GatesAir has been chosen to supply the gear needed for the second phase of Bangladesh’s HD radio rollout, an announcement says.
The HD radio transition concerns Bangladesh Betar, the national government broadcaster serving Bangladesh. With the first phase covering the capital city of Dhaka to be finished at the end of this year, the second phase will cover the heavily populated cities of Mymensingh and Gopalganj, where the company says a June 2017 on-air date is expected.
The equipment to be provided by GatesAir will be two Flexiva FAX air-cooled 10 kW FM transmitters, antenna systems and auxiliary and support equipment. In addition, a GatesAir Exgine4 HD Radio platform will be installed. The platform, made up of GatesAir’s FlexStar HDI-200 Importer and HDE-200 Exporter in the studios and FlexStar HDx exciter at the RF plant, supports all HD audio and associated data like logos, station ID information and song data, all over a single stream.
“GatesAir’s professional services, reliable systems architecture and high-efficiency transmitters provide value across the project duration, and will enable us to operate a cost-efficient, low-maintenance hybrid FM and HD Radio service for a large portion of our population for many years,” said A.K.A.M. Fazlul Hoque, Bangladesh Betar Engineering’s project director.
“GatesAir’s bandwidth-rich HD Radio platform will also allow us to add more audio channels and data services in the future without requiring any significant additional investment in resources,” Hoque added.
Both projects are notable as they are the first HD Radio deployments in South Asia, added the company.
