittee of the American National Standards Association (ANSI) accredited Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) conducted an objective video quality metric validation test focused on video teleconfer...

Margaret H. Pinson and Lucjan Janowski, “A New Subjective Audiovisual & Video Quality Testing Recommendation,” VQEG eLetter, 1, no. 2 (December 2014): 51–60

This paper introduces ITU-T Recommendation P.913, a new subjective video quality testing standard approved in January 2014. This Recommendation focuses on the evaluation of flat screens, laptops, and mobile devices. P.913 emphasizes flexibility of en...

Margaret H. Pinson, Lark Kwon Choi, and Alan Conrad Bovik, “Temporal Video Quality Model Accounting for Variable Frame Delay Distortions,” IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, 60, no. 4 (December 2014): 637–649

We announce a new Video Quality Model (VQM) that accounts for the perceptual impact of variable frame delays (VFD) in videos with demonstrated top performance on the Laboratory for Image & Video Engineering (LIVE) Mobile Video Quality Assessment (VQA...

Charles Baylis et al., “Spectrum Analysis Considerations for Radar Chirp Waveform Spectral Compliance Measurements,” IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, 56, no. 3 (June 2014): 520–529

The measurement of a radar chirp waveform is critical to assessing its spectral compliance. The Fourier transform for a linear frequency-modulated chirp is a sequence of frequency-domain impulse functions. Because a spectrum analyzer measures the wav...

Margaret H. Pinson, Marcus Barkowsky, and Patrick Le Callet, “Selecting Scenes for 2D and 3D Subjective Video Quality Tests,” EURASIP Journal on Image and Video Processing, 2013 (August): 50

This paper presents recommended techniques for choosing video sequences for subjective experiments. Subjective video quality assessment is a well-understood field, yet scene selection is often driven by convenience or content availability. Three-dime...

Margaret H. Pinson, “The Consumer Digital Video Library [Best of the Web],” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 30, no. 4 (July 2013): 172,174

The difficulty of finding and getting rights to use the high quality video sequences needed for video quality research has hampered research in this area for many years. This article describes the Consumer Digital Video Library (CDVL) website (www.cd...

Margaret H. Pinson et al., “The Influence of Subjects and Environment on Audiovisual Subjective Tests: An International Study,” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, 6, no. 6 (October 2012): 640–651

Traditionally, audio quality and video quality are evaluated separately in subjective tests. Best practices within the quality assessment community were developed before many modern mobile audiovisual devices and services came into use, such as inter...

Margaret H. Pinson, William J. Ingram, and Arthur A. Webster, “Audiovisual Quality Components: An Analysis,” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 28, no. 6 (November 2011): 60–67

The perceived quality of an audiovisual sequence is heavily influenced by both the quality of the audio and the quality of the video. The question then arises as to the relative importance of each factor and whether a regression model predicting audi...

Gregory W. Cermak, Margaret H. Pinson, and Stephen Wolf, “The Relationship Among Video Quality, Screen Resolution, and Bit Rate,” IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, 57, no. 2 (June 2011): 258–262

How much bandwidth is required for good quality video for a given screen resolution? Data acquired during two Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) projects allow at least a partial answer to this question. This international subjective testing produced...

Stephen D. Voran and Andrew A. Catellier, “Gradient Ascent Subjective Multimedia Quality Testing,” EURASIP Journal on Image and Video Processing, 2011 (January): 472185

Subjective testing is the most direct means of assessing multimedia quality as experienced by users. When multiple dimensions must be evaluated, these tests can become slow and costly. We present gradient ascent subjective testing (GAST) as an effic...

Margaret H. Pinson, Stephen Wolf, and Gregory W. Cermak, “HDTV Subjective Quality of H.264 vs. MPEG-2, With and Without Packet Loss,” IEEE Transactions onBroadcasting, 56, no. 1 (March 2010): 86–91

The intent of H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) was to achieve equivalent quality to previous standards (e.g., MPEG-2) at no more than half the bit-rate. H.264 is commonly felt to have achieved this objective. This document presents results of an HDTV subjectiv...

Kjell Brunnström, David Hands, Filippo Speranza, and Arthur A. Webster, “VQEG Validation and ITU Standardization of Objective Perceptual Video Quality Metrics [Standards in a Nutshell],” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 26, no. 3 (May 2009): 96–101

For industry, the need to access accurate and reliable objective video metrics has become more pressing with the advent of new video applications and services such as mobile broadcasting, Internet video, and Internet Protocol television (IPTV). Indus...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “A New Standardized Method for Objectively Measuring Video Quality,” IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, 50, no. 3 (September 2004): 312–322

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) General Model for estimating video quality and its associated calibration techniques were independently evaluated by the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) in their Phase II Full R...

Michael H. Brill et al., “Accuracy and Cross-Calibration of Video Quality Metrics: New Methods from ATIS/T1A1,” Signal Processing: Image Communication, 19, no. 2 (February 2004): 101–107

Video quality metrics (VQMs) have often been evaluated and compared using simple measures of correlation to subjective mean opinion scores from panels of observers. However, this approach does not fully take into account the variability implicit in t...

Michael G. Cotton, Edward F. Kuester, and Christopher L. Holloway, “An Investigation Into the Geometric Optics Approximation for Indoor Scenarios with a Discussion on Pseudolateral Waves,” Radio Science, 37, no. 4 (July–August 2002): 1–17

In this study we investigated the geometric optics (GO) approximation to the fields of an infinitesimal electric dipole above a half plane for geometries typical of wireless indoor communications. This inspection was motivated by efforts to establish...

Christopher L. Holloway, Michael G. Cotton, and Paul M. McKenna, “A Model for Predicting the Power Delay Profile Characteristics Inside a Room,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 48, no. 4 (July 1999): 1110–1120

Multipath effects in indoor wireless communication systems exhibit a characteristic power delay profile (PDP) and can be a detriment to the system's performance. We present a simplified model for calculating the decay rate of the PDP for propagation ...

Stephen D. Voran, “Objective Estimation of Perceived Speech Quality, Part 1: Development of the Measuring Normalizing Block Technique,” IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing, 7, no.4 (July 1999): 371–382

Perceived speech quality is most directly measured by subjective listening tests. These tests are often slow and expensive, and numerous attempts have been made to supplement them with objective estimators of perceived speech quality. These attempts ...

Stephen D. Voran, “Objective Estimation of Perceived Speech Quality, Part 2: Evaluation of the Measuring Normalizing Block Technique,” IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing, 7, no.4 (July 1999): 383–390

Part 1 of this paper describes a new approach to the objective estimation of perceived speech quality. This new approach uses a simple but effective perceptual transformation and a distance measure that consists of a hierarchy of measuring normalizin...

Stephen Wolf et al., “Validating Objective Measures of MPEG Video Quality,” SMPTE Journal, 107, no. 4 (April 1998): 226–235

In 1996, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) adopted ANSI T1.801.03, which presents a number of new objective video quality metrics for quantifying the effects of digital compression and transmission impairments. The measurements in ANSI...

Stephen Wolf, “Measuring the End-to-End Performance of Digital Video Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, 43, no. 3 (September 1997): 320–328

Significant research and development efforts by industry and government laboratories were brought to fruition in 1996 with the approval of American National Standard (ANSI) T1.801.03 entitled "American National Standard for Telecommunications - Digit...

Neal B. Seitz, Stephen Wolf, Randall S. Bloomfield, and Stephen D. Voran, “User-Oriented Measures of Telecommunication Quality,” IEEE Communications Magazine, 32, no.1 (January 1994): 56–66

Discusses the standardization of user-oriented, technology-independent measures of telecommunication service quality, including voice, video, and data performance standards. Standards committee work has progressed in three broad phases. In the first ...

George A. Hufford, “A Characterization of the Multipath in the HDTV Channel,” IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, 38, no. 4 (December 1992): 252–255

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) has recently completed a program to measure the impulse responses of channels that would probably be used in over-the-air HDTV. To help in the analysis of these measurements, we have developed a...

