Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Radio Inyabutatu

Starting August 31, 2013, a new radio station will start broadcasting on shortwave. It concerns Radio Inyabutatu. Radio Inyabutatu will broadcast on Saturdays from 1700-1800 UTC on 17870 kHz in the 16 meter band.

For more information, visit www.radioinyabutatu.com

(Via TDP List)

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Thomson Broadcast Shows DRM-Capable AM Transmitters

Thomson Broadcast will show the S7 HP range of high-power AM radio equipment with DRM broadcast capability at IBC2013.
 
According to the company, this range of radio AM transmitters has been designed to withstand decades of intensive use, and provide simplicity in operation: a single button push switches the transmitter from AM to DRM mode.
 
Read the Radio World story at .....

Voice of Russia will stop shortwave broadcasts from 1st Jan 2014

MOSCOW, August 21 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian government's international radio broadcasting service Golos Rossii (Voice of Russia) will stop its shortwave broadcasts from January 1 next year, the Digit.ru online journal reported Wednesday.
 
The shortwave service is closing "due to funding cuts," Voice of Russia deputy director Natalya Zhmai said in a letter dated August 15 to Andrei Romanchenko, head of the Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (RTRBN), the journal said.

More at ......
 

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Ampegon & Transradio team up

Radio giants team up
by Chris Newbould on Aug 21, 2013

Ampegon Group and TRANSRADIO SenderSysteme Berlin AG, announced today that they have entered a strategic business cooperation.

Ampegon is a leading supplier of transmission and antenna systems and TRANSRADIO is a well-known manufacturer of radio broadcasting systems. The collaboration is primarily based on TRANSRADIO's longwave and mediumwave transmitter TRAM line and Ampegon's system expertise with comprehensive antenna products. Both companies are founding members of the DRM consortium and represent together the world´s largest number of successful DRM installations.

More at ....

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Nautel Begins Delivery of Major DRM Transmitter Project

Nautel participation in All India Radio's transition to DRM digital AM involves 4.9 Megawatts total of transmission power.

Hackett's Cove, Nova Scotia — Nautel has begun deployment of 27 medium wave AM transmitters and associated equipment ordered earlier this year by India's Prasar Bharati. The orders for 100 kW, 100 kW and 300 kW DRM-enabled transmitters are being installed for All India Radio and comprise the world's largest digital radio deployment to date. All transmitters in the system are being configured for DRM30 transmission and will be used in 27 locations throughout India.

Engineers from AIR were at the Nautel factory in Hackett's Cove, Nova Scotia in early August to begin Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) of the first transmitters in the order. Three 300 kW NX300 and one 200 kW NX200 transmitters were accepted in early August; four 100 kW NX100 transmitters are scheduled for testing at the end of the month. The NX200 is shipping August 27. Its installation in Delhi, scheduled to begin in late October, will kick off the deployment in India; the installation project will be led by Nautel Customer Service Technician Bachar Dib. The NX300 transmitters shipping to India at the end of the month will be installed in Jammu, Jalandhar and Lucknow.

All India Radio (AIR) serves the entire country of India via their analog broadcasting service, covering a broad range of languages and dialects through the country. The transition to digital broadcasting will allow AIR to use alternate platforms such as podcasting, SMS, webcasting and mobile services, and offer a 24-hour news channel along with other programming. Additional services such as Interactive Text Transmission and disaster warning are also planned.

"The significance of this project for Digital Broadcasting for India and the rest of the world cannot be understated," said Peter Conlon, Nautel President and CEO. "It represents a major change in the number of potential listeners for DRM, and reinvigorates Medium Wave transmission which has been languishing over recent years. This deployment shows that Radio is still a valid medium that has a place in our mixed media world for decades to come. Nautel is thrilled to be part of this important project."

Nautel NX Series MW transmitters were first introduced in 2007. These high power transmitters occupy a surprisingly small footprint for their power and offer the industry's highest efficiency (90%) along with AM precorrection, unmatched linearity and Nautel's exclusive Advanced User Interface. Working with Nautel on the deployment are Comcon, Nautel's in-country partner along with Altronic, providing RF test loads; Digidia, providing DRM modulators/content servers and Kintronic Labs, supplying matching systems for the project. The project includes 6 Nautel NX300 (300 kW MW-AM), 10 NX200 (200 kW MW-AM) and 11 NX100 (100 kW MW-AM) transmitters.

