Pathloss 5 - Where to begin

This step by step is intended to help a first time user get the program up and running. It is intentionally kept simple and is designed to familiarize the user with Pathloss 5's layout and tools.

Step 1 - Configure terrain data

Download some terrain data from NASA.

This tool may also be helpful http://www.pathloss.com/mapsearch.html.

Unzip the file(s) and make a note of where you have unzipped it to.

Click Configure - Set GIS configuration

Click the Primary DEM tab and select SRTM (World) from the Digital elevation model drop down list.

Click the File index button and a new window will appear. In the menu of the new window click Files ,Import index and SRTM hgt files.

Browse to locate the HGT files you have downloaded (You can select many HGT files at once by holding Ctrl or Shift while selecting fles). Click Open and the files will be added to the index list.

You have now configured Pathloss 5 for SRTM terrain data.

Step 2 - Enter site information

Click View - Site List To bring up the Site index.

We are going to manualy add two site to the project. Make sure that the cooridinates you use for the sites are within the bounds of the terrain data that was used in the last step.

Double click on the first cell in the Site Name Column. Enter a name for the site and press the Tab key to move the to next cell. Enter a Latitude for the site and press Tab. Enter a Longitude. This is the minimum required information for a site. Add a second site with the same method.

Close the Site list and the sites will be shown in the GIS window.

Sites can also me imported from a CSV file or any delimited text file. See Import Sites from text file.

Step 3 - Create the links

For this example we will manually connect the links