NASB Newsletter
February, 2013
In this issue:
Coordination in The Palace: The HFCC-ASBU A13 Coordination Conference in Tunis
Opening Remarks by HFCC Chairman Oldrich Cip: World Radio Day and More
NASB Dinner Meeting in Tunis
NASB 2013 Annual Meeting Information
Please note that most of the material in this issue of the NASB Newsletter has already been published on the NASB Facebook page (www.facebook.com/nasbshortwave). We invite you to check NASB's Facebook page regularly for up-to-date information about the NASB, our member organizations and shortwave radio in general.
Coordination in The Palace
The HFCC-ASBU A13 Conference
Tunis, Tunisia – January 28-February 1, 2013
by Jeff White, NASB Secretary-Treasurer
An ASBU car and driver picked us up at the Tunis airport and whisked us through customs and immigration. We didn't even have to fill out the immigration cards. The drive along the Mediterranean coastline to the hotel revealed some spectacular scenery. Even though it was too cold to go to the beach at this time of year, it was still nice to see the Mediterranean from the car window, and later from the balcony of our room at Le Palace Hotel, site of the HFCC-ASBU Conference.
Le Palace was one of the many properties belonging to the family of ex-President Ben Ali, who fled the country to exile in Saudi Arabia during the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia in January 2011. The government seized many of these properties, and in fact a lot of the ex-president's belongings are on display at the otherwise unused casino on the grounds of Le Palace. The merchandise, as well as the casino and the hotel themselves, are for sale. One hall of the casino is full of the Ben Ali family's vehicles, which include a BMW, an Aston-Martin, a Porsche, a Bentley, some large SUV's and a German luxury car I had never heard of called a Maybach, which apparently sells for upwards of $350,000. Another exhibit hall is filled with jewels, porcelain and various objects d'art from around the world that look like they should be in a museum, and many of which were gifts to Bel Ali from foreign leaders and friends. Yet another hall has dozens of Persian and Tunisian carpets which have price tags beginning at about $500. Many fabulous pieces of artwork adorn the hallways, and another room contains thousands of items of clothing – designer suits, dresses, shirts, ties and lots and lots of shoes – as well as electronic gadgets, refrigerators, crystal and miscellaneous household items. Workers were still opening new boxes of merchandise while we looked through the offerings. Tickets to visit the exhibit cost about $20, and the museum gladly accepts credit cards for any purchase. You can see some of the goods at the website www.confiscation.tn.
Ben Ali, who was the unchallenged dictator of Tunisia when we attended the last HFCC-ASBU conference here four years ago, has few fans left among the Tunisian population today. Four years ago, his photo was plastered all over buildings, billboards and in offices, stores and just about everywhere throughout the country. This time, I saw only one large poster left, and it had been completely defaced. Tunisians seem very happy to have the right to speak their minds now without fear of reprisal. They were, in fact, the initiators of the "Arab Spring" which has brought fledgling democracies to a number of Middle Eastern and North African countries since 2011.
But back to Le Palace and the HFCC-ASBU conference. Over 90 representatives of shortwave stations, broadcast facilities, telecommunications administrations and others interested in shortwave radio took part in the meeting. For quite a bargain price, they enjoyed the leather-coated doors, huge Arabic paintings, gigantic crystal chandeliers, extremely spacious bathrooms and marble columns. But these were just the backdrop for all of the work that had to be done that week. Hundreds of pages of "collision lists" showing potential interference in stations' planned A13 schedules had to be reviewed, and solutions had to be negotiated among the frequency planners. As my wife Thais (NASB Assistant Secretary-Treasurer) and I were the ones who stapled together and distributed the individual collision lists for each station every night, I can tell you that each day of the five-day conference, those lists got smaller and smaller. Not all collisions can be eliminated even in the span of a week, but most of the worst of them were resolved by stations agreeing to change frequency or time or antenna pattern or whatever was necessary in order to eliminate the particular interference problem before it occurs with the A13 schedule that takes effect at the end of March. That is the primary mission of these conferences, and they usually achieve this mission quite well.
OPENING PLENARY
The conference was opened on Monday morning by Abdelrahim Suleiman of the ASBU. He introduced his Director General, Salah Eddine Maaoui, who welcomed everyone to Tunis. Also at the head table was Bassil Zoubi, head of the ASBU's Transmission Department, who was in charge of the bulk of the conference organization. He was assisted by several ASBU personnel, especially Majdouline Audattollah, who took care of details ranging from the conference room organization to the audiovisual system, hotel reservations, registration process, etc.
The next speaker was Oldrich Cip,. HFCC Chairman, who talked mainly about World Radio Day and the HFCC's collaboration with UNESCO on their WRD website. (See sidebar article for Mr. Cip's opening remarks.) Incidentally, NASB member Adventist World Radio did a special World Radio Day program from the HFCC Conference in Tunis, and this was included in the UNESCO World Radio Day website's list of WRD activities, along with the conference itself.
HFCC Vice Chairman Horst Scholz mentioned the fact that this was the third time the conference has been held in Tunisia. The first time was in the very same hotel 15 years ago, and there were 101 delegates. Horst welcomed observers who were present this time, including Radio Television Senegal, Libyan National Broadcast Channel, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, and Radio Republik Indonesia. He pointed out that ex-Deutsche Welle engineer Norbert Schall was present and would be running a WPLOT shortwave propagation software training course on three afternoons. Horst also informed the meeting that Hai Pham of the ITU would be attending. And finally he recommended that delegates visit the HFCC web site (www.hfcc.org), where they would find an interesting web page about World Radio Day designed by Vladislav Cip.
