SignalPlanner
RF Coverage & Link Planning
$14.99 · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
After a long wait and 100s of hours of field use, a major update to the app!
Model with real-time weather and solar data via multiple models and data sources.
SignalPlanner brings professional-grade RF propagation modelling to iPhone and iPad. Plan repeater coverage, a backhaul link, or emergency-communications reach in the field or at your desk.
PROPAGATION MODELS
ITM Longley-Rice — terrain diffraction, with ground type and climate zone
Hata Urban and Hata Rural — empirical loss for built-up and open ground
COST-231 Urban — extended Hata above 1.5 GHz
FSPL + Clutter — free-space loss plus land-cover attenuation
Two-Ray + Clutter — ground reflection plus land-cover loss
Strict LOS — line-of-sight only, for millimetre-wave paths Compare ITM with FSPL + Clutter on the same terrain, without replacing the saved map.
TERRAIN AND LAND-COVER Elevation is NASA/USGS SRTM via AWS Mapzen Terrarium tiles (27 m), cached on device. Land-cover is ESA WorldCover 2021 at 10 m, with OpenStreetMap as fallback. Choose Coarse, Fine, or Very Fine (90 m). Cells grow coarser with range, out to 150 km.
COVERAGE MAPS Set site, frequency, power, gain, and losses. Set the radius, or suggest it from the radio horizon. Strong and marginal zones use classic, rainbow, or colour-blind-safe colours. Carve a sector by azimuth and inner radius. Choose downlink, uplink, or two-way; two-way counts a spot only when both directions close. Tap for a link readout and S-meter. Styles: standard, satellite, hybrid, muted, or topographic.
WEATHER Run the plan on a forecast: reliable, typical, and favourable coverage over 24, 48, or 72 hours, or any single hour. Ducting is flagged when it may stretch range.
RELAYS, ROUTES, AND SITING Best Site ranks places for area, strong signal, or specific pins, and says when none covers them all. Repeater Chain finds the fewest hops between two sites. Repeater(s) reaches up to three far sites. Route coverage plans hops along a path. Band sweep compares frequencies from one site.
POINT-TO-POINT AND ANTENNAS The link budget includes the terrain profile, Fresnel clearance, obstructions, fade margin, and a PDF. Import a measured pattern (MSI / Planet) so directional gain shapes the map and the link.
HF AND SPACE WEATHER Solar indices, HF openings, and aurora / sporadic-E, saved for offline use. A skip-zone check, with NVIS notes, asks if two stations are too close for HF. The P.533 Full model (Experimental, not yet ITU-validated) estimates reliability, SNR, LUF, and multi-hop.
MEASURED VS PREDICTED Import a CSV or JSON survey, or drop signal-report pins, and compare them with a map. You get an advisory offset. iOS cannot read live signal strength.
MAP TOOLS Go to an address, lat/long, or MGRS. Drop a pin from GPS or with a long press. Measure distance, bearing, and area, and find high and low terrain. On supported devices, describe a plan in plain language and confirm it before it runs.
OFFLINE AND EXPORT Cached terrain, weather, and space weather keep later runs offline. Share a PDF, or a KMZ of placemarks, rings, paths, routes, and a coverage overlay.
PRESETS AND PRO Amateur, APRS, LMR, and data-link presets fill in frequency, sensitivity, and a model. Any frequency is still allowed. Four analyses are free. Map tools, KMZ, space weather, the skip-zone estimate, pattern import, link PDFs, and Measured vs Predicted stay free. Pro is a one-time purchase for unlimited runs: weather, Best Site, routes, repeaters, band sweep, and the HF Full model.
PRIVACY No account. Location centres the map. Requests send only the coordinates being planned. No analytics, advertising, or tracking.
Terrain: AWS Mapzen/Terrarium (MIT licence). Land-cover: ESA WorldCover 2021 (CC-BY 4.0). Topo: OpenTopoMap (CC-BY-SA 3.0). Streets: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Elevation fallback: Open-Elevation (GPLv2). Weather: Open-Meteo. Space weather: HamQSL and NOAA SWPC.
