This year’s annual General Assembly of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union will
be hosted by the Indonesian public broadcaster, RRI, in Bali. DRM will feature
not only in the meetings of the specialised committees but also concretely with
a live medium wave transmission on 20-24 October from one of the RRI MW
transmitter in Denpasar, Bali on 1206 KHz. The DRM broadcasts will feature
special messages for the ABU participants, presentations on RRI, DRM the
emergency warning functionality, music, as well as the Journaline service
accompanying the audio, allowing listeners to look-up the latest news on demand,
free-to-air, on their receiver screens and in multiple languages
simultaneously. The DRM demo run by RRI is actively supported by GatesAir,
Transradio, Fraunhofer IIs and RFmondial key members of the
Consortium.
In parallel, Babcock International (member of the DRM
Consortium) will transmit BBC World Service content in DRM short wave from
Singapore on 11995 kHz (25 metre band) at 05.00-07.00 GMT or 13.00-15.00 local
time.
After last year’s DRM medium wave trial, north of Jakarta, this is
another chance to enjoy the audio qualities of DRM, and, as Mr Frederik Ndolu,
member of the RRI Supervisory Board said:” to show RRI’s commitment in
understanding what is the most efficient solution for getting the best
programmes, in the best quality to all our listeners, wherever they are in our
vast country.”
Almost at the same time with the big gathering on the
tropical island of Bali, the General Assembly of the Caribbean Broadcasting
Union (24-27 October) will convene in Havana, Cuba. It will mark a significant
moment as the Digital Radio Mondiale Consortium has announced it will be
bringing the first live digital radio signal transmission to Cuba, the Caribbean
region and parts of northern Latin America, and even as far north as Florida.
The broadcast facilitated by Babcock International will come from the BBC via
its Atlantic Relay station. The DRM transmission will be in the 13 meter-band on
21720 kHz and will carry BBC World Service programmes in English. Additional
multimedia features of DRM will also be demonstrated on radio receiver screens.
The DRM broadcast will go from 4 p.m.–6 p.m. GMT, 12.00-14.00 local time on Oct.
24 and 25.
Ruxandra Obreja, DRM Chairman, feels that: “this is a
great opportunity to introduce DRM to the Caribbean nations, to highlight some
of its great benefits, like the emergency warning functionality, so much at the
top of the agenda for the people in this region of the world.”