Sergio Salvatori of Vatican Radio explained the technical procedures to be used during the week, and yours truly gave an overview of the week's conference agenda and activities.
NASB DINNER
As has become semi-customary lately, the NASB delegates decided to have an NASB board/officers dinner meeting at the HFCC in Tunis. Our president, vice president, another board member, representatives of other board members, secretary-treasurer, assistant secretary-treasurer and other members were there, so it was a good opportunity to meet with some of the members who often cannot attend our annual meeting and to discuss various items of NASB business. We met on Monday, the first night of the conference, so that our vice president, Brady Murray of WWCR, could attend. (Tuesday night was the ASBU dinner, and Brady had to leave on Wednesday morning.) Due to a sudden storm with very high winds that looked much like a tropical storm back home in Miami, we decided against going out of the hotel that night, and had our dinner meeting in the Italian restaurant at Le Palace. (See separate sidebar article about the NASB dinner meeting.)
Despite all of its luxury, the television offerings in our room at Le Palace were a bit limited. The only English-language channel was CNN International, which allowed us to keep up with world news. There was one channel in French, and the other five channels were in Arabic. Most of them seemed to be local, but one of them was Al Jazeera in Arabic from Qatar. As for radio, the AM band seemed to be dead, but I noted at least 26 FM stations -- most of them in Arabic, but some in French. Besides Arabic music and Koran prayers, there was a fair amount of French- and English-language music, and I was surprised to hear a certain amount of Spanish-language music from Latin America as well. The most interesting local station for foreigners is RTCI (Radio Tunisia's International Channel) which airs programming in Arabic and French, as well as various news bulletins and some longer programs each day in English, Spanish and German. Despite its name, RTCI is not really beamed to an external audience. It is on a network of FM channels throughout the country, including 98.2 MHz FM in Tunis. (RTCI can be listened to abroad via Internet.) The Tunisian national radio does have a shortwave service, but it transmits only in Arabic, beamed to Europe, the Middle East and the Maghreb area of North Africa.
On Tuesday night, the Arab States Broadcasting Union invited all of the conference delegates and spouses to a dinner at the Pomodoro Italian restaurant next door to Le Palace. For this special occasion, Pomodoro offered an Arab/International menu which began with local fruit juices, French bread and fish soup, followed by a plate of different types of seafood. Just when Shakti Verma and I thought the fish had ended, everyone received a large plate with an entire fish of some sort on it, undoubtedly fresh from the Mediterranean across the street. Potatoes, spaghetti and other side items were offered, and then a nice steak with rice and mushrooms for those who were more landlubbers. A large selection of fruit was the dessert, along with a glass of mint tea, which is a North African specialty. During the dinner, various Tunisian musicians and dancers performed between the tables, and some of the dancers were able to coax a few conference participants (no names to be mentioned!) to embarrass themselves in front of the group while trying to dance with the Tunisian female dancers. It was all in good fun, and this was the one formal social night during the conference.
It was back to work on Wednesday morning, continuing to eliminate collisions and discuss other matters of business between delegates. After all, many of the participants hire airtime from other delegates, or exchange airtime, so a lot of business is conducted as well.
DRM PRESENTATIONS
On Wednesday afternoon there were two presentations dealing with DRM -- Digital Radio Mondiale. First, HFCC Vice Chairman Horst Scholz talked about a joint project that his former employer, Deutsche Welle, had conducted together with the BBC. In 2010, the two stations operated a joint DRM-only service presenting the best of BBC and Deutsche Welle programming in English and Hindi daily from 1400-1800 UTC beamed to South Asia from DW's Trincomalee, Sri Lanka relay site with 90 kilowatts of DRM power and from the BBC's Thailand relay station with 100 kilowatts DRM power. They also used mediumwave 1548 kHz from the Trincomalee site from 1700-1800 UTC. "There was good response," said Horst. "It was very popular."
Unfortunately, Deutsche Welle ended its participation in the joint experiment in 2012 when they decided to close the Trincomalee station. The BBC continues. Horst said that the experiment's success "shows that broadcasters could share transmissions like this in the future. But it's important to have attractive content."
The second DRM presentation on Wednesday afternoon was by Jean-Francois Kipp, Director of Sales for Africa and the Middle East for Transradio, the Berlin-based company that was formerly known as Telefunken. Jean-Francois explained that as the digitalization of AM frequencies allows a huge gain in quality and a relative increase in their coverage, DRM provides them with a double solution: first a simple DRM reception with an increasing variety of DRM receivers directly to the end users, the audience. In addition, DRM provides the possibility for the broadcasters to distribute their signal worldwide without being dependent on costly satellite up- and downlinks.
With a professional DRM modulator and a professional receiver, the broadcasters can build their own network to distribute their signal worldwide that can then be rebroadcast locally on an FM network, as DRM allows up to four services at the same time that can then be rebroadcast on four different FM channels. Broadcasters can therefore reduce their annual satellite bandwidth cost and increase their independence from other service providers by owning their own signal distribution.
The bandwidth of the antenna, which is an issue on MW or LW, isn't really relevant on SW, where the antenna bandwidth is normally sufficient, said Jean-Francois Kipp. But a shortwave transmission system has to work with different frequencies and also different antennas, which have different characteristics. Therefore an important feature of the DRM modulator for shortwave is to have a feedback channel and an automatic equalizer during operation. The operator cannot recalibrate his modulator each time the antenna or frequency is changed. A scheduled re-equalization of the DRM parameters is one of the most important features for the DRM modulator on the SW band, such as the TRANSRADIO DMOD3.