Predictions are estimates only. Do not rely on them alone for life-safety, mission-critical, or regulatory decisions. Always verify on site.
Terms of Use: www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Ratings & Reviews
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This is a huge update.
Weather-aware coverage, an HF toolkit, real antenna patterns, and a full relay and route planner. Still on your iPhone, no account.
Weather-aware coverage • Coverage can follow real tropospheric refraction instead of a fixed standard atmosphere. • Reliable, typical, and favorable maps over a 24/48/72-hour forecast, plus a point-in-time map you can set to any hour. • Ducting is flagged when conditions may stretch range unpredictably.
HF and space weather • Space Weather & Band Conditions: solar indices, HF band openings, and aurora / sporadic-E. Free, and cached for offline use. • Skip-zone checker for two stations, with NVIS guidance when a path is too short for skywave. • Full model (Experimental): an on-device ITU-R P.533 prediction for reliability, SNR, LUF, and multi-hop. It returns a complete result; “experimental” means it is not yet checked against the ITU reference.
Antennas, links, and bands • Import real antenna patterns (MSI / Planet). Directional gain shapes coverage maps and point-to-point links. • Link-budget PDF: path-loss breakdown, fade margin, availability, and a terrain profile with Fresnel clearance. • Band sweep: compare several frequencies from the same site and see which covers the most area.
Check a prediction • Measured vs Predicted: import a survey (CSV or JSON) or drop manual signal-report pins, compare them with a coverage map, and get an advisory calibration offset. This never rewrites the map. iOS cannot read live signal strength, so entry is import or manual only.
Reach, relays, and routes • Suggest a map range from your antennas’ radio horizon. Coverage maps now run out to 150 km. • Repeater Chain finds the fewest hops between two sites, including a staging hop when the repeater cannot reach as far as the base. • Route coverage plans a repeater chain along a path and shows that chain’s margin, plus any uncovered tail. • Repeater(s) reaches up to three far sites, for fewer hops or more area, and must cover every pin you select. • Best Site can target specific pins, says when no one site covers them all, and can propose relays for the rest. • Mobile role: downlink, uplink, or two-way. Two-way counts a spot only when both directions close. Routes have the same choice. • Carve a map to an azimuth and inner radius. Outside the sector is “no data,” not “no signal.” • Compare a saved map with the other model (ITM Longley-Rice or FSPL + Clutter) without replacing it. • Very Fine terrain (about 90 m). Long relay corridors load terrain on a finer grid than before.
Read the map • Rainbow and color-blind-safe palettes, plus optional smoothed edges. • A land-cover badge shows whether clutter is in the prediction. • Tap anywhere for a link from the transmitter: margin, level, distance, pass/fail, and an S-meter. Nudge either antenna by 0.1 m. • Save, rename, and print ruler paths with lat/long and MGRS, including legs, direction, and area. • Find the highest and lowest terrain on the loaded map. • Branch a plan onto another site without losing the original. • Unit roles (base, vehicle, handheld) with matching map icons. • Jump to an address, lat/long, or MGRS.
Day to day • In-app User Guide, and a Free vs Pro screen before you subscribe. • Greyed-out actions explain why, with valid ranges in Help. • The map opens around 2 km. A pin or your location zooms to about 50 m. • Center on My Current Location is a temporary red X, not a saved pin. Pins can start at 0. • An eye shows which saved repeater plan is on the map. • VoiceOver labels on the denser screens.
Clearer maps • Printed coverage stays square, with no north–south stretch. • Each cell is sampled, so the false weak stripe through the transmitter is gone. Run Apply again on older maps. • Land cover lines up with the elevation grid. On older fine maps, re-ingest land cover, then Apply. • A route no longer reports coverage past the terrain that was loaded.
The developer, LocStat, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Locstat Consulting Inc.
- Size
- 8.2 MB
- Category
- Utilities
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- SignalPlanner Pro $14.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 Locstatconsulting Inc.