Hans J. Liebe, Philip W. Rosenkranz, and George A. Hufford, “Atmospheric 60-Ghz Oxygen Spectrum: New Laboratory Measurements and Line Parameters,” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 48, nos. 5–6 (November–December 1992): 629–643

Over 5000 absolute absorption values for pressure-broadened O2 lines in dry air were measured at frequencies from 49 to 67 GHz in 0.1-GHz-increments. The controlled laboratory studies were carried out at three temperatures (6, 30, and 54°C) for 11 ...

Hans J. Liebe, George A. Hufford, and Takeshi Manabe, “A Model for the Complex Permittivity of Water at Frequencies Below 1 THz,” International Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves, 12, no.7 (July 1991): 659–675

Experimental permittivity data of liquid water, compiled from the open literature, were selectively applied to support a modeling strategy. Frequencies up to 1 THz and atmospheric temperatures are covered with an expression made up by two relaxation ...

George A. Hufford, “A Model for the Complex Permittivity of Ice at Frequencies below 1 THz,” International Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves, 12, no. 7 (July 1991): 677–682

Using empirical fits to published data, formulas are suggested for the complex permittivity of ice. The radio frequency may range from 0 to 1000 GHz, and the temperature from 0° to -40° C. It then becomes apparent where additional data would be welco...

Hans J. Liebe, “MPM — An Atmospheric Millimeter-wave Propagation Model,” International Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves, 10, no. 6 (June 1989): 631–650

A broadband model for complex refractivity is presented to predict propagation effects of loss and delay for the neutral atmosphere at frequencies up to 1000 GHz. Contributions from dry air, water vapor, suspended water droplets (haze, fog, cloud), a...

Philip W. Rosenkranz, “Interference Coefficients for Overlapping Oxygen Lines in Air,” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 39, no. 4 (April 1988): 287–297

Interference coefficients describe the non-Lorentzian effect that arises as pressure broadening causes lines to overlap. These coefficients, one for each line, are at moderate pressures related linearly to absorption and dispersion. They are determin...

George A. Hufford, “A General Model for Signal Level Variability,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 5, no. 2 (February 1987): 299–301

A general model of received signal variability is outlined in which the signal level is represented as a simple algebraic combination of random functions which, in turn, vary with time, location, and the "situation." A study of signal variability sho...

Hans J. Liebe, “An Updated Model for Millimeter Wave Propagation in Moist Air,” Radio Science, 20, no. 5 (September–October 1985): 1069–1089

A practical atmospheric Millimeter-Wave Propagation Model (MPM) is formulated that predicts attenuation. delay, and noise properties of moist air for frequencies up to 1000 GHz. Input variables are height distributions (0–30 km) of pressure, temperat...

Hans J. Liebe, “The Atmospheric Water Vapor Continuum Below 300 GHz,” International Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves, 5, No. 2 (February 1984): 207–227

Absolute attenuation rates due to water vapor and moist nitrogen have been measured in the laboratory at 138 GHz, 282 and 300 K, pressures up to 1.5 atm, and relative humidities from 80 to 100 percent. The computer-controlled measuring system is ...

Arthur D. Spaulding and George H. Hagn, “On the Definition and Estimation of Spectrum Occupancy,” IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, EMC-19, no. 3 (August 1977): 269–280

Spectrum occupancy for channels and bands of similar channels is defined. A distinction is made between transmission occupancy and message occupancy. The measurement time required to determine if a given channel is occupied is considered as well as t...

Hans J. Liebe, Moody C. Thompson Jr., and T. A. Dillon, “Dispersion Studies of the 22 GHz Water Vapor Line Shape, Part I: The Lorentzian Behavior,” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 9, no. 1 (January 1969): 31–47

The line shape of the self-broadened rotational (5−1 → 6−5) transition of water vapor at v 0 = 22.235 GHz has been investigated on the basis of resonance dispersion information. Detailed information on absolute intensity, width, shift, and wing respo...

Kenneth Alva Norton, Philip L. Rice, and Lewis E. Vogler, “The Use of Angular Distance in Estimating Transmission Loss and Fading Range for Propagation through a Turbulent Atmosphere over Irregular Terrain,” Proceedings of the IRE, (43) no. 10: October 1955

A discussion is given of the transmission loss expected in free space with various types of antennas, followed by a description of theoretical prediction curves for the transmission loss expected in tropospheric propagation on over-land paths. The Br...

Conference Paper

Jaden Pieper and Stephen D. Voran, “AlignNet: Learning Dataset Score Alignment Functions To Enable Better Training of Speech Quality Estimators,” Proceedings of Interspeech 2024, (Kos Island, Greece, September 1–5, 2024)

We develop two complementary advances for training no-reference (NR) speech quality estimators with independent datasets. Multi-dataset finetuning (MDF) pretrains an NR estimator on a single dataset and then finetunes it on multiple datasets at once,...

Stephen D. Voran, “Why Some Audio Signal Short-Time Fourier Transform Coefficients Have Nonuniform Phase Distributions,” Proceedings of the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME), (Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, July 15–19, 2024)

The short-time Fourier transform (STFT) represents a window of audio samples as a set of complex coefficients. These are advantageously viewed as magnitudes and phases and the overall distribution of phases is very often assumed to be uniform. We sho...

Christopher R. Anderson, “An In Situ Characterization of 1.7 GHz Building Entry Loss,” 2024 United States National Committee of URSI National Radio Science Meeting (USNC-URSI NRSM), (Boulder, Colorado, January 2024), 227–228

In this manuscript, we assess the suitability of the ITU Recommendation P.2109 building entry loss models through continuous-wave and broadband measurements conducted in two distinct buildings: a historical structure and a recently constructed modern...

AJ Cuddeback, Scott E. Palo, and Philip J. Erickson, “An Analysis of Low-Cost SDRs to Meet City-Wide Spectrum Utilization Measurement Requirements,” 2024 United States National Committee of URSI National Radio Science Meeting (USNC-URSI NRSM), (Boulder, Colorado, January 2024), 302-303)

This paper surveys the current marketplace offerings for low-cost software-defined radio (SDR) technology and proposes a framework for cost-optimizing distributed sensing networks using a scenario in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service band. To dete...

Adam C. Hicks, James McLean, and John D. Ewan, “Preliminary Mid-Band Troposcatter Measurement Results Using Different High-Gain Receiver Antennas,” 2024 United States National Committee of URSI National Radio Science Meeting (USNC-URSI NRSM), (Boulder, CO, USA, 2024, 225-226)

This article provides initial results of measurements made to assess the influence that different antenna patterns have on the received signal level of a mid-band troposcatter radio link. Measurements were performed at 3.475 GHz over a 185 km troposc...

William Kozma Jr., Adam C. Hicks, and Brian C. Lain, “The Impact of Seasonal Foliage Changes on Clutter Modeling,” 2024 United States National Committee of URSI National Radio Science Meeting (USNC-URSI NRSM), (Boulder, CO, USA, 2024, 223-224)

Development of improved clutter modeling is critical to co-existence of incumbent and entrant systems. Most clutter modeling approaches center on a median clutter loss term and a statistical distribution representing location variability. In this pap...

Robert T. Johnk, John J. Lemmon, and Roger A. Dalke, “An Improved-Accuracy Discrete Sampling Criterion for the Estimation of the Local Mean Voltage of a Mobile Radio Channel,” 2024 United States National Committee of URSI National Radio Science Meeting (USNC-URSI NRSM), (Boulder, Colorado, January 2024), 231–232

This paper presents new recommendations for the discrete sampling of a mobile radio with non-line-of-sight Rayleigh fading and a Jakes power spectrum. The results are derived from a new analytical result for the variance of the local-mean voltage usi...

Charles R. Dietlein, “Wide-Area Spectrum Cartography,” 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting (USNC-URSI), (Portland, Oregon, July 2023), 463–464

This paper describes U.S. spectrum management measurement challenges and a potential scalable solution using satellite-based observations. Specifically, we investigate the radio frequency passive imaging technique of synthetic aperture source localiz...

William Kozma Jr. and Michael G. Cotton, “A Proposed Mid-band Statistical Clutter Propagation Model Utilizing Lidar Data,” Proceedings of the 2023 17th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), Florence, Italy, 2023, pp. 1–5

This paper proposes a mid-band statistical propagation model in which objective clutter metrics derived from lidar data provide the means to predict the distribution of clutter loss. Model performance is compared with 3.5 GHz propagation measurements...