Jean-Francois gave a general explanation of the DRM system. He talked about the receivers that are already on the market, and said that broadcasters can reduce their power consumption by 40% using DRM. For listeners, the advantage is FM-like audio quality. But, like Horst Scholz, Jean-Francois emphasized that "the important thing is content." DRM offers broadcasters the ability to offer high audio quality, add pictures, add languages, etc. He showed examples, with audio samples, of analog vs. DRM broadcasts. He said that stations can convert a wide range of transmitters -- including Continental, Telefunken and even old Russian transmitters -- to DRM capability.
As for recent usage of DRM, Jean-Francois cited DRM shortwave services on the air in Delhi since 2009. All India Radio is on shortwave in DRM 16 hours daily. Nigeria is now broadcasting in DRM from Abuja. Mozambique, he said, "is going in the direction of DRM." Bangladesh has added 250-kilowatt DRM-capable transmitters. Japan is installing four 400-kilowatt DRM-capable shortwave transmitters at its site in Yamata. He said Australia and New Zealand are using DRM transmitters to send programming to listeners in the Pacific Islands, and also to local radio stations for rebroadcasting (Radio New Zealand International with 100 kilowatts, 20 hours daily). He said DRM-capable shortwave transmitters are also installed now in Malaysia, China and Bangladesh. Jean-Francois told delegates in Tunis that the DRM transition "is still much too slow for most broadcasters, but it's going forward. It's up to you to make the switch." In response to Mr. Kipp's remarks, Bassil Zoubi of the ASBU added: "There is no choice but to move to digital."
It just so happened that there was a major football (i.e. soccer) match on Wednesday night between Real Madrid and Barcelona, and this was of extreme interest to many people in Tunisia. For this reason, the ASBU dinner had been moved from Wednesday to Tuesday.
CLOSING PLENARY
The HFCC-ASBU Closing Plenary took place on Thursday afternoon. Gary Stanley of the HFCC Steering Board thanked the ASBU for the Tuesday evening dinner and entertainment. We announced that the next HFCC-ASBU Conference (the B13 meeting) will be August 26-30, 2013 in Bratislava, Slovakia, sponsored by Radio Slovakia International and the NASB. Online conference registration and hotel reservation forms can already be found on the HFCC website. The tentative location of the A14 Conference was announced as Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to be hosted by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union.
Oldrich Cip spoke a bit about the HFCC's recent cooperation with UNESCO. He said he believed it was the first time that a United Nations agency had supported international shortwave radio, and the HFCC appreciates UNESCO's support. Oldrich said that the interactive Worldwide Shortwave Broadcast Schedule is available on the HFCC web site, and is now accessible also via a link from the UNESCO World Radio Day web site, and will soon be linked also from the ITU website. Oldrich said that he would be sending a letter to HFCC members urging them to check their submitted broadcast schedules for accuracy, especially in view of the fact that the HFCC information is now linked from other sources.
Oldrich said that work on World Radio Day had taken up much of the Steering Board's time, so progress on the HFCC's International Radio for Disaster Relief project had been slow. However, work on the project would continue on how to place the IRDR project with the various UN agencies and institutions that are active in disaster risk reduction. The Steering Board hopes to report on further progress at the conference in Bratislava this August.
A report followed from the Group of Experts, led by Sergio Salvatori of Vatican Radio. He said that it is very important for stations to list the language(es) of their broadcasts when submitting their schedule because the new global interactive schedule allows users to select broadcasts according to language. Gary Stanley reported about ITU matters involving terrestrial TV and mobile services, and also about HFCC financial matters. The Plenary ended with George Ross of KTWR-Guam issuing a challenge to broadcasters to pool together their resources to place a bulk order of DR111 DRM receivers from the Chengu New Star company in China, which has offered special prices as low as $66.50 per unit, depending on the number of receivers ordered. (The retail price is $120.00 per unit.) Those who might be interested can contact George at gross@twr.org.
TUNIS SIGHTSEEING TOUR
Delegates had a chance to finish their work on Friday morning before the coordination session ended at 11:30. After a closing reception/coffee break, about half of the delegates took part in the Friday afternoon sightseeing tour offered by the ASBU. The first stops were at some of the sites of the ancient Roman ruins of Carthage in the Tunis suburbs. A photo stop was made at the Roman aqueduct, and another at the picturesque site of the ancient port of Carthage. Next was the popular tourist town of Sidi Bou Said, on a hillside overlooking the Mediterranean. Most of the buildings in this upscale Tunis suburb are painted blue and white. As the Muslim call to prayer sounded from a local mosque, delegates walked up the hill along an area of souvenir shops to an open-air tea room overlooking the sea. Mint tea was served, plain with a mint leaf, or with almonds or pine nuts floating on top.
The final stop on the tour was downtown Tunis. After passing by the infamous 14th of January Square where the culmination of the Jasmine Revolution took place in 2011, the bus stopped near the entrance to the souk, the traditional marketplace which is a maze of narrow walkways full of small shops where the owners urge you to enter and review their wares, which include every imaginable type of Tunisian handicraft from prayer rugs to lamps to toys, games, stuffed and wooden camels, jewelry, paintings, and the list goes on and on. All prices are negotiable here, and Thais was even given a small necklace called "the hand of Fatima" by one merchant free of charge. A buffet dinner was included at the hotel upon our return.
