15 May 2007
Broadcast Australia together with SBS had organized a DRM test in Canberra (Australia). Both parties were interested in an extension of the test phase with technology from TRANSRADIO.
In conjunction with a planned trip to Australia, Christian Hoerlle, project manager digital radio at TRANSRADIO installed a DRM DMOD 2 exciter at the Canberra station (Broadcast Australia’s Gungahlin site). Gungahlin is one of Canberra’s northern suburbs. The Installation took place in the early hours of 7. 2. 2007 from 0:00 to 5:00. Although the available transmitter was not DRM capable, SBS wanted to operate the transmitter in Multichannel Simulcast mode. For that reason the regular AM transmission is on 1440 kHz and the DRM transmission operates on 1431kHz. Programme content for the Canberra trial is provided by SBS Radio. Furthermore the TRANSRADIO DRM exciter is working in conjunction with a Harris DAX-3 transmitter operating at an analogue output power of 2kW.
The installation was completed in one night and the DRM transmission went on air complying with the ITU spectrum masks for AM and DRM transmission. The comprehensive corrective measures built into the DRM DMOD were found to be of great benefit when installed in this transmitter unsuited for DRM.
Darryl Fallow, senior transmitter engineer of Broadcast Australia, who also accompanied the previous tests, was enthusiastic about the simple and fast installation of the TRANSRADIO DRM system. In his words: „I have never seen such a fast DRM installation. For the most part Mr. Hoerlle was busy with measurements on the transmitter. The actual installation took place in less than an hour. Also the simplicity, the unproblematic switching between the modes pure DRM, Multichannel Simulcast and AM were impressive, one mouse click and no system crash whatsoever as had occurred with the systems tested so far.”
The senior transmission engineer of SBS Collin Elston accompanied the installation and was impressed with the good MER. His first receiver tests in the same night showed that although the same transmitter was used, a substantially better MER was achieved and thus the service area could be significantly increased.
Collin Elston said: „Now I understand why the Spanish, with so little power in Arganda, achieved a far better coverage compared to that in Vietnam.”
SBS is very interested in pursuing the test with a TRANSRADIO transmitter and with the same power achieving an even better coverage.
DRM Test in Canberra
Multichannel Simulcast transmission of the Canberra station measured with a Fraunhofer DRM Monitoring Receiver DT700
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A SECURE INVESTMENT INTO THE FUTURE