Robert T. Johnk and John J. Lemmon, “Estimating the Local Mean Voltage of a Radio Signal in a Mobile Channel,” Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Signal & Power Integrity, (Spokane, Washington, August 2–5, 2022)

This paper examines the estimation of the local mean voltage of a radio signal in a Rayleigh fast-fading environment. We focus on the statistical uncertainties of local voltage averages obtained by both integrating the voltage envelope of a specified...

Adam C. Hicks, John D. Ewan, William Kozma Jr., and Michael G. Cotton, “Measuring Tropospheric Propagation in the 21st Century,” Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Signal & Power Integrity, Spokane, WA, August 2-5, 2022

This article is intended to motivate and describe a new tropospheric scatter modelling and measurement validation effort that is underway at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS). Immediately after World War II, there was a flurry of res...

Robert J. Achatz, Charles R. Dietlein, and Michael G. Cotton, “IPC for Realistic Channel Conditions ,” Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Signal & Power Integrity, Spokane, WA, August 2-5, 2022

This paper describes a new National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) effort focused on the development of methods to determine appropriate interference protection criteria (IPC) as a means to resolve contention around spectrum...

William Kozma Jr., Christopher J. Behm, and Paul M. McKenna, “Examination of 1.7 GHz Measured Propagation Loss for Free-Space/Clutter Paths in Salt Lake City,” Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Signal & Power Integrity, Spokane, WA, August 2-5, 2022

In June 2018, ITS performed mobile clutter measurements in Salt Lake City, UT at 1.7 GHz. This measurement campaign was designed for path geometries with larger take-off angles by placing the transmitter in the hills of the nearby mountains. The resu...

Stephen D. Voran, “Optimal Frame Duration for Oracle Audio Signal Separation is Determined by Joint Minimization of Two Antagonistic Artifacts,” Proceedings of the IEEE 23rd International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP 2021), Tampere, Finland, October 6-8, 2021

We demonstrate that the optimal audio signal processing frame duration in oracle binary masking and oracle magnitude restoration is determined by joint minimization of two antagonistic artifacts: temporal blurring (which increases with frame duration...

Stephen D. Voran, “Full-Reference and No-Reference Objective Evaluation of Deep Neural Network Speech,” Proceedings of the IEEE Thirteenth International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX 2021), Montreal, June 14-17, 2021

Objective speech quality and intelligibility estimators do not correctly assess speech generated by deep neural networks (DNNs). We use 256 speech files and subjective scores that cover 14 DNN speech conditions and 18 nonDNN speech conditions to show...

Stephen D. Voran, “Measuring Speech Quality of System Input while Observing only System Output,” Proceedings of the IEEE Thirteenth International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX 2021), (Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 14–17, 2021), 125–128

We present a set of relatively small-scale proof-of-concept experiments where we construct no-reference (NR) speech quality estimators that give reliable values of system-under-test (SUT) input speech quality in spite of the fact that NR estimators c...

Andrew A. Catellier and Stephen D. Voran, “WAWEnets: A No-Reference Convolutional Waveform-Based Approach to Estimating Narrowband and Wideband Speech Quality,” Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP2020), Barcelona, Spain, April 2020, pp. 331-335

Building on prior work we have developed a no-reference (NR) waveform-based convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture that can accurately estimate speech quality or intelligibility of narrowband and wideband speech segments. These Wideband Audi...

Margaret H. Pinson, Philip J. Corriveau, Mikolaj Leszczuk, and Michael Colligan, “Open Software Framework for Collaborative Development of No Reference Image and Video Quality Metrics,” IS&T Human Vision and Electronic Imaging: International Symposium on Electronic Imaging 2020 Proceedings, (IS&T, Springfield, VA, 2020) 092-1

This paper describes ongoing work within the video quality experts group (VQEG) to develop no-reference (NR) audiovisual video quality analysis (VQA) metrics. VQEG provides an open forum that encourages knowledge sharing and collaboration. The VQEG n...

Chriss A. Hammerschmidt and Robert T. Johnk, “Site-Specific Propagation Model Development,” 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Signal & Power Integrity (EMC+SIPI), (New Orleans, Lousiana, July 2019): 457–462

Propagation models are used to inform scientists and engineers on how radio propagation through an environment will affect the radio signal received on the other end of the link. Many propagation models have been developed: some are curve-fitting mod...

Anna E. Paulson, “Precision Geolocation of Propagation Data Using GPS and Data Fusion,” 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Signal & Power Integrity (EMC+SIPI), New Orleans, LA, July 2019, pp. 469-474

Geopositioning uncertainty degrades the usefulness of the data collected while conducting propagation measurements in the field. Researchers currently have access to highly detailed terrain, propagation, and locational data sets, but these data are u...

Robert T. Johnk et al., “Mobile Channel Sounder Validations Carried Out at the ITS Table Mountain Field Site,” 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Signal & Power Integrity (EMC+SIPI), New Orleans, LA, July 2019, pp. 463-468

We present path gain results at 3,500 MHz from a mobile channel measurement campaign that was carried out at the ITS Table Mountain Field Site. The purpose of this effort was to validate measurements obtained from a prototype sliding correlator chann...

Margaret H. Pinson, “Caught in the Act: Law-Enforcement Feedback on Video Surveillance Recordings,” IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 82-86, Jan. 2019

Video surveillance systems, designed to provide security, act like a guard in a watchtower-a security solution that has been well understood for thousands of years. Systems are designed to meet security needs of the customer who installs the system. ...

Robert J. Achatz, “Interference Protection Criteria Simulation,” Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf'18), Oklahoma City, OK, April 23-27, 2018

Interference protection criteria (IPC) determine the interfering signal power a system can tolerate when sharing spectrum with other services. IPC are typically determined by measurements, but good measurements are often hindered by restrictions on e...

Stephen D. Voran, “The Selection of Spectral Magnitude Exponents for Separating Two Sources Is Dominated by Phase Distribution Not Magnitude Distribution,” Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics, New Paltz, NY, October 15-18, 2017

Separating an acoustic signal into desired and undesired components is an important and well-established problem. It is commonly addressed by decomposing spectral magnitudes after exponentiation and the choice of exponent has been studied from numero...

Chriss A. Hammerschmidt and Robert T. Johnk, “Understanding the Impact of Terrain Databases on the Irregular Terrain Model,” Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility & Signal/Power Integrity (EMCSI), Washington DC, 7-11 Aug. 2017

This paper discusses a mobile propagation measurement in Los Angeles, CA and compares these measurements to the output from the Irregular Terrain Model (ITM). Propagation measurements are currently being used at the Institute for Telecommunication Sc...

Robert T. Johnk, Chriss A. Hammerschmidt, and Irena W. Stange, “A High-Performance CW Mobile Channel Sounder,” Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility & Signal/Power Integrity (EMCSI), Washington DC, 7–11 Aug. 2017

We describe an advanced mobile channel sounder system that has been under development by engineers at NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences since 2010. We provide a description of the channel sounder and the key system components. We then h...

Stephen D. Voran, “A Multiple Bandwidth Objective Speech Intelligibility Estimator Based on Articulation Index Band Correlations and Attention,” Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP2017), New Orleans, LA, March 5-9, 2017

We present ABC-MRT16—a new algorithm for objective estimation of speech intelligibility following the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT) paradigm. ABC-MRT16 is simple, effective and robust. When compared to subjective MRT data from 367 diverse conditions that...

Chriss A. Hammerschmidt and Robert T. Johnk, “Extracting Clutter Metrics From Mobile Propagation Measurements in the 1755-1780 MHz Band,” Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE Military Communications Conference, Baltimore, MD, November 1–3, 2016

This paper discusses mobile propagation measurement campaigns in San Diego, CA; Denver, CO; and Washington, D.C. These measurements were made to inform possible clutter models in the 1755-1780 MHz band. This band was recently auctioned and will now b...