Saturday morning came early, and we had to check out of Le Palace and head back to Tunis airport for a two-day journey back to Miami which included a night in Dusseldorf, Germany, where the weather was considerably colder -- a big contrast to the relatively warm weather we had enjoyed in Tunis. Our ASBU colleagues have invited the HFCC back to Tunis two years from now for the B15 Coordination Conference.
Our thanks to HFCC rapporteur Gary Stanley and also to the DRM Consortium for some of the information in this article.
A selection of photographs from the HFCC-ASBU A13 Conference in Tunis can be found on the NASB Facebook page at www.facebook.com/nasbshortwave
February, 2013
In this issue:
Coordination in The Palace: The HFCC-ASBU A13 Coordination Conference in Tunis
Opening Remarks by HFCC Chairman Oldrich Cip: World Radio Day and More
NASB Dinner Meeting in Tunis
NASB 2013 Annual Meeting Information
Please note that most of the material in this issue of the NASB Newsletter has already been published on the NASB Facebook page (www.facebook.com/nasbshortwave). We invite you to check NASB's Facebook page regularly for up-to-date information about the NASB, our member organizations and shortwave radio in general.
Coordination in The Palace
The HFCC-ASBU A13 Conference
Tunis, Tunisia – January 28-February 1, 2013
by Jeff White, NASB Secretary-Treasurer
An ASBU car and driver picked us up at the Tunis airport and whisked us through customs and immigration. We didn't even have to fill out the immigration cards. The drive along the Mediterranean coastline to the hotel revealed some spectacular scenery. Even though it was too cold to go to the beach at this time of year, it was still nice to see the Mediterranean from the car window, and later from the balcony of our room at Le Palace Hotel, site of the HFCC-ASBU Conference.
Le Palace was one of the many properties belonging to the family of ex-President Ben Ali, who fled the country to exile in Saudi Arabia during the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia in January 2011. The government seized many of these properties, and in fact a lot of the ex-president's belongings are on display at the otherwise unused casino on the grounds of Le Palace. The merchandise, as well as the casino and the hotel themselves, are for sale. One hall of the casino is full of the Ben Ali family's vehicles, which include a BMW, an Aston-Martin, a Porsche, a Bentley, some large SUV's and a German luxury car I had never heard of called a Maybach, which apparently sells for upwards of $350,000. Another exhibit hall is filled with jewels, porcelain and various objects d'art from around the world that look like they should be in a museum, and many of which were gifts to Bel Ali from foreign leaders and friends. Yet another hall has dozens of Persian and Tunisian carpets which have price tags beginning at about $500. Many fabulous pieces of artwork adorn the hallways, and another room contains thousands of items of clothing – designer suits, dresses, shirts, ties and lots and lots of shoes – as well as electronic gadgets, refrigerators, crystal and miscellaneous household items. Workers were still opening new boxes of merchandise while we looked through the offerings. Tickets to visit the exhibit cost about $20, and the museum gladly accepts credit cards for any purchase. You can see some of the goods at the website www.confiscation.tn.
Ben Ali, who was the unchallenged dictator of Tunisia when we attended the last HFCC-ASBU conference here four years ago, has few fans left among the Tunisian population today. Four years ago, his photo was plastered all over buildings, billboards and in offices, stores and just about everywhere throughout the country. This time, I saw only one large poster left, and it had been completely defaced. Tunisians seem very happy to have the right to speak their minds now without fear of reprisal. They were, in fact, the initiators of the "Arab Spring" which has brought fledgling democracies to a number of Middle Eastern and North African countries since 2011.
But back to Le Palace and the HFCC-ASBU conference. Over 90 representatives of shortwave stations, broadcast facilities, telecommunications administrations and others interested in shortwave radio took part in the meeting. For quite a bargain price, they enjoyed the leather-coated doors, huge Arabic paintings, gigantic crystal chandeliers, extremely spacious bathrooms and marble columns. But these were just the backdrop for all of the work that had to be done that week. Hundreds of pages of "collision lists" showing potential interference in stations' planned A13 schedules had to be reviewed, and solutions had to be negotiated among the frequency planners. As my wife Thais (NASB Assistant Secretary-Treasurer) and I were the ones who stapled together and distributed the individual collision lists for each station every night, I can tell you that each day of the five-day conference, those lists got smaller and smaller. Not all collisions can be eliminated even in the span of a week, but most of the worst of them were resolved by stations agreeing to change frequency or time or antenna pattern or whatever was necessary in order to eliminate the particular interference problem before it occurs with the A13 schedule that takes effect at the end of March. That is the primary mission of these conferences, and they usually achieve this mission quite well.
OPENING PLENARY
The conference was opened on Monday morning by Abdelrahim Suleiman of the ASBU. He introduced his Director General, Salah Eddine Maaoui, who welcomed everyone to Tunis. Also at the head table was Bassil Zoubi, head of the ASBU's Transmission Department, who was in charge of the bulk of the conference organization. He was assisted by several ASBU personnel, especially Majdouline Audattollah, who took care of details ranging from the conference room organization to the audiovisual system, hotel reservations, registration process, etc.
The next speaker was Oldrich Cip,. HFCC Chairman, who talked mainly about World Radio Day and the HFCC's collaboration with UNESCO on their WRD website. (See sidebar article for Mr. Cip's opening remarks.) Incidentally, NASB member Adventist World Radio did a special World Radio Day program from the HFCC Conference in Tunis, and this was included in the UNESCO World Radio Day website's list of WRD activities, along with the conference itself.
