Coverage

This is the latest ETCC plot of coverage:

The plot is a straight lift of what is published officially on the ETCC web site. You can see it with more detail here.  The blue area represents a 90% likelihood of outdoor HT coverage.  After tests, though, we feel this is somewhat over optimistic, especially if the rig has a rubber duck aerial instead of a normal whip. However, coverage in and around Southport Town Centre is 99%.

The magenta area represents a 90% likelihood of mobile communication.

From the outset, GB3OA was designed to provide only local coverage for coastal south west Lancashire, so it doesn’t provide coverage similar to wide area repeaters such as GB3MP – the aerial height is the restricting factor here compared to MP.   However, mobile operation is possible out towards Preston, Crosby and Skelmersdale, and Blackpool is well covered – but there will be pockets of poor reception too. For fixed station operation these limits can well extend further – for example operators use the repeater along the North Wales coast and the South Lakes.

When the original application was made, we also generated our own coverage map. We think this offers a more realistic picture of the likely coverage.