Michele A. Saad et al., “Image Quality of Experience: A Subjective Test Targeting the Consumer’s Experience,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronic Imaging 2016, Human Vision and Electronic Imaging 2016, February 14, 2016

This paper presents a subjective image quality experiment design that specifically targets understanding consumer perception of visual quality. With this consumer-oriented goal in mind, images were captured from a large number of representative consu...

Andrew A. Catellier and Margaret H. Pinson, “Characterization of the HEVC Coding Efficiency Advance Using 20 Scenes, ITU-T Rec. P.913 Compliant Subjective Methods, VQM, and PSNR ,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia, Miami, FL, December 14-16, 2015

The new video coding standard, MPEG-H Part 2 High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) or H.265, was developed to be roughly twice as efficient as H.264/AVC—meaning H.265/HEVC could deliver the same quality as H.264/AVC using roughly half the bitrate. In t...

Stephen D. Voran, “Exploration of the Additivity Approximation for Spectral Magnitudes,” 2015 IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics, New Paltz, NY, October 19, 2015

The separation of acoustic signals is often accomplished through subtractive decompositions of frequency-domain representations. This is typically enabled by the zero phase approximation or the uncorrelated signals approximation but both of these are...

Michele A. Saad et al., “Impact of Camera Pixel Count and Monitor Resolution Perceptual Image Quality,” Colour and Visual Computing Symposium (CVCS), 2015, Gjovik, Norway, 25-26 August 2015, pp. 1-6

Traditional 35mm film cameras are no longer the main devices today’s consumers use to capture images. Though the dominant technology has shifted to digital cameras and displays that differ widely in pixel count and resolution, our understanding of th...

Quan Huynh-Thu, Arthur A. Webster, Kjell Brunnström, and Margaret H. Pinson, “VQEG: Shaping Standards on Video Quality,” 1st International Conference on Advanced Imaging, Tokyo, Japan, June 17-19, 2015

The Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) is an international and independent organisation of technical experts in perceptual video quality assessment from industry, academia, and government organisations. The main goals of VQEG are to advance the field...

Michael G. Cotton et al., “An Overview of the NTIA/NIST Spectrum Monitoring Pilot Program,” Proceedings of the International Workshop on Smart Spectrum at the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, New Orleans, Lousiana, March 2015

This paper provides an overview of a Spectrum Monitoring Pilot Program within the U.S. Department of Commerce. It provides background, motivation, goals, accomplishments, and plans for future work. We describe the development of a federated Measured ...

Nicolas Staelens et al., “Measuring Video Quality in the Network: From Quality of Service to User Experience,” Proceedings of the Ninth International Workshop on Video Processing and Quality Metrics for Consumer Electronics (VPQM 2015), Chandler, AZ, February 5-6, 2015

Consumers demand video delivery to a wide variety of multimedia capable playback devices in dissimilar contexts. Monitoring the quality of the network provides a preliminary indication of the video quality end-users can expect. However, more advanced...

Margaret H. Pinson, “A missing factor in objective video quality models: A study of color ,” Ninth International Workshop on Video Processing and Quality Metrics for Consumer Electronics - VPQM 2015, Chandler, AZ, February 5-6, 2015

This paper examines color from multiple perspectives. A theory is proposed that the current color spaces are poorly designed for video quality and video coding purposes. The implication is that objective video quality metrics could be improved by the...

Lucjan Janowski and Margaret H. Pinson, “Subject Bias: Introducing a Theoretical User Model,” Fifth International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX 2014), Singapore, 18–20 September 2014

We propose a model for rating behavior based on subject bias and subject error. Evidence for subject bias can be found in freely available subjective experiments. When subject bias is removed from ratings, the sensitivity of statistical comparisons b...

Alan D. Skillicorn, Thomas J. Taylor, Michael H. Kelley, and Eric D. Nelson, “Toward More Effective Spectrum Testing and Sharing,” 2014 National Wireless Research Collaboration Symposium (NWRCS), pp. 123–126, 15–16 May 2014

In response to the Presidential Memorandum on Wireless Innovation and the recommendation of the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), the federal government has begun the process of organizing a National Advanced Spectru...

Margaret H. Pinson, Marc Sullivan, and Andrew A. Catellier, “A new method for immersive audiovisual subjective testing,” Eighth International Workshop on Video Processing and Quality Metrics for Consumer Electronics (VPQM 2014), Chandler, AZ, January 30-31, 2014

An immersive subjective test method is proposed in which subjects view each source stimulus only once. In order to encourage a subject’s engagement with test content, longer stimuli are used. Distractor questions are used in addition to the tradition...

Stephen D. Voran, “Using articulation index band correlations to objectively estimate speech intelligibility consistent with the modified rhyme test,” 2013 IEEE International Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics, October 20-23, 2013

We present an objective estimator of speech intelligibility that follows the paradigm of the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT). For each input, the estimator uses temporal correlations within articulation index bands to select one of six possible words from ...

Margaret H. Pinson, Nicolas Staelens, and Arthur A. Webster, “The history of video quality model validation,” 2013 IEEE 15th International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP), pp.458,463, Sept. 30 2013-Oct. 2 2013

This paper describes objective video quality validation efforts conducted in the past two decades. Validation efforts to be examined include a validation test performed by the T1A1 committee in the early 1990's; five rounds of validation testing perf...

Robert T. Johnk et al., “Radiated Measurements of an Ultrawideband Surveillance Radar,” 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC), (Denver, Colorado, August 2013), 87–92

We provide detailed descriptions of recent radiated emissions measurements conducted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (NTIA/ITS) in Boulder, Colorado. ITS engineers perf...

Chriss A. Hammerschmidt and Heather E. Ottke, “Spectrum occupancy results from several surveys,” 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC), pp. 76-81, 5-9 Aug. 2013

This paper presents spectrum occupancy results from spectrum surveys conducted at three locations: Denver, CO; Table Mountain near Boulder, CO; and Point Loma, near San Diego, CA. Equipment setups are described along with the measurement algorithms u...

Nicholas DeMinco, Christopher J. Behm, and Timothy J. Riley, “Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) analysis approach for band migration to provide spectrum for the President's Spectrum Initiative,” 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC), pp.101-106, 5-9 Aug. 2013

When communication systems operating in one band must be moved to another band occupied by existing (incumbent) systems, an electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) analysis is used to evaluate the viability of spectrum sharing and frequency reassignments...

Margaret H. Pinson et al., “Subjective and Objective Evaluation of an Audiovisual Subjective Dataset for Research and Development,” Fifth International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX 2013), Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Austria, July 3-5, 2013

In 2011, the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) ran subjects through the same audiovisual subjective test at six different international laboratories. That small dataset is now publically available for research and development purposes.

Stephen D. Voran, “Lossless Compression of G.711 Speech Using Only Look-Up Tables,” Proc. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, May 2013, pp. 8179–8183

The lossless compression algorithm specified in ITU-T Recommendation G.711.0 provides bit-exact G.711 speech coding at reduced bit-rates. We introduce two Look-Up Coders (LUCs) that also offer bit-exact G.711 speech coding at reduced rates but the LU...

Stephen D. Voran and Andrew A. Catellier, “When Should a Speech Coding Quality Increase be Allowed Within a Talk-Spurt?,” Proc. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, May 2013, pp. 8149–8153

The value or harm associated with an increase in speech coding quality depends on the type of the increase as well as the temporal location of the increase in an utterance. For example, some increases in speech coding bandwidth can be perceived as im...

Joel Dumke, “Visual acuity and task-based video quality in public safety applications,” Proc. of SPIE-Image Quality and System Performance X, Electronic Imaging, SPIE Vol. 8653, 865306, Burlingame, CA, 5-7 February 2013

This paper explores the utility of visual acuity as a video quality metric for public safety applications. An experiment has been conducted to track the relationship between visual acuity and the ability to perform a forced-choice object recognition ...

Margaret H. Pinson, Karen Sue Boyd, Jessica Hooker, and Kristina Muntean, “How To Choose Video Sequences For Video Quality Assessment,” Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on Video Processing and Quality Metrics for Consumer Electronics (VPQM-2013), Scottsdale, AZ, January 30-February 1, 2013

This paper presents recommended techniques for choosing video sequences for subjective experiments. Subjective video quality assessment is a well understood field, yet scene selection is often limited by content availability. The Consumer Digital Vid...

