Digital Radio Australia Trials DAB+ For First Time

Digital Broadcasters Vendor News Asia (DBVNA) was informed today that following other Australian digital radio systems trials, terrestrial broadcasters started the technical trials using DAB+ technology in Sydney, NSW. The test is using upgraded multiplexers from digital broadcast vendors: Factum and Radioscape (the "MAP250" and "fusion, version 6" respectively). Testing is to focus on the critical bit rates as applied to speech programming and jazz and pop music. Of the move, Joan Warner, CEO of industry trade body, Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) said that this is the first fully compliant high power broadcast of digital radio using DAB+ technology anywhere in the world. Ms Warner added that the test will send a very strong signal to the major radio receiver manufacturers that Australia is committed to launching digital radio using DAB+ and we will need a broad range of DAB+ digital radios in the market in time for our launch.” A number of radio vendors have indicated they will have DAB+ receiver products ready for overseas retail sale before Christmas 2007 according to CRA. In Australia, digital radio services will officially launch in January 2009 in the six capital cities Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, and expect consumers will want to access the digital broadcast services with not only digital receivers, but by mobile handphones and mp3 devices also. The DAB+ test is being coordinated by Commercial Radio Australia on behalf of commercial radio stations and public broadcasters, the ABC and SBS. DBVNA understands that Australia heads up a new DAB+ task force set up by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union - the ABU. Other task force members include Brunei, New Zealand and Singapore digital broadcasters. Ms Warner, representing Australia, heads the DAB+ task force, which is to encourage the take up of DAB+ within the region and the development of a wide range of low cost DAB+ receivers in diverse broadcast environments such as in China, India, Kuwait and Russia.

Digital Broadcasters |Aussie ABC Massively Expands NewsRadio network

ABC Australia, already one of the world's biggest radio networks in terms of terrestrial transmission coverage, informed Digital Broadcasters Vendor News that it is going one step further. Within three years it will make ABC NewsRadio its third main network after ABC Local Radio and ABC Radio National, terrestrially reaching all Aussie communities with a population of 10,000. That massively expands NewsRadio reach to 95 per cent of Australia's population. On April 18, 2007 in Wagga Wagga Senator the Hon Helen Coonan, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts gave the project its formal start helped by ABC Director Radio & Regional Content, Sue Howard. Of the digitally supported project, Ms Howard said that this was a massive technological undertaking and important initiative for the ABC. The first stage of the roll out should be on May 1 when current trials will be completed for Wagga Wagga (105.1FM) and the surrounding South Western Slopes countryside(91.5FM) adding 1.2 million listeners to the ABC NewsRadio network. Stages two and three have the potential to extend the service to a further 3 million people by 2009. Three new frequencies will come on line each month until the project is completed. These are mostly FM but some are AM. ABC NewsRadio management says it is Australia's only continuous news format station with 24/7 broadcasts that include breaking news, sport, finance, weather, and when its sits, live coverage of Federal Parliamentary proceedings in Canberra. http://www.abc.com.au/newsradio/
http://www.abc.com.au/radio/localradio/
http://www.abc.com.au/rn/

Digital Broadcasters | ABC Brisbane To Relocate

News from ABC Brisbane is that it is at long last to get a new unified home for its regional digital radio and television broadcasting complex and headquarters for Queensland. Digital Broadcasters Vendor News received the announcement from ABC in Sydney directly.

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott said that the present 280 employees based in Queensland's capital city and housed in seven different buildings are to be housed at one site. Mr Scott made it clear the matter now being treated urgently.

The ABC Board recognises the fact and has approved a Project Control Group to take immediate control.

All the options and alternatives though have not been investigated yet. These include whether the future site of a broadcast complex would be leasehold or purchased, or a present building to be bought and converted.

Mr Scott also pointed out that specialist consultants will need to be appointed to make such assessments in a two stage process.

From now until the end of April, the first stage gets under way with the ABC Project Group calling for initial proposals.

Presently, the main Brisbane location is at ABC Toowong. ABC informed Digital Broadcasters Vendor News that it is not going to redevelop that site.

Digital Broadcasters | Australia | Saving Water by Radio

ABC Local Radio network in Australia, known as "The Backyard" informed Digital Broadcasters Vendor News of how a simple radio program idea helped most program participants cut their water consumption at home by a staggering 91 per cent in a 40 hour "drought" period. The program was part of an effort to build awareness of water conservation in a country suffering its worst drought this century.

And another outcome from "The 40 Hour Drought" radio project is that many Australians want their bosses to cut water usage too. Some 2000 participants registered across Australia. Of those, 80 per cent met the challenge: to limit water use to just 40 litres in the 40 hour period.

Normally, Australians use some 230 litres a day each, in their home - saving 630 000 litres of water. Compare that to an Olympic size swimming pool that holds one megalitre of water (one million litres).

The 40 Hour Drought ran from 7am on Wednesday March 21 to 11pm on Thursday March 22 March. It was the brainchild of four youngsters who attended the ABC Heywire (Haywire?) Youth Issues Forum. Saving water at work proved more of a challenge.

Dual flush toilets and awareness of water in daily life, where saving water as a talked over topic were matters that came out of the project noted Tony Rasmussen, Manager Network Development for Local Radio at http://www.abc.net.au/water.

Of all the messages to the ABC Local Radio message board, the ones that stand out relate to how much water is required to make something. Wayne Meyer is Professor of Natural Resource Science at the University of Adelaide. He's made it his business to know how much water is used in the production of food and fibre. 1kg of beef uses 50,000 ltrs of water, Wayne tells us. So a typical serving of around 200g would use 10,000 ltrs. That's the amount used by the grass and grains that the beast consumes. A kilo of clean wool takes 100 to 140,000 ltr simply to grow the fibre, without calculating the amount needed to clean it then manufacture cloth. Sheep are very efficient water harvesters, says Wayne. "The major amount of water which is involved, particularly in animal products, is associated with the evaporation in growing vegetation."

The best statistics in the Australian context though is beer versus wine making.

With beer, water is used to grow barley, the malting and then fermentation of beer. There isn't a lot of grain in beer so 100 ltrs ought to do it for a bottle of beer, Wayne feels. Add to that the volume in the beer itself.

Wine will use 270ltrs of water per bottle.

Beer is better in terms of use and as well, while Wayne notes a lot of grapes are grown under irrigation.

The ABC news release would have been so more meaningful if it had included something about the ABC Local Radio Network and its contribution to Australian national issues at a local level. (referred to as a boiler plate in PR jargon).

So here it is courtesy of Digital Broadcasters Vendor News. ABC Local Radio, known as "The Backyard" on the Internet, links ABC Radio's 60 local and regional radio stations and program websites around Australia. The Backyard reflects and extends the ABC's commitment to localism through the development of a web site for every ABC region in the country. It provides customised local access to ABC Online. The Backyard is focussed on the requirements of local ABC audiences all over Australia, who can now use their own web site to access a complete range of ABC broadcasting and community information in their region. Saving water is one such subject currently in focus.