HFCC Vice Chairman Horst Scholz mentioned the fact that this was the third time the conference has been held in Tunisia. The first time was in the very same hotel 15 years ago, and there were 101 delegates. Horst welcomed observers who were present this time, including Radio Television Senegal, Libyan National Broadcast Channel, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, and Radio Republik Indonesia. He pointed out that ex-Deutsche Welle engineer Norbert Schall was present and would be running a WPLOT shortwave propagation software training course on three afternoons. Horst also informed the meeting that Hai Pham of the ITU would be attending. And finally he recommended that delegates visit the HFCC web site (www.hfcc.org), where they would find an interesting web page about World Radio Day designed by Vladislav Cip.
Sergio Salvatori of Vatican Radio explained the technical procedures to be used during the week, and yours truly gave an overview of the week's conference agenda and activities.
NASB DINNER
As has become semi-customary lately, the NASB delegates decided to have an NASB board/officers dinner meeting at the HFCC in Tunis. Our president, vice president, another board member, representatives of other board members, secretary-treasurer, assistant secretary-treasurer and other members were there, so it was a good opportunity to meet with some of the members who often cannot attend our annual meeting and to discuss various items of NASB business. We met on Monday, the first night of the conference, so that our vice president, Brady Murray of WWCR, could attend. (Tuesday night was the ASBU dinner, and Brady had to leave on Wednesday morning.) Due to a sudden storm with very high winds that looked much like a tropical storm back home in Miami, we decided against going out of the hotel that night, and had our dinner meeting in the Italian restaurant at Le Palace. (See separate sidebar article about the NASB dinner meeting.)
Despite all of its luxury, the television offerings in our room at Le Palace were a bit limited. The only English-language channel was CNN International, which allowed us to keep up with world news. There was one channel in French, and the other five channels were in Arabic. Most of them seemed to be local, but one of them was Al Jazeera in Arabic from Qatar. As for radio, the AM band seemed to be dead, but I noted at least 26 FM stations -- most of them in Arabic, but some in French. Besides Arabic music and Koran prayers, there was a fair amount of French- and English-language music, and I was surprised to hear a certain amount of Spanish-language music from Latin America as well. The most interesting local station for foreigners is RTCI (Radio Tunisia's International Channel) which airs programming in Arabic and French, as well as various news bulletins and some longer programs each day in English, Spanish and German. Despite its name, RTCI is not really beamed to an external audience. It is on a network of FM channels throughout the country, including 98.2 MHz FM in Tunis. (RTCI can be listened to abroad via Internet.) The Tunisian national radio does have a shortwave service, but it transmits only in Arabic, beamed to Europe, the Middle East and the Maghreb area of North Africa.
On Tuesday night, the Arab States Broadcasting Union invited all of the conference delegates and spouses to a dinner at the Pomodoro Italian restaurant next door to Le Palace. For this special occasion, Pomodoro offered an Arab/International menu which began with local fruit juices, French bread and fish soup, followed by a plate of different types of seafood. Just when Shakti Verma and I thought the fish had ended, everyone received a large plate with an entire fish of some sort on it, undoubtedly fresh from the Mediterranean across the street. Potatoes, spaghetti and other side items were offered, and then a nice steak with rice and mushrooms for those who were more landlubbers. A large selection of fruit was the dessert, along with a glass of mint tea, which is a North African specialty. During the dinner, various Tunisian musicians and dancers performed between the tables, and some of the dancers were able to coax a few conference participants (no names to be mentioned!) to embarrass themselves in front of the group while trying to dance with the Tunisian female dancers. It was all in good fun, and this was the one formal social night during the conference.
It was back to work on Wednesday morning, continuing to eliminate collisions and discuss other matters of business between delegates. After all, many of the participants hire airtime from other delegates, or exchange airtime, so a lot of business is conducted as well.
DRM PRESENTATIONS
On Wednesday afternoon there were two presentations dealing with DRM -- Digital Radio Mondiale. First, HFCC Vice Chairman Horst Scholz talked about a joint project that his former employer, Deutsche Welle, had conducted together with the BBC. In 2010, the two stations operated a joint DRM-only service presenting the best of BBC and Deutsche Welle programming in English and Hindi daily from 1400-1800 UTC beamed to South Asia from DW's Trincomalee, Sri Lanka relay site with 90 kilowatts of DRM power and from the BBC's Thailand relay station with 100 kilowatts DRM power. They also used mediumwave 1548 kHz from the Trincomalee site from 1700-1800 UTC. "There was good response," said Horst. "It was very popular."
Unfortunately, Deutsche Welle ended its participation in the joint experiment in 2012 when they decided to close the Trincomalee station. The BBC continues. Horst said that the experiment's success "shows that broadcasters could share transmissions like this in the future. But it's important to have attractive content."
The second DRM presentation on Wednesday afternoon was by Jean-Francois Kipp, Director of Sales for Africa and the Middle East for Transradio, the Berlin-based company that was formerly known as Telefunken. Jean-Francois explained that as the digitalization of AM frequencies allows a huge gain in quality and a relative increase in their coverage, DRM provides them with a double solution: first a simple DRM reception with an increasing variety of DRM receivers directly to the end users, the audience. In addition, DRM provides the possibility for the broadcasters to distribute their signal worldwide without being dependent on costly satellite up- and downlinks.
With a professional DRM modulator and a professional receiver, the broadcasters can build their own network to distribute their signal worldwide that can then be rebroadcast locally on an FM network, as DRM allows up to four services at the same time that can then be rebroadcast on four different FM channels. Broadcasters can therefore reduce their annual satellite bandwidth cost and increase their independence from other service providers by owning their own signal distribution.
