BALI�This year�s General Assembly of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union was hosted by Indonesian public broadcaster RRI in Bali, one of the 17,000 islands of the Indonesian archipelago.
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Before the start of the meetings, a lot of work had gone on at�RRI’s�Denpasar�medium wave transmission site to prepare it for a DRM test that ran from Oct. 20�24. The digitization of the GatesAir analog transmitter took about three hours and was possible because of the help of RRI director of technology and new media, Rahadian Gingging and his team.
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The DRM broadcasts featured special messages for the ABU participants, presentations on RRI, the DRM 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. This specially produced material for the General Assembly of the ABU could also be received in DRM in a car driving around Nusa Dua, the part of Bali where the ABU meeting was held.
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During the two-day technical sessions that were part of the general assembly, references to the Indonesian DRM demo trials, the Indian roll out and the serious interest in DRM in countries like Pakistan and Vietnam were all very well received. One thing that was different this year for DRM at the annual general assembly of Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union was the link between presentation slides and the physical receivers on display outside the conference hall. The new receivers, like the Chinese �Gospell radio� and the �Titus II� (the first software defined radio suitable for all analog bands and DRM AM but to include soon DRM+ and other digital standards), caught the imagination of the participants who came and heard digital radio. The �Titus II� SDR radio was shown and demonstrated to the ABU Secretary General , presidents of ASBU (Arab states� broadcasting union), ABU (African broadcasting union), presidents and key officials from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and South Korea. �
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