European radiobeacon DGNSS: Making the most of the frequency band

The rapid development of differential GNSS transmissions via low-frequency maritime radiobeacons has further increased the occupancy of an already ove r-crowded frequency band. This has resulted in interference between station s, with consequent reductions of coverage. The paper suggests a re-allocati on of channels within this band in Europe to be carried out, taking careful account of the known groundwave and skywave propagation of both wanted and interfering signals and the distribution of atmospheric noise. A novel alg orithm is proposed for re-allocating frequencies. The resulting band plan i s shown to offer substantially increased coverage for DGNSS radiobeacons wh ile preserving the performance of marine and aeronautical direction-finding beacons, the latter remaining on their original channels.