The bandwidth of the antenna, which is an issue on MW or LW, isn't really relevant on SW, where the antenna bandwidth is normally sufficient, said Jean-Francois Kipp. But a shortwave transmission system has to work with different frequencies and also different antennas, which have different characteristics. Therefore an important feature of the DRM modulator for shortwave is to have a feedback channel and an automatic equalizer during operation. The operator cannot recalibrate his modulator each time the antenna or frequency is changed. A scheduled re-equalization of the DRM parameters is one of the most important features for the DRM modulator on the SW band, such as the TRANSRADIO DMOD3.
Jean-Francois gave a general explanation of the DRM system. He talked about the receivers that are already on the market, and said that broadcasters can reduce their power consumption by 40% using DRM. For listeners, the advantage is FM-like audio quality. But, like Horst Scholz, Jean-Francois emphasized that "the important thing is content." DRM offers broadcasters the ability to offer high audio quality, add pictures, add languages, etc. He showed examples, with audio samples, of analog vs. DRM broadcasts. He said that stations can convert a wide range of transmitters -- including Continental, Telefunken and even old Russian transmitters -- to DRM capability.
As for recent usage of DRM, Jean-Francois cited DRM shortwave services on the air in Delhi since 2009. All India Radio is on shortwave in DRM 16 hours daily. Nigeria is now broadcasting in DRM from Abuja. Mozambique, he said, "is going in the direction of DRM." Bangladesh has added 250-kilowatt DRM-capable transmitters. Japan is installing four 400-kilowatt DRM-capable shortwave transmitters at its site in Yamata. He said Australia and New Zealand are using DRM transmitters to send programming to listeners in the Pacific Islands, and also to local radio stations for rebroadcasting (Radio New Zealand International with 100 kilowatts, 20 hours daily). He said DRM-capable shortwave transmitters are also installed now in Malaysia, China and Bangladesh. Jean-Francois told delegates in Tunis that the DRM transition "is still much too slow for most broadcasters, but it's going forward. It's up to you to make the switch." In response to Mr. Kipp's remarks, Bassil Zoubi of the ASBU added: "There is no choice but to move to digital."
It just so happened that there was a major football (i.e. soccer) match on Wednesday night between Real Madrid and Barcelona, and this was of extreme interest to many people in Tunisia. For this reason, the ASBU dinner had been moved from Wednesday to Tuesday.
CLOSING PLENARY
The HFCC-ASBU Closing Plenary took place on Thursday afternoon. Gary Stanley of the HFCC Steering Board thanked the ASBU for the Tuesday evening dinner and entertainment. We announced that the next HFCC-ASBU Conference (the B13 meeting) will be August 26-30, 2013 in Bratislava, Slovakia, sponsored by Radio Slovakia International and the NASB. Online conference registration and hotel reservation forms can already be found on the HFCC website. The tentative location of the A14 Conference was announced as Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to be hosted by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union.
Oldrich Cip spoke a bit about the HFCC's recent cooperation with UNESCO. He said he believed it was the first time that a United Nations agency had supported international shortwave radio, and the HFCC appreciates UNESCO's support. Oldrich said that the interactive Worldwide Shortwave Broadcast Schedule is available on the HFCC web site, and is now accessible also via a link from the UNESCO World Radio Day web site, and will soon be linked also from the ITU website. Oldrich said that he would be sending a letter to HFCC members urging them to check their submitted broadcast schedules for accuracy, especially in view of the fact that the HFCC information is now linked from other sources.
Oldrich said that work on World Radio Day had taken up much of the Steering Board's time, so progress on the HFCC's International Radio for Disaster Relief project had been slow. However, work on the project would continue on how to place the IRDR project with the various UN agencies and institutions that are active in disaster risk reduction. The Steering Board hopes to report on further progress at the conference in Bratislava this August.
A report followed from the Group of Experts, led by Sergio Salvatori of Vatican Radio. He said that it is very important for stations to list the language(es) of their broadcasts when submitting their schedule because the new global interactive schedule allows users to select broadcasts according to language. Gary Stanley reported about ITU matters involving terrestrial TV and mobile services, and also about HFCC financial matters. The Plenary ended with George Ross of KTWR-Guam issuing a challenge to broadcasters to pool together their resources to place a bulk order of DR111 DRM receivers from the Chengu New Star company in China, which has offered special prices as low as $66.50 per unit, depending on the number of receivers ordered. (The retail price is $120.00 per unit.) Those who might be interested can contact George at gross@twr.org.
TUNIS SIGHTSEEING TOUR
Delegates had a chance to finish their work on Friday morning before the coordination session ended at 11:30. After a closing reception/coffee break, about half of the delegates took part in the Friday afternoon sightseeing tour offered by the ASBU. The first stops were at some of the sites of the ancient Roman ruins of Carthage in the Tunis suburbs. A photo stop was made at the Roman aqueduct, and another at the picturesque site of the ancient port of Carthage. Next was the popular tourist town of Sidi Bou Said, on a hillside overlooking the Mediterranean. Most of the buildings in this upscale Tunis suburb are painted blue and white. As the Muslim call to prayer sounded from a local mosque, delegates walked up the hill along an area of souvenir shops to an open-air tea room overlooking the sea. Mint tea was served, plain with a mint leaf, or with almonds or pine nuts floating on top.
