24 Jan DRM Goes Big on Two Continents
Some of the world’s largest broadcasters are now adopting DRM. In Europe and India, two broadcasters are now bringing the benefits of digital radio to nearly a billion listeners thanks to infrastructure updates using Nautel MW transmitters.
In November 2017, a 2-megawatt, DRM-enabled Nautel transmitter went on the air at Antenna Hungaria’s transmission facility near Solt, Hungary. The most powerful Medium Wave broadcaster in Europe, Antenna Hungaria chose Nautel to replace a 40-year-old, custom built vacuum-tube based transmitter. The project involved large infrastructure changes at the site as well as installation of the new transmitter. Nautel personnel procured and managed the logistics of all third-party equipment from six different countries; infrastructure updates, installation and commissioning were completed in only 16 months.
Nautel’s state-of-the-art 2 MW transmitter comprises five solid-state NX400 transmitters and a 2,000 kW combiner feeding a single antenna. Building the world’s first 2,000 kW combiner gave Nautel’s engineers a design challenge they tackled with enthusiasm – and the result was a highly flexible solution for the customer. The new NXC2000 combiner can be reconfigured if one or more transmitters are shut down, ensuring that maximum power is always delivered to the antenna.
The new NX2000 system brings high efficiency – 90% AC-to-RF – and significant power savings to an operation that had been running at only 55 – 60% efficiency with its older equipment. As with all modern Nautel transmitters, control and monitoring are accomplished via Nautel’s award winning Advanced User Interface.
On the continent of Asia, India’s All India Radio recently added to the most extensive DRM transmission project in the world, expanding their high-power MW broadcasts to 33 facilities across the country. With the massive goal of bringing digital radio to nearly a billion residents of India, Prasar Bharati and Nautel’s in-country partner Comcon installed DRM-enabled transmitters ranging from 100 kW to 300 kW in power. The transition from analog to digital broadcasting has allowed AIR to use alternate platforms such as podcasting, SMS, webcasting and mobile services, and has enabled a 24-hour news channel along with other programming. AIR continues to add services to its operation.
Nautel NX high-power transmitters occupy a very small footprint and offer the industry’s highest efficiency along with AM precorrection, unmatched linearity and the Nautel AUI, which provides commercial grade instrumentation, spectrum analyzer, logging, presets, local and remote transmitter control, email notifications and enhanced support services.
For more information on how you can bring the convenience and flexibility of DRM to your listeners, contact Nautel at info@nautel.com or +1.902.823.5131.