Experimental Results of Diversity Reception for Terrestrial Digital Broadcasting

Terrestrial digital broadcasting services in Japan will start in 2003, and conventional analog broadcasting will be terminated in 2011. However, it has been reported that the mobile reception quality for the terrestrial digital broadcasting is significantly reduced for high bit rate transmissions such as high definition television broadcasting. In this study, the reception quality of terrestrial digital broadcasting when the directional pattern of the mobile terminal is controlled has been experimentally investigated using an experimental radio wave. As a result, it is confirmed that the reception probabilities by controlling the directional pattern are significantly improved compared to an omnidirectional antenna. Especially, it is found that the improvement in the reception probability is greatly increased as the electric field strength decreased. Thus, it is expected that the directional pattern control is an effective method for improving the reception quality and expanding the service area of the terrestrial digital broadcasting.