Evaluation of SFN Gain for DVB-T2
Bundit Ruckveratham
Department of Telecommunication Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering
King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang
Bangkok, Thailand
bundit1973@hotmail.com
Abstract - The evaluation of power gain and modulation
error ratio (MER) gain of Digital Video Broadcasting -
Second Generation Terrestrial (DVB-T2) for Single
Frequency Network (SFN) is very important for the
performance of the receiver. The power gain and MER gain
are considered based on the data measurement. However,
the quality of service in the SFN area will depend on the
number and nature of the received signal (number of
transmitters, relative delays, and relative amplitudes). In
this paper, we proposed to estimate the reception quality
under the SFN environment with the delay spread of two
transmitters no longer than the guard interval. The results
are useful for estimation and analysis the DVB-T2 Single
Frequency Network performance and optimization for
DVB-T2 network.
Keywords— DVB-T2, SFN gain, MER gain, power gain
I. INTRODUCTION
SFN technology [1] is one of the methods used to broadcast
digital television. This method makes it possible to save
bandwidth. The signal can be broadcast to more coverage area
than MFN (Multiple Frequency Network) [2]. The most
important to consider for broadcasting in SFN transmission are
same data, same time and same frequency. It will make possible
an SFN transmission efficiency. In this paper, we evaluate the
SFN performance of DVB-T2 [2]
This single frequency operation is possible by the use of
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) with a
sufficiently long guard interval (GI): if all the signals from the
different transmitters arrive inside the GI interval, then the
presence of multiple transmitters has the effect of creating an
artificial multipath (due to the reception of different SFN
echoes), from a receiving point of view.
This article analyzes the effects when increases the delay
time to the effect of MER [3]. Since the MER is important as
well for quality reception. Moreover, we evaluate the effect of
power gain, MER gain, noise margin, bBER and LBER when
the delay time changed. Which would make note of the best
delay time for the best of MER gain. This means that the
performance of the network SFN would be good quality as well.
978-1-5090-5210-3/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Sathaporn Promwong
Department of Telecommunication Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering
King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang
Bangkok, Thailand
kpsathap@kmitl.ac.th
These results are very important for the broadcasters to define
the optimal network
II. EXPERIMENTAL SYSTEM
In experimental use the two exciters to transmit the DVB-T2
signal for SFN. From the Fig.1. Shown the diagram of
experimental. The satellite receiver or IRD receives signal from
the satellite dish via LNB. The satellite receiver or IRD can be
receive the T2-MI [4] from the head-end control center directly.
MCOT uplink the T2-MI to the satellite because this is easy to
manage the network of digital television of MCOT to control
the modulation parameter from the head-end control center. The
other key advantage of this method that can be making the SFN
for network and save the cost for installation T2 gateway
equipment at DTV network station sites in Thailand..
Fig. 1. DVB-T2 transmission with SFN
The T2-MI is necessary for making the SFN network. After
that, ASI output signal form IRD sent to the both transmitter
exciters. The transmitter exciter connects with GPS for use
1PPS for time base. The 1PPS signal use for SFN networks to
synchronize the T2-MI signal. In this research, experimental,
power of exciter that use is 100 mW of both transmitter exciters.
The exciter can change the frequency for transmitting and delay
time of transmitting along with the time of guard interval. For
the modulation parameter in table 2, guard interval is 266 μs.
The ROVER HD Pro Tab use for receiver signal and
measurement. This equipment can analyze the guard interval,
Power, MER, SNR, Noise margin, bBER, LBER, Spectrum
frequency, C/N and etc.
 Experimental procedure, setting the MUX channel for transmitted from multiple transmitters. The received signal can
transmitter exciter and calibration of both transmitter use power be written as
transmission about C/N 20 dB when measurement power from
the ROVER. The requirement for C/N 20 dB because the signal
is strength and robustness from interference. After that, setting (2)
the transmitter exciters to SFN mode. Change the delay of the
transmitter 0 μs to 270 μs at 10 μs Step. All of measure of delay
setting, each of the delay time setting use 10 times for
measurement. After that change the channel frequency and Where ”୩ (for k=0,…, K–1) is the k-th received signal, ™୩ is
measurement all of the MUXs. additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), ٔ is a circular
ሺ୬ሻ
convolutional calculation, š୩ is the k-th transmitted signal of
ሺ୬ሻ
Table 1. The DVB-T2 channel for SFN experimental the n-th transmitter, and Š୩ is the channel impulse response
Mux Channel Frequency (MHz) from the n-th transmitter, which can be written as
NBT 47 682
ARMY 1 39 618 (3)
MCOT 35 586
TPBS 28 530 Where ɒ୪ is the delay time of the l-th path and IJ max is the
ARMY 2 51 714 ሺ୬ሻ
delay value of the last path of Š୩ since each signal is
transmitted from a different transmitter, it is very hard to
Table 2. The DVB-T2 modulation parameters for Thailand transmit the signal at the same time. Of course, there are
Parameter Value transmission time differences in each transmitter. Considering
a time difference, the received signal can be rewritten a
Bandwidth 8 MHz
FFT Mode 16k Extended
Pilot Pattern PP2 (4)
Guard Interval 19/128
Constellation 64 QAM
Constellation Rotation Off Where ”Ԣ୩ is the received signal from a delayed transmitted
Code Rate 3/555 signal, and ୈ (n) is the transmission delay value of the n-th
transmitter