Heather E. Ottke and Chriss A. Hammerschmidt, “Specialized Algorithms for Spectrum Surveys,” Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 6–10 2012), 565–570, Aug. 5-10, 2012

With increased demand in the radio spectrum, there have been multiple recent campaigns to quantify spectrum occupancy through measurements. These measurements can pose many challenges, one of which is created by impulsive noise. Below 500 MHz, impuls...

J. Wayde Allen, “A 3-Axis Antenna Array for Polarimetric Spectrum Surveys,” Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC 2012), Pittsburgh, PA, Aug. 6-10, 2012

Complete and accurate characterization of the radio environment is necessary for effective management of an increasingly congested radio spectrum. Unfortunately most antenna systems commonly used to perform spectrum surveys only respond strongly to s...

Robert T. Johnk, Chriss A. Hammerschmidt, Mark A. McFarland, and John J. Lemmon, “A Fast-Fading Mobile Channel Measurement System,” Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC2012), pp. 584–589, Aug. 2012

We describe a prototype propagation measurement system based on a combination of a spectrum analyzer and a vector signal analyzer. The system is designed to measure the characteristics of a narrowband mobile radio channel. We present results from a c...

Mark A. McFarland and Robert T. Johnk, “Characterizing an S-band Marine Radar Receiver in the Presence of Interference,” Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC2012), pp. 579-583, Aug. 5-10, 2012

Characterizing the effects that out-of-band interference has on the performance of an S-band marine radar receiver’s IF output normally requires non-linear network analysis. We have developed a non-linear network analyzer from commonly available labo...

Andrew A. Catellier, Margaret H. Pinson, William J. Ingram, and Arthur A. Webster, “Impact of Mobile Devices and Usage Location on Perceived Multimedia Quality,” Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), pp. 39-44, Yarra Valley, Australia, July 5-7, 2012.

We explore the quality impact when audiovisual content is delivered to different mobile devices. Subjects were shown the same sequences on five different mobile devices and a broadcast quality television. Factors influencing quality ratings include v...

Stephen D. Voran and Andrew A. Catellier, “Multiple Description Speech Coding Using Speech Polarity Decomposition,” Proceedings of the IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM 2010), pp.1-6, Miami, December 6-10, 2010.

We present and evaluate a new multiple–description coding extension to the international standard for pulse code modulation speech coding (ITU–T Rec. G.711). This extension is inserted between the G.711 encoder and decoder. It uses speech–polarity de...

Stephen D. Voran, “Subjective Ratings of Instantaneous and Gradual Transitions from Narrowband to Wideband Active Speech,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), pp. 4674-4677, Dallas, March 15-19, 2010.

In advanced heterogeneous telecommunication networks, network resources can dynamically dictate the type of speech coding that is used. An increase in resources allows for lower coding distortion or it might also be used to provide wideband speech in...

Marcus Barkowsky, Margaret H. Pinson, Romuald Pépion, and Patrick Le Callet, “Analysis of Freely Available Subjective Dataset for HDTV including Coding and Transmission Distortions,” Fifth International Workshop on Video Processing and Quality Metrics for Consumer Electronics (VPQM–10), Scottsdale, Arizona, January 13–15, 2010

We present the design, preparation, and analysis of a subjective experiment on typical HDTV sequences and scenarios. This experiment follows the guidelines of ITU and VQEG in order to obtain reproducible results. The careful selection of content and ...

Margaret H. Pinson, Stephen Wolf, Neha Tripathi, and Chin Koh, “The Consumer Digital Video Library,” Fifth International Workshop on Video Processing and Quality Metrics for Consumer Electronics (VPQM–10), Scottsdale, Arizona, January 13–15, 2010

The shortage of high quality video sequences has hampered video quality research for 20 years. Every Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) test has encountered difficulty in obtaining quality source content. For some validation tests, this caused a mult...

Robert T. Johnk et al., “A Mobile Propagation Measurement System,” 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Austin, TX, 17–21 Aug. 2009

This paper describes a mobile-to-mobile propagation measurement system that is currently being developed at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences under the sponsorship of the Office of Spectrum Measurement. This system uses a fixed transmitter...

Stephen D. Voran and Andrew A. Catellier, “Gradient Ascent Paired-Comparison Subjective Quality Testing,” Proceedings of the IEEE First International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX 2009), pp. 133-138, San Diego, July 29-31, 2009.

(This paper won the QoMEX 2009 Best Paper Award.) Subjective testing is the most direct means of assessing audio, video, and multimedia quality as experienced by users and maximizing the information gathered while minimizing the number of trials ...

Stephen Wolf, “A No Reference (NR) and Reduced Reference (RR) Metric for Detecting Dropped Video Frames,” Fourth International Workshop on Video Processing and Quality Metrics for Consumer Electronics (VPQM-09), Scottsdale, Arizona, January 15-16, 2009

Digital video transmission systems consisting of a video encoder, a digital transmission method (e.g., Internet Protocol – IP), and a video decoder can produce pauses in the video presentation that result from dropped or repeated video frames. For ex...

Michael G. Cotton, “A methodology for approximating BPSK demodulator performance in the presence of various undesired signals,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies/ClimDiff 2008, NTIA Special Publication SP-08-452, June 2-4, 2008, pp. 36-42

This paper describes a methodology for analyzing binary phase-shift keyed demodulator performance in the presence of various types of undesired signals. It utilizes models of the underlying random processes to determine the probability of a bit error...

Andrew A. Catellier and Stephen D. Voran, “Speaker Identification in Low-Rate Coded Speech,” Proceedings of the 7th International MESAQIN (Measurement of Audio and Video Quality in Networks) Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, May 2008.

While useful speech communication systems must be intelligible, most systems aim to transmit secondary information, such as attributes of a speaker's voice, as well. This secondary information can allow a listener to identify the speaker and his emot...

Stephen D. Voran, “Listener Detection of Talker Stress in Low-rate Coded Speech,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2008), pp. 4813-4816, Las Vegas, March 31-April 4, 2008.

We describe an experiment where listeners were asked to detect two specific forms of stress in talkers' recorded voices heard via six different simulated communication systems. Both task–induced stress and dramatized urgency were used. Communication ...

Stephen D. Voran, “Lossless Audio Coding with Bandwidth Extension Layers,” Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics, pp. 239-242, New Paltz, NY, October 21-24, 2007.

Layered audio coding typically offers reduced distortion as bit rate is increased, but that distortion is spread across the entire band until the lossless coding bit rate is reached and distortion is eliminated. We propose a layered audio coding para...

Margaret H. Pinson, Stephen Wolf, and Robert B. Stafford, “Video Performance Requirements for Tactical Video Applications,” 2007 IEEE Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security, pp.85-90, 16-17 May 2007

The Public Safety Statement of Requirements (PS-SoR) for Communications and Interoperability focuses on the needs of first responders to communicate and share information as authorized, when it is needed, where it is needed, and in a mode or form tha...

Stephen Wolf and Margaret H. Pinson, “Application of the NTIA General Video Quality Metric (VQM) to HDTV Quality Monitoring,” Third International Workshop on Video Processing and Quality Metrics for Consumer Electronics (VPQM-07), Scottsdale, Arizona, January 25-26, 2007

This paper summarizes results from an experiment whose goal was to assess whether the NTIA General Video Quality Metric (VQM) is an acceptable objective metric for measuring High Definition TV (HDTV) video quality. The HDTV subjective test that was p...

Stephen D. Voran, “Reducing Quantization Error by Matching Pseudoerror Statistics,” Proceedings of the 12th IEEE Digital Signal Processing Workshop, pp. 187-192, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, September 24-27, 2006.

We investigate the use of an adaptive processor (a quantizer pseudoinverse) and the statistics of the associated pseudoerror signal to reduce quantization error in scalar quantizers when a small amount of prior knowledge about the signal x is availab...

Stephen D. Voran, “Listening-Time Relationships in a Subjective Speech Quality Experiment,” Proceedings of the 5th International MESAQIN (Measurement of Speech and Audio Quality in Networks) Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, June 2006.

