Nautel has completed shipment of all 27 medium-wave AM transmitters to India’s Prasar Bharati (All India Radio) and says that installation/commissioning is underway. The first site, AIR’s flagship installation in Delhi, went on air May 30.
In 2013 India’s Prasar Bharati ordered the Nautel equipment for a project dubbed “Building to a Billion.” This project, explains Nautel, has the goal of bringing digital radio to nearly a billion residents in the country of India.
AIR currently serves the entire country via an analog broadcasting service. The transition to digital broadcasting allows the broadcaster to use alternate platforms such as podcasting, SMS, webcasting and mobile services, and will enable a 24-hour news channel along with other programming, said the company. Additional services such as interactive text transmission and disaster warning are also planned.
Transmission sites are located throughout the country. Eleven Nautel NX100 (100kW), 10 NX200 (200kW) and six NX300 (300kW) DRM-equipped transmitters were ordered for the project.
The current phase of the project will soon place three NX300 sites on-air at Jammu, Jalandhar and Lucknow; additionally, an NX100 system is being installed at Panaji, said Nautel.
Comcon, Nautel’s in-country partner; Altronic; Digidia; and Kintronic are working with Nautel on the deployment.
