Review of Nautel RF Toolkit, the free broadcast frequency coverage planning tool, but for prediction only!

For a small radio station, to get a frequency license from regulator, the authority requires the broadcasters to do frequency planning and interference analysis by making coverage report. The coverage report may be a mandatory if apply a frequency license.

Some say that it is very expensive to get a radio frequency planning and coverage report, but in fact those reports are done by professional engineers. Inversely, some say that they want to get coverage report of radio transmission for FREE! It is impossible to ask professional engineers to provide RF coverage report for FREE. Besides that, the RF coverage report is generated by using software, it also costs you for the software license.

 

I may understand that some of broadcasters may not afford to get FM coverage studies report by professional engineers due to the costs. A RF toolkit may help them, but for only coverage map of their transmitting station.

Want to do a basic RF coverage by your own without cost? Here is one of my favorite tool, it is Nautel RF Toolkit which is my favorite RF coverage tool since September 2016 until today.

Nautel RF Toolkit is a free radio coverage tool. To access it, you must create an account. Here are some screenshots of Nautel Radio Coverage Tool:

In my opinion, Nautel RF Coverage Tool is quite amazing. As FM DXer (amateur), I can check the coverage of existing radio stations' transmitter sites by using this toolkit because it can generate estimated coverage of a transmitter site by inserting site parameters and antenna system information.

 

This Nautel RF Radio Coverage Tool only generates coverage with only OMNI-directional antenna form. It won't generate directional antenna coverage, despite I set the directional antenna gain and TX line loss, this is because it has no antenna beaming angle configuration.

 

I usually publish a radio coverage map on blog by using Nautel RF Toolkit to show a roughly coverage of a radio station. For the field strength, I follow ITU recommendation which minimum field strength of stereo signal is 54dBuV/m (green), meanwhile lowest field strength (mono signal) is 30dBuV/m (yellow). In terms of accuracy, I can rate 89 out of 100.

This free toolkit will not generate any interference analysis like what professional series RF software company does. Moreover, it will not detect the vacant frequencies by performing FM band scanning. Therefore, we need to use FM band scanner toolkit (example: DEVA Band Scanner). To get only your radio station coverage map, Nautel Radio Coverage Tool is my recommendation. Please sign up account to generate your own radio station coverage map.

 

In addition, as Nautel also states that the coverage tool is not meant to replace the coverage studies and other works done by professional RF engineers. So, please consult with a qualified engineer before applying license or buying equipment. 

Although I'm former junior broadcast engineer now, BUT I continue as non-profit broadcast transmission journalist cum enthusiast. As I'm RF enthusiast, I love to use Nautel Radio Coverage Tool to discover the coverage of Malaysia, Singapore and Southern Thailand radio stations.

Disclaimer: The review of Nautel RF Toolkit is come out from my personal opinion, also my personal experience of using the toolkit.