We have designed, conducted, and analyzed a subjective speech quality experiment with unrestricted timing where subjects can vote whenever their opinions are fully formed, rather than at fixed time intervals. Analysis of the resulting listening times...

Stephen D. Voran, “A Basic Experiment on Time-Varying Speech Quality,” Proceedings of the 4th International MESAQIN (Measurement of Speech and Audio Quality in Networks) Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, June 2005.

We present a general formulation of a basic open question regarding the perception of time-varying speech quality. We then describe the design, implementation, conduct, and analysis of a practical experiment that addresses a small but fundamental par...

Stephen D. Voran, “Multiple-Description PCM Speech Coding by Complementary Asymmetric Vector Quantizers,” Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Region 5 and IEEE Denver Section Technical, Professional and Student Development Workshop, pp. 59-65, Boulder, CO, April 7-8, 2005.

We describe new 2-channel multiple-description speech coders based on the ITU-T Recommendation G.711 PCM speech coder. The new coders operate in the PCM code domain in order to exploit the companding gain of PCM. They apply pairs of complementary asy...

Stephen D. Voran, “A Multiple-Description PCM Speech Coder using Structured Dual Vector Quantizers,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP '05), pp. 129- 132, Philadelphia, March 2005.

We describe a 2-channel multiple-description speech coder based on the ITU-T Recommendation G.711 PCM speech coder. The new coder operates in the PCM code domain in order to exploit the companding gain of PCM. It applies a pair of 2-dimensional struc...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Low Bandwidth Reduced Reference Video Quality Monitoring System,” First International Workshop on Video Processing and Quality Metrics for Consumer Electronics, Scottsdale, Arizona, January 23-25, 2005.

This paper presents a new reduced reference (RR) video quality monitoring system that utilizes less than 10 kbits/s of reference information from the source video stream. This new video quality monitoring system utilizes feature extraction techniques...

Stephen D. Voran, “Compensating for Gain in Objective Quality Estimation Algorithms,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP ’04), (Montreal, Canada, May 17–21, 2004),1068–71

When objectively estimating speech, audio, or video quality, it is often necessary to compensate for a system gain or to "gain match" two or more signals. One can take three views of a system, leading to three different definitions of gain, and three...

Stephen D. Voran, “A Bottom-Up Algorithm for Estimating Time-Varying Delays in Coded Speech,” Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Measurement of Speech and Audio Quality in Networks, Prague, Czech Republic, May 2004.

In packetized speech transmission, end–to–end delay can vary, even over short timescales. Estimating the resulting speech delay histories is critical to diagnostic and quality estimation efforts. We present a new bottom–up algorithm for estimating ti...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Comparing Subjective Video Quality Testing Methodologies,” SPIE Video Communications and Image Processing Conference, Lugano, Switzerland, July 2003.

International recommendations for subjective video quality assessment (e.g., ITU-R BT.500-11) include specifications for how to perform many different types of subjective tests. Some of these test methods are double stimulus where viewers rate the qu...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “An Objective Method for Combining Multiple Subjective Data Sets,” SPIE Video Communications and Image Processing Conference, Lugano, Switzerland, July 2003.

International recommendations for subjective video quality assessment (e.g., ITU-R BT.500-11) include specifications for how to perform many different types of subjective tests. In addition to displaying the video sequences in different ways, subject...

Stephen D. Voran, “Perception of Temporal Discontinuity Impairments in Coded Speech - A Proposal for Objective Estimators and Some Subjective Test Results,” Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Measurement of Speech and Audio Quality in Networks, (Prague, Czech Republic, May 2003)

Temporal discontinuities in received speech are a reality of Internet Telephony or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems. These relatively new impairments pose unique challenges to objective estimators of perceived speech quality. We suggest th...

Stephen D. Voran, “The Channel-Optimized Multiple-Description Scalar Quantizer,” Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE 10th Digital Signal Processing Workshop, pp. 400- 405, Calloway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia, October 13-16, 2002.

Multiple–description coding is one way to gain robustness against lossy channels. We extend the multiple–description scalar quantizer (MDSQ) to a channel–optimized MDSQ (COMDSQ) that minimizes mean–squared error for a given channel environment. We di...

Wael Ashmawi, Roch Guerin, Stephen Wolf, and Margaret H. Pinson, “On the Impact of Policing and Rate Guarantees in Diff-Serv Networks: A Video Streaming Application Perspective,” Association for Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group on Data Communications (SIGCOMM 2001), pp. 83-95, August 27-31, 2001, San Diego, CA

Over the past few years, there have been a number of proposals aimed at introducing different levels of service in the Internet. One of the more recent proposals is the Differentiated Services (Diff-Serv) architecture, and in this paper we explore ho...

Stephen Wolf and Margaret H. Pinson, “The Relationship Between Performance and Spatial-Temporal Region Size for Reduced-Reference, In-Service Video Quality Monitoring Systems,” Proc. of 5th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (ISAS-SCI 2001), Orlando, FL, July 22-25, 2001.

This paper presents objective-to-subjective correlation results for a reduced-reference, in-service, video quality monitoring system. This reduced-reference system utilizes quality parameters that are computed by comparing features extracted from spa...

Stephen D. Voran, “Results on Reverse Water-Filling, SNR, and Log-Spectral Error in Codebook-Based Coding,” Proceedings of the 2000 IEEE Workshop on Speech Coding, Delavan, Wisconsin, September 17-20, 2000.

This paper identifies optimum levels of reverse water-filling for codebook-based coding of noise and speech signals. We find that there is little to be gained from optimizing an effective rate parameter. We identify trade-offs between SNR and log-spe...

Perry F. Wilson et al., “The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences Channel Sounding Program,” IEEE International Conference on Third Generation Wireless Communications, (San Francisco, California, June 14–16, 2000)

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, part of the National Telecommunications has a long-standing program to develop radio channel measurement systems. This paper briefly reviews selected examples of recent measurements, outdoor and indoor, i...

Stephen D. Voran and Stephen Wolf, “Objective Estimation of Video and Speech Quality to Support Network QoS Efforts,” 2nd Department of Energy/Internet2 Quality of Service Workshop, pp. 38-40, Houston, TX, February 2000.

One of the questions that ongoing QoS efforts seek to answer is: "Given fixed network resources, how does one provide the highest possible quality of service to the maximal number of users in a fair way, even when those users are generating competing...

Stephen Wolf and Margaret H. Pinson, “Spatial-Temporal Distortion Metrics for In-Service Quality Monitoring of Any Digital Video System,” SPIE International Symposium on Voice, Video, and Data Communications, Boston, MA, September 11-22, 1999.

Many organizations have focused on developing digital video quality metrics which produce results that accurately emulate subjective responses. However, to be widely applicable a metric must also work over a wide range of quality, and be useful for i...

Stephen D. Voran, “Advances in Objective Estimation of Perceived Speech Quality,” Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE Workshop on Speech Coding, pp. 138-140, Porvoo, Finland, June 1999

We present two techniques that can be used to enhance objective estimators of perceived speech quality. Frame normalization and frame-energy plane partitioning are described and applied to a log-spectral-error-based estimator. The resulting estimator...

Stephen Wolf and Margaret H. Pinson, “In-Service Performance Metrics for MPEG-2 Video Systems,” Proc. Made to Measure 98—Measurement Techniques of the Digital Age Technical Seminar, Montreux, Switzerland, November 12-13, 1998, International Academy of Broadcasting (IAB), ITU and Technical University of Braunschweig.

With the advent of new digital video systems that utilize compression to achieve a savings in transmission or storage bandwidth, the quality of the received output video can be dependent not only upon the inherent spatial and temporal information con...

Charles Fenimore, John Libert, and Stephen Wolf, “Perceptual Effects of Noise in Digital Video Compression,” 140th SMPTE Technical Conference, Pasadena, CA, October 28-31, 1998.

We present results of subjective viewer assessment of video quality of MPEG-2 compressed video containing wide-band Gaussian noise. The video test sequences consisted of seven test clips (both classical and new materials) to which noise with a peak-s...