Nautel will be at IBC with the company's latest Medium Wave, FM and TV transmitters, and will host a DRM event on the Nautel stand (8.C61) on Saturday 14 September from 15:00 – 17:00. The event is titled "DRM listeners: Building a Billion."

About Nautel
Nautel has emerged as one of the world's largest manufacturers of AM and FM radio broadcast transmitters. With more than 12,000 transmitters deployed in over 177 countries since 1970, Nautel
continues to lead the way in providing valuable new solutions for digital radio broadcasting and other applications.
 
(Press Release)

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Ampegon delivers two 100 kW shortwave transmission systems to All India Radio

Turgi, Switzerland, August 8, 2013. All India Radio (AIR), India's National Broadcaster and the premier Public Service Broadcaster of the subcontinent, has ordered two 100 kW shortwave transmitters from Ampegon. The new systems will replace existing analogue transmitters with four tubes by modern analogue/digital transmitters having single tube and hence a much better overall efficiency. The transmitters will operate with the new Ampegon control system to optimize DRM performance, an important factor in the growing Indian DRM market.
 
All India Radio has selected Ampegon as supplier because of the expertise and the reliability of their transmitters well known since decades. AIR is already using many different Ampegon AM/DRM radio transmitters which have been delivered between 1983 and 2012.
 
The transmitters will be manufactured in Turgi, Switzerland. Factory tests together with AIR engineers are planned for January and shipment for February 2014. Thereafter AIR will install the transmitters at a site near New Delhi. Commissioning together with an Ampegon engineer will start in August 2014. The new transmitters are expected to be on air in October 2014.
 
They will be partially used for DRM digital broadcasting and partially for analogue transmission. Furthermore AIR has plans to upgrade 36 of the existing AM mediumwave and 4 of the existing AM shortwave transmitters for DRM digital broadcasting.
 
AIR originates programming in 23 languages and 146 dialects. AIR operates 244 FM transmitters for coverage of 29.4% surface area and 41.6% of the population. AIR also operates mediumwave transmitters which cover 92% surface area and 99% of the population. Further AIR operates 48 shortwave transmitters. 21 of them are 500 kW or 250 kW shortwave transmitters and are used for external international services. 27 of them are 50 or 100 kW shortwave transmitters and are used for local services and for coverage of neighboring countries.
 
(Press Release)
 

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Independence Day Greetings !


It's been 67 years since India got freedom, let's Celebrate our Independence, Happy Independence Day !!

Monday, August 12, 2013

Radio Free Sarawak back on air from 12th August 2013


Sarawak's independent radio station Radio Free Sarawak is back on air Monday 12th August following its holiday recess.

The rural radio station, which broadcasts mainly in Iban, but also in Malay has received numerous enquiries from listeners eager for information about pressing issues in the state, including the on-going plans to dam key rivers and evict thousands of native people from their lands.

"The state government has moved swiftly to try and take advantage of its dubious election wins by tripling Ministers' own salaries (back-dating the increase by a whole year and a half) and pushing through further land grabs in native territories, including the proposed Baram Dam region" points out the UK based station head, Clare Rewcastle Brown. "Ordinary folk want to be heard on these issues and it seems their opinions may often be different from the propaganda put out on the state controlled licensed media, which only promotes the narrow interests of the super-wealthy and politically powerful".

Radio Free Sarawak is the 2013 winner of the prestigious Pioneer of Free Media Award by the International Press Institute, which applauded the station's efforts to bring freedom of information and freedom of speech to the isolated communities in Malaysia's Borneo rainforest state.

The station's call-in facility also provides an opportunity for longhouse dwellers to express their own views and concerns about the effects of deforestation, oil palm plantation, rural poverty and endemic political corruption. The radio station is linked to the online portal, Sarawak Report, which shares the same agenda to shine light on these and related issues.

Radio Free Sarawak is transmitted from London and its familiar team of DJs will be broadcasting from Monday on Short Wave 15420 kHz from 7 pm-8.30 pm local time (1100 - 1230 UTC) Monday-Saturday.

It is also available via podcast online www.radiofreesarawak.org , from where it can be downloaded via smart phone for mobile listeners or onto UBS sticks for car radio.

The local call-in line is 082-237191 and listeners are invited to get in touch with their comments and issues. Press contact: info@sarawakreport.org

(Press Release)

Friday, August 02, 2013

Insights into radio across Asia: RadioAsia2013

How is Vietnamese commune radio different from community radio? How many pirate stations are there in Thailand? What is Indonesia doing about digital radio? Today's RadioAsia conference report gives a perspective across the ASEAN region.