## 2 Materials and Methods  
### Study Locations and Experimental Procedures  
#### 2.1.1 Research Location and Measurement Routes  
This study was carried out on Star Times digital terrestrial UHF channels 44 and 52, with carrier frequencies of 658 and 752 MHz, located in Ikorodu and Akure Cities, respectively. Two measurement routes for the data collection were considered for each location. The routes considered in Ikorodu were from the base station in Magodo to Egbin passing through Ijede for route A, while route B was from the base station to Ibee Town passing through Ojubode-Beach Road. Each route was 10 km. Table 2 presents key transmission and receiver parameters for the study, while Figure 1 presents the maps of the measurement routes. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{p{142.3 pt} p{142.3 pt} p{142.3 pt}} \hline
**Reference** & **Nature of Work/Location** & **Main Finding(s)/Limitations/Strengths** \\ \hline \multirow{7}{*}{
\begin{tabular}{} \end{tabular} } & This study aims to fill the following research gaps by: \\  & (i) & This study was carried out using real-world data with seasonal scopes so that the findings could be useful for the accurate prediction of path loss over digital terrestrial UHF channels in the study regions or similar environments. \\  & (ii) & The best performing model(s) that would provide valuable and reliable applications in assessing the performance of existing digital terrestrial television channels are validated and optimized. This will also be useful in creating coverage limitation mappings for predicting television white spaces (TVWS), contributing to the maximization of spectrum and frequency reuse in the study area or similar environments. \\  & These gaps have largely been overlooked in the previous literature. \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: _Cont._Figure 1: (**a**) GIS map indicating measurement routes in Ikorodu; (**b**) GIS map indicating measurement routes in Akure [1]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**s/n** & **Station Parameters** & **Ikorodu DTBS** & **Akure DTBS** \\ \hline
1 & Location’s geographic coordinates & Latitude \(6^{\circ}37^{\prime}43^{\prime\prime}\) N, & Latitude \(7^{\circ}15^{\prime}08^{\prime\prime}\) N, \\  & Long. \(3^{\circ}31^{\prime}42^{\prime\prime}\) E & Long. \(5^{\circ}07^{\prime}53^{\prime\prime}\) E \\ \hline
2 & Frequency of transmission (MHz)/channel & 658/UHF 44 & 772/ UHF 52 \\ \hline
3 & Transmitted power (kW) & 1.80 & 2.90 \\ \hline
4 & Height of transmitting base station’s & 182.50 & 182.50 \\  & mast/antenna \(\left(h_{\,p}\right)\) (m) & 3.0 & 3.0 \\ \hline
5 & Height of receiver antenna \(\left(h_{\,r}\right)\) (m) & 3.0 & 3.0 \\ \hline
6 & Antenna’s gain (dB) & 17.00 & 17.00 \\ \hline
7 & Cable and connector loss (dB) & 3.0 & 3.0 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Key transmission and receiver parameters of the two DTBS. Meanwhile, according to the Okumura definition, the Ikorodu environment, especially the measurement routes, comprises about 40% suburban and 60% urban environments, respectively. The urban environment along measurement route A (from the base station to Egbin), spans from the base station in Magodo to Oke Elettu (0-6 km). The area from Abule Eko to Ijede falls within the suburban area (7-10 km). For route B (from the base station to Ibese Town), the urban area falls within the base station to Ibese Road (0-6.5 km) and from Ibese Road to Ibese Town (6.5-10 km). This necessitated the computation of the predicted path loss models (PPLMs) for urban and suburban areas in Ikorodu, and the mean value was used for analysis and discussions. In contrast, the Akure environment is considered a sub-suburban area based on the Okumura standard of classifications. Specifically, the measurement routes considered comprised about 70% suburban and 30% urban environments according to the Okumura definition.