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Brazilian Broadcasters Make Public Open Letter In Support Of DRM

Brazilian Broadcasters Make Public Open Letter In Support Of DRM

Source in Portuguese: http://radiolivre.org/node/3829

Open Letter on the defense of DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) as the technical standard for the SBRD (Brazilian Digital Radio System)

Today, May 17th, the International Day of Telecommunications and Informations Society, we from Free Radios and Free TV’s are casting to Brazil and to the World an Open Letter on the defense of the DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) as the technical standard for the SBRD (Brazilian Digital Radio System).

Through this letter we express our reflexions about what we consider to be the best option for worldwide Digital Radio. Defending the free appropriation of  the radio as a vehicle, for all and any individual or group of people willing to express themselves freely, without censure or boundary, local and globally; we are in favor of the adoption of the DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) technical standard in Brazil and worldwide.

Point 0 – There are implementations available for download both for modulation and demodulation of DRM, making possible the creation of low budget modulators/exciters of DRM using SDR (Software Defined Radio) platforms.

Point 1 – The DRM allows an increase on the numbers of radio stations in the current FM band transmissions; since each FM radio occupies 200kHz, and one DRM transmission on the same band occupies 100kHz. Actually, since that on a same DRM transmission it’s possible to transmit 4 audio services, it would be possible, for example, that free radios from the same region to join themselves, and make the increase that DRM provides in numbers of possible radios in 8 times (2 times due to the utilization of half of the FM bandwidth, and 4 times due to the possibility of transmitting 4 radios utilizing one single DRM’s channel).

Point 2 –  Radios that currently transmit on the Medium Waves and Short Waves bands are going to have a big increase on their audio quality.
Radios that currently transmit on FM band are going to  be able to transmit on 5.1 surround. It’s also possible to transmit slideshows of photos, texts, websites and even video live in low definition with the DRM standard, for the receptors that support those features.

Point 3 – The DRM allows transmissions on the Short Waves band, what makes possible continental and even intercontinental radio ranges. Besides, it allows the utilization of Short Waves broadcast bands that today are totally underutilized, as the 26MHz band. Potentially those bands allows lots of new radios to be created, and permits that during the period of transition between analogical and digital all radios to have space on the spectrum for transmitting in both analogical and digital systems.  No other digital radio standard works on the Short Waves band.

Point 4 – For obtaining the same coverage area of an analogical transmitter using the DRM’s system it’s necessary the use of approximately only 1/10 of the power utilized on the analogical transmitter, in other words, the DRM standard will bring a huge energy savings for the radios and country. It will also cheapen the transmitter, once the most expensive part of a transmission system it is it’s power part.

Point 5 – The DRM is a new worldwide standard, and countries of continental dimensions such as India and Russia have already announced it’s adoption. That opens the possibility for a digital radio standard to be globally adopted.

Point 6 – The DRM is a digital radio standard that allows low power radios existence as well as the high power one’s, and by maintaining this decentralized way of radio transmission makes possible for everybody to transmit and receive radio, no matter where we are.

Point 7 –  In our opinion the DRM is the best digital radio standard compared to the others that are available, concerning the group of standards that require a central distribution (as the DAB) they generate a centralized control of transmissions. Another standard quite considered, the HD radio, it’s the property of a single company and just like the also considered ISDB-Tsb standard, they use a bigger spectral bandwidth, favoring the shortage of radio channels, contributing to the maintenance of the big monopolies.

Point 8 – We already have the knowledge of how to transmit and receive DRM
(read about it on   http://www.radiolivre.org/node/3825 and
http://www.radiolivre.org/node/3807) so it won’t take long for us to have our low cost DRM’s transmitters.

Point 9 – We are against the development of a national technical standard, once that the DRM standard fulfill the needs all the Brazilians and worldwide requirements. Besides that, the Consortium that manages the DRM’s rules and it’s future it’s an open organization that accepts new members, developments and improvements. What we want is a worldwide standard where people can transmit and receive radio without borders or censorship.

Signatures:
Rádio Capivara
Rádio Muda
Rádio Pulga
Rádio Radiola DF
Rádio Xibé
TV Piolho
Rizoma radiolivre.org
Saravá Colective

Open letter released according to GNU FDL 1.3, http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.