Landmark HD Multiplex tests, advanced AM/FM broadcast transmitters shown at booth.
NAB 2018, Booth N6031 – Nautel returned to the NAB show in Las Vegas with a suite of leading transmission technologies for radio broadcasting, and also reported the completion of two of the world’s largest radio transmitter deployments during the past year.
Over the past several years, Nautel has emerged as the leading provider of Radio transmission solutions worldwide and has introduced several new transmitter lines for AM and FM applications. The company has been recognized with multiple industry awards for innovation in these product lines, and Nautel was honored in March 2018 with a “Canada’s Best Managed Companies” designation, recognizing Nautel’s stability and growth.
The company has maintained a tight focus on digital broadcasting, announcing updates to its product lines over the past year which allow an easy path to digital operation for broadcast stations of any size. Both DRM and HD Radio® operation may be accommodated via Nautel transmitters.
Nautel engineering innovations also include technologies which could bring new opportunities to AM and FM broadcasters. At the 2017 NAB, Nautel Research Engineer Philipp Schmid demonstrated a concept for creating a highly reliable SFN (Single Frequency Network) for HD Radio transmission. Schmid earned an award for “Best Paper” at the 2017 NAB BEITC conference for his presentation on the topic. Schmid’s concept has, to date, been tested in two mountainous locations in southern California, with great success in both instances. Schmid showed that it was possible to seamlessly hand off digital signals from one transmitter to another, with minimal interference, by utilizing precise modulation and time synchronization of both the composite FM audio signal and the IBOC digital signal.
The 2018 show featured more of Schmid’s research work including a real-time demonstration of Nautel’s innovative HD Multiplex – a concept which could enable up to 15 HD channels on one FM frequency, in collaboration with NAB’s PILOT program, Xperi and Beasley Media Group.
Nautel has also garnered headlines for its medium wave products in the past year, announcing completion of two very large projects. In 2017, Nautel successfully deployed the largest MW Radio transmitter in Europe, a 2 Megawatt station. The Nautel NX2000 system installed at Antenna Hungaria’s site near Solt, Hungary incorporates five Nautel NX400 transmitters along with a large, versatile combiner. Nautel worked closely with Porion Digital KFT on the installation, which included building renovations and air handling modifications as well as interfacing the NX2000 to Antenna Hungaria’s existing 11 kV voltage supply. The new transmitter, which replaced an aging custom-built tube transmitter, represents significant power savings, as well as space savings, for the customer.
2017 also saw final acceptance of a four-year project to bring digital broadcasting to more than a billion residents of India, with the commissioning of 27 high power medium wave transmitters throughout the country for All India Radio. AIR’s digital broadcasting system, the largest in the world, uses high-power (100 – 300 kW) Nautel MW transmitters, each equipped for DRM30 transmission, at 27 separate sites throughout the country. (Nautel has since shipped another order of six transmitters to AIR, which will further expand the reach of their digital network across 33 sites). Nautel deployed the transmitters in association with its in-country partner Comcon along with Altronic, providing RF test loads, Digidia, providing DRM modulators/content servers and Kintronic Labs, supplying matching systems for the project.
About Nautel
Nautel is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of AM and FM radio broadcast transmitters. With more than 16,000 transmitters deployed in over 177 countries since 1970 and more than 8,000 deployments of AUI-enabled transmitters, Nautel continues to lead the way in providing valuable new solutions for digital radio broadcasting and other applications.
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For more information please contact:
John Whyte
Head of Marketing
902-823-5174
[email protected]
Making Digital Broadcasting Work.
www.nautel.com
