SPLAT! (short for an RF Signal Propagation, Loss, And Terrain analysis tool) is a

GNU GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...

-licensed terrestrial

radio propagation model Radio propagation is the behavior of radio waves as they travel, or are propagated, from one point to another in vacuum, or into various parts of the atmosphere. As a form of electromagnetic radiation, like light waves, radio waves are affected ...

application initially written for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

but has since been ported for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

. SPLAT! can use the Longley-Rice path loss and coverage prediction using the Irregular Terrain Model to predict the behaviour and reliability of radio links, and to predict

path loss Path loss, or path attenuation, is the reduction in power density (attenuation) of an electromagnetic wave as it propagates through space. Path loss is a major component in the analysis and design of the link budget of a telecommunication system. ...

History

Development started in 1997 by John A. Magliacane, KD2BD. The latest version 1.4.2 was published in 2014. In 2020 several authors started the development of a completely reworked version which was not published yet. The authors introduce multithreading, georeferenced outputs (

GeoTIFF GeoTIFF is a public domain metadata standard which allows georeferencing information to be embedded within a TIFF file. The potential additional information includes map projection, coordinate systems, ellipsoids, datums, and everything else necessa ...

) and

metrication Metrication or metrification is the act or process of converting to the metric system of measurement. All over the world, countries have transitioned from local and traditional units of measurement to the metric system. This process began in F ...

as defaults.

References

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External links

SPLAT! Website
(From Wayback Machine, as StumbleUpon is defunct.)
TV Technology article
Radio frequency propagation Free communication software Amateur radio software for Linux Amateur radio software for Windows Amateur radio software for macOS