NEW DELHI: Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) created a major impact at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam when India demonstrated the new DRM commercial receiver with crystal clear audio and extra capability like the emergency warning functionality.

Pressing the emergency button on the new Indian–produced receiver was the highlight of the first DRM event at the Fraunhofer IIS booth. The rich features of the Indian receiver from the new Consortium member Communication Systems Inc. were in LCD with million colours, 10 to 12 hours of backup on single charging, xHE-AAC audio coding, emergency warning, alternative frequency search (AFS), DRM text and scrolling messages.

The receiver was used to capture a daily SW DRM live broadcast (10 to 13 September) transmitted by Babcock international on 6040kHz, 100kW from Woofferton, UK, on 114 degrees to Europe.

Featuring BBC, NHK and Radio Vaticana content, the transmission was crystal clear even on a boat under the many bridges of Amsterdam.

Recent and exciting market developments in Asia, Africa (where the DRM30 trial might be soon joined by a DRM+ trial in the Johannesburg area), Europe and Latin America featured large at the four DRM events on 11, 12 and 13 September.

The Thomson Broadcast event on 12 September focused on transmitters for alert systems and gave details of a “hot off the press” announcement about a new transmission contract (DRM ready) for Morocco.

The Nautel event, held the same day and extremely well attended, featured new developments in DRM transmitter technology, more about the continued roll-out of DRM in India, news about the DRM+ trial in St. Petersburg and new innovative multi-band receiver in development.

On Sunday morning Ampegon and Transradio featured integrated transmission systems, demonstrated the energy efficiency of new antennas and transmitters like the low-power solid-state Ampegon transmitter sitting in the middle of their booth (Hall 8 D35).

IBC provided an occasion for members of the DRM Consortium to meet industry experts and contacts from countries as far apart as South Africa, Romania, India, Turkey and Indonesia, according to Consortium Chairman Ruxandra Obreja.

She said, “IBC 2015 has been the best ever for us and all those interested in the most modern and flexible truly global audio broadcasting standard, DRM. During IBC 2015, we shortened our presentations and demonstrated more how DRM can close the loop between excellent transmitted sound with multimedia services, at much lower cost than before, and reception on state of the art receivers”.

Other DRM members present at IBC were Babcock International, GatesAir, RIZ Transmitters and RFmondial.

DRM will also be present at the Asia Broadcasting Union General Assembly in Istanbul, Turkey from 27 to 30 October.

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