Purpose

The radio spectrum is used literally by everybody. There are a lot of applications like burglar alarm, cordless headphones and microphones, radio LAN, remote keys, remote switches and other remote controls in our personal environment. Some users may not be aware that these are radio applications and a service degradation of these applications may be perceived as malfunction instead of radio interference. Other applications like cellular radio and broadcasting and radio operators as police, ambulance, air traffic control and armed forces are more intuitively linked with radio. Anyway, the vital importance of the radio spectrum for modern societies has been extensively discussed elsewhere and is commonly accepted and understood.

Radio monitoring, in contrast, requires much more explanation. The purpose of spectrum monitoring is to support the spectrum management process in general and to solve interference problems. And in addition it has to be clearly stated that spectrum monitoring has nothing in common with radio surveillance. In spectrum monitoring the content of an emission may be used to identify a radio station or to determine the service quality. However, the message as such is of no interest.

The purpose of this Handbook is to provide information and to give guidance to all those who are involved in the process of spectrum monitoring: managers, operators, maintenance staff, instructors and procurement managers.