The final stop on the tour was downtown Tunis. After passing by the infamous 14th of January Square where the culmination of the Jasmine Revolution took place in 2011, the bus stopped near the entrance to the souk, the traditional marketplace which is a maze of narrow walkways full of small shops where the owners urge you to enter and review their wares, which include every imaginable type of Tunisian handicraft from prayer rugs to lamps to toys, games, stuffed and wooden camels, jewelry, paintings, and the list goes on and on. All prices are negotiable here, and Thais was even given a small necklace called "the hand of Fatima" by one merchant free of charge. A buffet dinner was included at the hotel upon our return.
Saturday morning came early, and we had to check out of Le Palace and head back to Tunis airport for a two-day journey back to Miami which included a night in Dusseldorf, Germany, where the weather was considerably colder -- a big contrast to the relatively warm weather we had enjoyed in Tunis. Our ASBU colleagues have invited the HFCC back to Tunis two years from now for the B15 Coordination Conference.
Our thanks to HFCC rapporteur Gary Stanley and also to the DRM Consortium for some of the information in this article.
A selection of photographs from the HFCC-ASBU A13 Conference in Tunis can be found on the NASB Facebook page at www.facebook.com/nasbshortwave
A13 Opening Remarks by HFCC Chairman Oldrich Cip
Thanks to Salaheddine Maaoui, Abdelrahim Suleiman, Bassi Zoubil. and ladies from the Public Relations Department of the ASBU.
Sometimes as I prepare my opening remarks I hesitate which items I should highlight. My choice is easy today. Since the conference week in Paris last August we have been quite preoccupied and busy with our commitments arising from the partnership of the HFCC with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNESCO for the preparation of the incoming World Radio Day on February 13th.
This particular date has been chosen for the occasion as the day of the launch of United Nations Radio. This is particularly significant for our partnership in the WRD since the first UN sound radio programmes that started in 1946 were broadcast on shortwave frequencies. Other means of content distribution were introduced much later.
The Communication and Information sector of UNESCO has asked us to invite our members to offer suitable items for the special UNESCO website and also to invite them to take part directly in the WRD celebrations held in their Paris headquarters next month. I am happy to report that seven international broadcasters will be present in Paris including the BBC, China Radio International, the Voice of Russia, RFI in Arabic and Radio Exterior de Espana from Spain.
The World Radio Day has been proclaimed with the aim of promoting the value and importance of sound radio in general irrespective of the mode of delivery. There is a general agreement I believe that radio in this general sense is not threatened by extinction since it had penetrated into all new technologies ranging from internet to mobile phones.
The situation is more complex for users of wireless terrestrial radio (and also TV). Broadcasters are concerned that a part of the spectrum might be given over to mobile broadband for example.
The spectrum of shortwave broadcasting is not under an immediate threat in that frequency band assignments there would be taken over by other services. The concerns are different: As we have noted repeatedly, shortwave broadcasting has been reduced or even completely abandoned in a number of countries because of the arrival of new technologies, and also on account of the current climate of economic austerity.
We have taken up the partnership in the World Radio Day in an effort to show that synergy rather than competition is needed between the new distribution platforms and the traditional shortwave transmissions. We have also tried to show that the presence of broadcasters across all distribution technologies makes international radio the most effective.
The UNESCO's World Radio Day website that is linked from the HFCC front-page also highlights the humanitarian aspects of shortwave broadcasting: In particular its ability to reach across the digital divide to the most marginalised societies, its help in "Radio in Distance Education" projects - and perhaps most importantly - its unique potential of a powerful communication tool in disaster relief.
Our participation in the UNESCO Radio Day is capable of helping us in the promotion of the International Radio for Disaster Relief (IRDR) project that we proclaimed recently. It is in our interest that the World Radio Day gets the best possible publicity. We are therefore going to circulate an invitation to our members and to the programme makers of member organisations to register on the UNESCO website possible items and undertakings commemorating the Radio Day. Our present A13 Tunis Conference has been already registered there.
Our debates in the Conference will cover other subjects, and naturally first and foremost we will co-ordinate the A13 frequency schedules. For more details of the programme I will hand over to Horst...and Jeff, and Sergio.
NASB Dinner Meeting in Tunis
NASB board members, officers and members at the HFCC-ASBU HF Coordination Conference in Tunis, Tunisia had a working dinner on January 28, 2013 at Le Palace Hotel, site of the HFCC Conference. Present were NASB President Glen Tapley (WEWN), Vice President Brady Murray and Dr. Jerry Plummer (WWCR), Secretary-Treasurer Jeff White and Assistant Secretary-Treasurer Thais White (WRMI), board member George Ross and Shakti Verma (KTWR), Kevin and Nancy Chambers (World Christian Broadcasting) and Giuseppe Cirillo (better known as Pino, from AWR).
Topics discussed included upcoming Board position changes. At the NASB annual meeting in Birmingham in May, both Glen Tapley and Adrian Peterson will be ending their second three-year terms, so they must go off the Board and be replaced by new members who will be elected in Birmingham. The new Board will appoint the president, vice president and secretary-treasurer positions.
Also discussed were the various talks and presentations to take place at the Birmingham meeting. It was noted that the agenda is already quite full. Jerome Hirigoyen of TDF-France informed us in Tunis of his intention to participate in the meeting in Birmingham, and he has been invited to give a presentation about TDF's shortwave transmission facility in Issoudun, France. A.J. Janitschek of Radio Free Asia submitted a list of possible presentations that he could give, and these were narrowed down. Glen Tapley gave further information about plans for the annual meeting.
