Generic antenna radiation patterns are very useful in coverage planning before specific choices have been made and also in interference coordination to help make robust plans.

These patterns are typically based upon mathematical models that describe a broad family of antenna technology and lead to enveloping masks that generally describe the worst radiation that may be expected at any azimuth or elevation angle. This approach avoids the need to describe specific side or back lobes that may change when an antenna is mounted in a real environment compared to a measurement in an anechoic chamber.

To help planning I made a utility to visualise antenna generic antenna patterns and find antenna codes matching a specific antenna. The software is based upon the pattern types codified in the Harmonised Calculation Method (HCM) that is common for cross border interference management between many European nations and beyond. For more information on HCM see the official website where you can find more on the antenna patterns and their formulation.

The concept of the software is that you either specify a pattern direct using the codification scheme or you paste in numerical data describing a known pattern and then find a matching specification.

I made it some time ago but have recently dusted it down and done a bit of maintenance as I wanted to use it to make consistent plots on harmonised scales. You can download HCMPLOT and use freely, however as with all the freebies on this site you do so without any warranty whatsoever. At the moment the executable is not signed so I will update at some stage and maybe I will add more on file import/export for common antenna pattern formats.