III. SINGLE FREQUENCY NETWORK ANALYSIS B. MER gain

A. SFN gain
Power contributions from the individual transmitters
working in the single frequency network add. Therefore the
single frequency network shows a so-called SFN gain. This
gain can be simply formulated as follows. The DVB-T2
transmitters with the broadcast power Pv ensure in the same
conditions (the same directivity and antenna gain) better signal
coverage (greater values of the field intensity) in the receiver
position than a single transmitter with the double broadcast
power 2Pv. Quantitative expression of the SFN gain, which
depends on the receiver position and on many other factors.
SFNG = SFNpower – MFNpower [dB] (1)
The Modulation Error Ratio (MER) is used to indicate the
efficiency of digital television transmission [6]. The MER can
be measured from the samples terminal of the transmitter and
can be measured from the receiver on the field as well. The
Modulation format is QAM (Quadrature amplitude
modulation). The quality thresholds for single constellation in
the I/Q plane shown in figure 1. The constellation points used
to inspect the errors amplitude and phase. Those errors of vector
are the result of the distortion frequency.
(5)

In an SFN environment, multiple transmitters use an identical

frequency to transmit a broadcasting signal. There are various
SFN environments, and the receiver in the overlapped area
receives the broadcasting signal from multiple transmitters.
Since the broadcasting signal is transmitted on the same
frequency, the received signal is the superposition of the signals
The error Vector of the IQ signal that comparison between
the ideal signal and the error signal [7]. The sum of the squares
of the magnitudes of the ideal symbol vectors (I j, Q j) is divided
by the sum of the squares of the magnitudes of the symbol error

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vectors (įI j, įQ j). The result, expressed as a power ratio in dB, interfered from the environment, thus the power gain is
is defined as the Modulation Error Ratio (MER). The equation different from the average of the other MUXs.
is shown in equation 5.
The MER is used to indicate the quality of the reception
conditions and including the SFN effect. MER gain is then
defined as the MER in SFN mode minus the MER in MFN
mode. The MER gain effect will be significant only in locations
where the field strength values received from more than one
transmitter are comparable. The equation of MER gain is shown
in equation 6.

MER gain = MER (SFN) – MER (MFN) [dB] (6)

MER gain from the calculation are mostly negative values.

Because the MER from the SFN values are always reduced
depending on the phase and amplitude from the signal of two Fig. 3. Delay vs SFN power gain
transmitters or more transmitters. If the MER is low negative
values, which means Interference between the signals from the
transmitters is minimal. Thus, the MER values of SFN mode
will decrease slightly compared with the MER values of MFN
mode
C. Signal Detection
The MER was measured from the DVB-T2 receiver
analyzer via the antenna. The received signal after
demodulation will be measured. The approximate of MER at 20
dB to give Bit error rate (BER) about 2 x 10-2. This is the
estimate of minimum threshold that accept to receive the digital
television of DVB-T2 and television can watch normally. By
this point, is defined as the bBER or BER before LDPC (low- Fig. 4. Delay vs MER gain
density parity-check). The BER after LDPC decoding is defined
as the LBER or LDPC BER that can be reduced the BER to 2 x
10-7. After that, BEH (Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghen) can be
reduced the BER to 2 x 10-11 [8]. The block diagram of
measurement is shown in figure 2.

Fig. 5. The comparison of correlation between the average of

Fig. 2. The block diagram of SFN analysis
for DVB-T2 system
IV. RESULT
This section describes the graphical compilation of the
experimental results.
Figure 3 shows the SFN gain of the measurement from all 5
MUXs. After changing the delay time of the transmitter, the
power SFN gain on average is approximately 4 dB during the
delay time between 60 μs to 240 μs. The frequency 714 MHz is
MER gain and MER gain
The MER gain shown in Figure 4. This value is determined
by calculating the difference of MER between MFN mode and
SFN mode. From this result, the MER is negative values. The
average MER gain is approximately -5 dB. But at the time 0 μs
to 20 microsecond and 220 μs to 260 μs is very different of
result.
Figure 5 shows the comparison of correlation between
averages of MER gain and MER gain. It has higher distortion
from 0 μs to 30 μs and 220 μs to 260 μs, from 30 μs to 220 μs
is small distortion.

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Table 3. The measurement data for MFN mode
Table 4. The average of measurement data for SFN mode
From table 3 shown the frequency of 5 MUXs, Power, MER,
Noise margin, bBER and LBER from the data measured on
MFN mode comparison with the average data measured on SFN
mode. Table 4 shown average of power gain, MER, MER gain,
Noise margin, bBER and LBER from the measurement of delay
change of transmitter between 0 μs to 260 μs. From table 4,
when used in SFN mode the power gain will increase
approximately 4 dB whereas the MER gain will decrease
approximately 5 dB.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we evaluated the performance of the SFN
gain for DVB-T2. The quality of reception has been analyzed
from the power gain and the MER gain from the measurement
analyzer. The relationship between the SFN gain and delay time
of both transmitters has been investigated, The results show that
gain of power gain is positive and MER gain is negative when
the delay time has changed. For transmitter that use high
frequency, MER gain will be degraded than the transmitter that
use lower frequency. Consequently, the evaluation for power
gain and MER gain by delay time changed between two
transmitters of SFN network broadcasting would be very useful
to analyze the phenomenon observed in the measured data or to
evaluate DVB-T2 network planning in various system
configurations.
978-1-5090-5210-3/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
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