George Ross will be unable to attend the meeting, but he will send an updated report about KTWR's DRM transmissions. George mentioned that he has reached an agreement with the manufacturer of the DR111 DRM receiver to provide the radios, which normally cost $120 each, for only $66.50 each if a pool of stations can place an order of at least 10,000 units. NASB members are urged to contact George if they are interested in placing a bulk order (gross@twr.org).
The NASB dinner participants in Tunis discussed plans for the HFCC B13 Conference which will take place in Bratislava, Slovakia August 26-30, 2013. The conference is being sponsored by the NASB and Radio Slovakia International. A Wednesday excursion is planned to visit the Slovak National Radio building (the famous upside-down pyramid building) where Radio Slovakia International is headquartered. Sponsorship is being sought for the excursion, which will also include a brief sightseeing tour of Bratislava and a trip to a small town in the countryside outside of Bratislava for a dinner.
The schedule of upcoming HFCC conferences was discussed. After the B13 meeting in Bratislava, the A14 meeting will tentatively take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union). The B14 conference location is not confirmed yet, but offers have been received to hold it in Bulgaria, Turkey and possibly Germany. Pino mentioned the possibility of using the Lufthansa Conference Center in Darmstadt, near the Frankfurt airport in Germany, which has 400 rooms and direct transportation from the Frankfurt airport, although it usually has to be booked at least two years in advance. The A15 conference will probably take place in Tunis again, and an offer has been received by HCJB-Australia to host the B15 conference in Brisbane, Australia, which would be the first time an HFCC conference has ever been held in that country.
National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters, Inc.
and DRM USA Annual Meeting
The 2013 Meeting will take place May 15-17, 2013 at EWTN Television in Birmingham, Alabama.
Registration for the meeting is free of charge, and it is open to anyone with an interest in shortwave broadcasting or listening. To register, fill out our online registration form at www.shortwave.org/meeting/meeting.htm or send your name and e-mail address to Jeff White at radiomiami9@cs.com.
As usual, the NASB Annual Meeting will be held in conjunction with the DRM-USA platform on May 15-17, 2013, at the headquarters of NASB member EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) in Birmingham, Alabama. NASB President Glen Tapley, Terry Borders and other EWTN staff members will welcome shortwave broadcasters, listeners and anyone with an interest in shortwave radio to the Birmingham venue.
Arrangements have been made for hotel accommodation at the nearby Holiday Inn Express for a price of $75.00 plus tax, including breakfast daily. The Holiday Inn Express Irondale (a suburb of Birmingham) is about a half-mile from the TV network, the location for Thursday's meeting and tour of the TV studios. The hotel will provide a free shuttle service to and from EWTN and a continental breakfast. EWTN will provide lunch Thursday. On Friday, participants will take a 40-minute trip to the WEWN shortwave transmitter site high in the picturesque mountains surrounding Birmingham, and the radio staff will have a cookout on the hill for attendees. EWTN is looking forward to your visit!
TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR NASB 2013
WEDNESDAY EVENING
Reception at hotel with cocktails (including non-alcoholic) and hors d'oeuvres for all participants, sponsored by the Holiday Inn Express
THURSDAY
Meeting takes place at EWTN TV station 9:00 am-5:00 pm
The meeting will be opened by the EWTN President/CEO
Tour of TV plant
Lunch at TV plant
Afternoon presentations: DRM talks, AJ Janitschek of Radio Free Asia (on "Green Engineering"); Dr. Dowell Chow, President of Adventist World Radio; Mike Rosso, Vice President, and Dave Hultsman of Continental Electronics; Mark Allen of Rohn Tower Company; and Jerome Hirigoyen of Télédiffusion de France about TDF's Issoudun transmitter site
FRIDAY
Tour of shortwave transmitter site – vans will pick up at the hotel. Remarks by Terry Borders.
Cookout on the mountain for lunch
Back to TV plant for business and board meetings (or on the mountain if agreeable)
HOTEL RESERVATION DETAILS
Room reservations need to be made at the Holiday Inn Express by April 16 to ensure the group rate. After that, reservations can still be made, but only based on availability. There is no cancellation fee if the reservation is canceled by 6 PM the date of arrival. Otherwise there is a one-day charge.
Attendees simply need to e-mail: hiexpressirondale_gm@hp-hotels.com with the Subject: NASB Reservations
The hotel will send confirmation within 24 hours. The price is $75.00 per night plus tax.
Those who do not wish to use e-mail can phone the hotel at (205) 957-0555 and request to speak with Adrian or Margarita.
Information you need to provide in your e-mail or by phone:
Name of Guest(s):
Email/Phone Number:
Check in/out dates:
Estimated time of arrival:
Preference of room type (King or Two Queen Beds):
Number of People in Room:
Method of Payment: (Do not provide credit card number with e-mail. The Holiday Inn Express will contact you later for that information.)
If you have any questions about the 2013 NASB Annual Meeting, or would like to sponsor an event at the meeting, contact Jeff White at radiomiami9@cs.com
NASB Members:
Adventist World Radio
Assemblies of Yahweh
EWTN Shortwave Radio (WEWN)
Family Stations Inc.
Fundamental Broadcasting Network
Radio Miami International
Trans World Radio
World Christian Broadcasting
World Wide Christian Radio
NASB Associate Members:
Antenna Products Company
Babcock International Group
Continental Electronics Corporation
Far East Broadcasting Co.
Galcom International
George Jacobs & Associates
Hatfield and Dawson Consulting Engineers
International Broadcasting Bureau
Rohn Products, LLC
TCI International, Inc.
Telediffusion de France (TDF)
TDP (Belgium)
Thomson Broadcast & Multimedia