Roger A. Dalke, Robert J. Achatz, and Yeh Lo, “Statistics of Man-made Noise at 137 MHz,” 1998 IEEE EMC Symposium International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Not Available

Statistical noise models that simulate man-made noise are essential for the design of radio systems. Recently, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences measured man-made VHF radio noise in the 136 to 138 MHz meteorological satellite band. The...

Stephen D. Voran, “Observations on Frequency-Domain Companding for Audio Coding,” Proceedings of the Eighth IEEE Digital Signal Processing Workshop, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, August 1998

Frequency-domain companding can be used in conjunction with audio coders that produce white coding noise. In [1-2] it is demonstrated empirically that this technique colors white coding noise so that it is better masked by audio signals, resulting in...

Coleen T. Jones and David J. Atkinson, “Development of Opinion-Based Audiovisual Quality Models for Desktop Video-Teleconferencing,” 1998 Sixth International Workshop on Quality of Service (IWQoS 98), pp.196-203, Napa, California, May 18-20, 1998.

This paper discusses the analysis of an audiovisual desktop video-teleconferencing subjective experiment conducted at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences. Objective models of the individual audio and video quality are presented. Also discuss...

Stephen D. Voran, “A Simplified Version of the ITU Algorithm for Objective Measurement of Speech Codec Quality,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, vol.1, pp. 537-54, Seattle, May 1998

ITU-T Recommendation P.861 describes an objective speech quality assessment algorithm for speech codecs. This algorithm transforms codec input and output speech signals into a perceptual domain, compares them, and generates a noise disturbance value,...

Stephen D. Voran, “Perception-Based Bit-Allocation Algorithms for Audio Coding,” Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE AASP Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics, New Platz, NY, October 19-22, 1997

We describe six algorithms for bit allocation in audio coding. Each algorithm stems from the minimization of a different perceptually–motivated objective function. Three of these objective functions are extensions of existing ones, and three are new....

Stephen D. Voran, “Estimation of Perceived Speech Quality using Measuring Normalizing Blocks,” Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE Workshop on Speech Coding for Telecommunications, pp. 83-84, Pocono Manor, PA, September 7-10, 1997.

We describe a new approach to the estimation of perceived speech quality. The approach uses a simple, but effective, perceptual transformation to emulate hearing and a hierarchy of Measuring Normalizing Blocks (MNB's) to emulate auditory judgment. Th...

Stephen D. Voran, “Listener Ratings of Speech Passbands,” Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE Workshop on Speech Coding for Telecommunications, pp. 81-82, Pocono Manor, PA, September 7-10, 1997.

We describe a listening experiment that measures the perceived speech quality of 19 speech passbands using 8 talkers and 28 listeners. Results are referenced to the traditional wide-band and narrow-band telephony passbands. Our findings may help thos...

Roger A. Dalke, Yeh Lo, Peter B. Papazian, and George A. Hufford, “Measurement and Analysis of Man-made Noise in VHF and UHF Bands,” Not Available, Proceedings of 1997 Wireless Communications Conference

Recently, The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences measured man-made noise in portions of the VHF and UHF bands. This paper provides an overview of the measurement and analysis methods used and examples of the results. The VHF measurements were m...

Stephen D. Voran, “Observations on Auditory Excitation and Masking Patterns,” Proceedings of the 1995 Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics, pp. 206-209, New Platz, NY, October 15-18, 1995.

Excitation patterns and masking patterns are used extensively in perceptual audio coders and quality assessment algorithms. Numerous algorithms for calculating these patterns have been proposed. This paper provides comparisons among the patterns gene...

Stephen D. Voran and C. Sholl, “Perception-based Objective Estimators of Speech Quality,” Proceedings of the 1995 IEEE Workshop on Speech Coding for Telecommunications, pp. 13-14, Annapolis, MD, September 20-22, 1995.

Four proposed perception-based techniques for objectively estimating speech quality and three traditional estimators are applied to coded speech samples. Agreement between objective estimates and corresponding subjective test scores is reported. Seve...

Stephen D. Voran, “Techniques for Comparing Objective and Subjective Speech Quality Tests,” Proceedings of the Speech Quality Assessment Workshop at Ruhr-Universtät Bochum, Germany, pp. 59-64, November 1994.

Objective (or instrumental) tests of speech quality have been proposed as ways to reduce the need for expensive and time-consuming subjective (or auditory) tests. Both types of tests attempt to quantify the range of opinions that listeners express in...

Hans J. Liebe, George A. Hufford, and Michael G. Cotton, “Propagation Modeling of Moist Air and Suspended Water/Ice Particles at Frequencies Below 1000 GHz,” AGARD Conference Proceedings 542: Atmospheric Propagation Effects through Natural and Man-Made Obscurants for Visible to MM-Wave Radiation, Electromagnetic Wave Propagation Panel Symposium, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 17th–20th May 1993

Propagation characteristics of the atmosphere are modeled for the frequency range from 1 to 1000 GHz (1 THz) by the modular millimeter-wave propagation model MPM. Refractivity spectra of the main natural absorbers (i.e., oxygen, water-vapor, suspende...

Stephen D. Voran and Stephen Wolf, “An Objective Technique for Assessing Video Impairments,” IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on Communications, Computers and Signal Processing, vol.1, no., pp.161-165 vol.1, 19-21 May 1993

Measurements that quantify perceptual video attributes in both the spatial and temporal domains are extracted from the video that has undergone digital coding and compression. These measurements are then used to compute a single score that quantifies...

Arthur A. Webster et al., “An objective video quality assessment system based on human perception,” SPIE: Human vision, visual processing and digital display IV, 1-4 February 1993, San Jose California

The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) has developed an objective video quality assessment system that emulates human perception. The system returns results that agree closely with quality judgements made by a large panel of viewers. Such...

Hans J. Liebe, George A. Hufford, and Michael G. Cotton, “Polarized Transmission and Emission in the Middle Atmosphere (25–150 km) Near the Zeeman-Split Microwave O2 Lines,” URSI National Radio Science Meeting F3-8, (Boulder, Colorado, January 5–8,1993)

Gaseous atmospheric attenuation and delay properties in the 50 to 75-GHz band and near 119 GHz are dominated by the fine structure lines of molecular oxygen. With increasing altitude the complex refractivity displays spectral patterns which change fr...

Hans J. Liebe, George A. Hufford, and Michael G. Cotton, “Progress in Atmospheric Propagation Modeling at Frequencies below 1000 GHz,” Proc. Battlefield Atmosph. Conf., (Ft. Bliss, Texas, December 1992), 247–256

Millimeter-wave propagation through the nonprecipitating atmosphere is modeled for frequencies below 1000 GHz. Complex refractivities represent the spectral properties of four natural absorbers; that is, oxygen, water-vapor, suspended droplets and ic...

Stephen D. Voran and Stephen Wolf, “The Development and Evaluation of an Objective Video Quality Assessment System that Emulates Human Viewing Panels,” International Broadcasting Convention (IBC), pp. 504-508, 3-7 Jul 1992

Discusses the approach used and the research conducted to develop an objective video quality assessment system that emulates human perception. The system returns results that agree closely with quality judgments made by a large panel of viewers for t...

Hans J. Liebe, “Laboratory Measurements of the 60-Ghz O2 Spectrum in Air,” Proc. 14th Ann. Rev. Conf. Atmospheric Transm. Models, 11–12 June 1991; Special Rpt. 267, Phillips Lab., AFSC, (Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts, 1992), 419–428

The O2-spectrum of dry air was studied with a resonance spectrometer under controlled laboratory conditions. Key parts of the instrumentation were an automatic network analyzer and a one-port Fabry-Pérot resonator affording an effective path length o...

Stephen D. Voran, “The development of objective video quality measures that emulate human perception,” Global Telecommunications Conference, 1991 (GLOBECOM '91. Countdown to the New Millennium. Featuring a Mini-Theme on: Personal Communications Services), pp.1776-1781 vol.3, 2-5 Dec 1991

Discusses research efforts to derive objective measures of video quality that emulate human perception. The derivation of these metrics involves the following steps: (1) a set of test scenes in selected and distorted, (2) a set of candidate objective...

Hans J. Liebe and George A. Hufford, “Modeling Millimeter-wave Propagation Effects in the Atmosphere,” AGARD Conference Proceedings No. 454, March 1990, pp.18-1–18-13

Two millimeter-wave propagation models, called MPM and MZM, are discussed. The first one predicts, at frequencies up to 1000 GHz, loss and delay effects for a nonprecipitating atmosphere. Contributions from dry air and vapor are addressed, as well as...

Eldon J. Haakinson, “Proposed Techniques for Adding FM Broadcast Stations in a Major Market,” IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, 18–20 August 1981, Boulder, CO, pp. 1–4

An investigation of the FM Broadcast Spectrum's utilization shows that more assignments are possible if some or all of the following recommendations are adopted: protections to existing facilities rather than to maximum facilities is granted the ...

M. E. Johnson and G. D. Gierhart, “Aerospace Propagation Prediction Capabilities Associated with the IF-77 Model,” Conference Proceedings: Operational Modelling of the Aerospace Propagation Environment, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD), Neuilly-sur-Seine (France), November 1978, Vol. 2, No. 238

The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) has been active in radio wave propagation research and prediction for several decades, and has provided the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with many propagation predictions relevant to the coverag...

Arthur D. Spaulding and George H. Hagn, “Worldwide Minimum Environmental Radio Noise Levels (0.1 Hz to 100 GHz),” Proceedings: Effect of the Ionosphere on Space and Terrestrial Systems, ed. John M. Goodman, ONR/NRL (Arlington, Virginia, January 1978), 177–182.

It is desirable to design receiving sys­tems so that the receiver will be close to being limited by external noise. Indeed, it is cost ineffective to design radio receiving systems with noise figures significantly less than the minimum values of the ...

Technical Contribution

Stephen Wolf and Margaret H. Pinson, “Reference Algorithm for Computing Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) of a Video Sequence with a Constant Delay,” ITU-T Contribution COM9-C6-E, Geneva, February 2-6, 2009.

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) has been used as a benchmark to evaluate new objective perceptual video quality metrics. For example, PSNR has been used as a benchmark for both the Multimedia (MM) and Reduced Reference Television (RRTV) test progra...

Stephen Wolf and Margaret H. Pinson, “Fast Low Bandwidth Video Quality Model (VQM) Description and Reference Code,” ITU-T Contribution COM9-C5-E, Geneva, February 2-6, 2009

Study Group 9 has been working on finalizing Draft New Recommendation J.redref which specifies Reduced Reference (RR) methods for performing video quality measurements of digital television systems. The U.S. National Telecommunications and Informatio...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Medium Bandwidth Techniques for Estimating Temporal Delays Between Input and Output Video Sequences,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/99-205, May 1999

This contribution presents new techniques for estimating temporal delays between input and output video streams from video teleconferencing systems. The discussion in this contribution considers "variable alignment," defined as an alignment process t...

Margaret H. Pinson and Stephen Wolf, “Low Bandwidth Techniques for Estimating Temporal Delays Between Input and Output Video Sequences,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/99-204, May 1999

This contribution presents a new technique for estimating temporal delays between input and output video streams from video teleconferencing systems. The discussion in this contribution is limited to "constant alignment," defined as an alignment proc...

David J. Atkinson and Stephen D. Voran, “Summary of Objective Audio Quality Measure Performance Data Presented to T1A1,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.7/97-042, October 22, 1997

This contribution aggregates the available performance data on the MNB and P.861 objective speech quality measures. Specifically, results presented in contributions T1A1.7/97-032 and T1A1.7/97-034 are examined. Based on examination of the aggregated ...

Stephen Wolf et al., “Objective and Subjective Measures of MPEG Video Quality,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/96-121, October 28, 1996

Presents an in-depth analysis and discussion of the results from applying the ANSI T1.801.03-1996 objective video quality metrics to subjectively rated MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video test scenes. The objective metrics presented in ANSI T1.801.03-1996 (Ameri...

Stephen D. Voran, “An Algorithm for Estimating the Delay of Telephony Speech,” Contribution to ITU-T SG-12 Experts Group on Speech Quality, Document Number SQ 75.96, September 1996.

This contribution is provided for informational purposes. It contains a description of an algorithm that has successfully been used to estimate the delay of telephony band speech. The algorithm features a coarse stage that uses speech envelopes and a...

Presents a computerized search method for determining the gain, level offset, active video shift, and video delay of a digital video transmission channel. The method uses digitized input and output NTSC video fields that have been time tagged with SM...

Stephen Wolf, “Tape Duplication and Traceability Process for ANSI T1.801.02-1996 (Terms and Definitions),” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/95-158, December 14, 1995

Recommends a process to be used by ANSI for duplication and traceability of video tapes for ANSI T1.801.02-1996 (American National Standard for Telecommunications - Digital Transport of Video Teleconferencing/Video Telephony Signals - Performance Ter...

Stephen Wolf, “Tape Duplication and Traceability Process for ANSI T1.801.01-1996 (Test Scenes),” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/95-157, December 14, 1995.

Recommends a process to be used by ANSI for duplication and traceability of video tapes for ANSI T1.801.01-1996 (American National Standard for Telecommunications - Digital Transport of Video Teleconferencing/Video Telephony Signals - Video Test Scen...

Stephen Wolf, “Field Vs. Frame Calculations for Visual Channel Delay,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/95-152, December 11, 1995.

This contribution recommends that calculations of visual channel delay be based on fields rather than frames for an interlaced video system such as NTSC. Using fields rather than frames will double the resolution of the measurement without significan...

Stephen Wolf, “An Update on ITS Video Quality Parameters,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/92-135, July 13, 1995

Presents a summary of efforts to make the objective video quality metrics more efficient in terms of computation and transmission bandwidth. Objective to subjective correlation results are presented for the subjectively rated data set given in the 19...

Stephen Wolf, “An Analysis Technique for Detecting Temporal Edge Noise,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/95-105, January 9, 1995.

Presents an objective analysis technique that can be used for detecting temporal edge noise in an output video sequence that has been digitally compressed. Temporal edge noise is defined in ANSI T1.801.02-1996 as "A form of edge busyness characterize...

Dwight Melcher and Stephen Wolf, “Objective Measures for Detecting Digital Tiling,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/95-104, January 9, 1995

Describes an algorithm for (1) quantifying the spatial gradients or edges in an image as a function of angle or orientation, (2) extracting low bandwidth features from these input and corresponding output spatial gradient images, and (3) deriving obj...

Stephen Wolf, “An In-depth Analysis of the P6 Lost Motion Energy Parameter,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/95-103, January 9, 1995

Provides an in-depth analysis of the behavior of the P6 video performance parameter, a parameter that measures the motion energy that is lost when a video scene is transmitted through a digital video compression system. Objective to subjective correl...

This contribution discusses the advantages and disadvantages of two methods for obtaining a composite rating of Hypothetical Reference Circuit (HRC) performance for an ensemble of source material. The term HRC refers to a specific realization of a vi...

Arthur A. Webster, “Two Criteria for Video Test Scene Selection,” ITU-T (Telecommunications Standardization Sector), Temporary Document 35-E, Working Party 2, Study Group 12, Question 22, Geneva, December 2-5, 1994.

Describes two objective measurements that can be used to quantify the spatial and temporal information content of a video test scene. Test scene coding difficulty (and hence video quality) often depend on the spatial and temporal information complexi...

Coleen T. Jones, Ned Crow, Stephen Wolf, and Arthur A. Webster, “Analysis of T1A1.5 Subjective and Objective Test Data,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/94-152, October 3, 1994.

Presents detailed intra-laboratory (within laboratory) and inter-laboratory (between laboratories) analysis of variance (ANOVA) results for the T1A1 subjective video experiment that contained 625 mean opinion scores (25 test scenes passed through 25 ...

Coleen T. Jones and Ned Crow, “Status of NTIA's Analysis of Subjective Data,” ANSI T1A1 Contribution T1A1.5/94-133, July 18, 1994

Presents results from the analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the subjective opinion scores for the T1A1 subjective video experiment that contained 625 mean opinion scores (25 test scenes passed through 25 different video transmission systems that ranged...