At the start of a new year I begin to wonder just what the next 12 months might hold for digital radio. What will the ‘usual suspects’ do and is there any new coming over the horizon? The Pure Sensia is the latest appliance to blend DAB, FM, WiFi Radio and the Internet together. This model features DAB station slideshows that seem to come over the internet rather than via DAB itself. At my last count the CE Multiplex in London had 5 slideshow streams linked to Heart, KISS, Magic, Galaxy and heat radio. Does the radio decode them? It is a shame that there seems to be nothing on the market that will decode these additional services Figure 1: The Pure Sensia's FM screen with a slider type tuner. See more at www.touchmyradio.com ; it is not cheap at £220.

Digital Satellite Radio
There are two types of DSR: the first is received via a fixed domestic installation and the second is meant for mobile reception. The former is now almost totally on the Ku-band (12 GHz) in the UK and the latter appears either on S-band (2.5 GHz) or L-band (1.5 GHz) where it has to co-exist with L-DAB in some countries.

Ondas media to give an actual satellite launch date?
The potential rival to Worldspace in the European market has recently signed up RTL Radio to provide a total of four services for their DSR platform that may launch in 2012. The popular German service currently on 1440/6095 kHz in DRM will be one programme alongside three other as yet unspecified services.

Figure 2: RTL's German service carries lots of English pop music. I think that it is one of the best 'oldies' stations on the air. Will the English service called Radio Luxembourg last long enough to become part of the package? If you recall RTL created this service especially for DRM and it was transmitted from Germany for a few months before becoming an internet-only station. It was never fully explained why this happened unless RTL thought that the service would launch on DAB in the UK as it was one of the stations in the rival bid from National Grid Wireless to Channel 4 Radio’s tender for the second national commercial multiplex.

Figure 3: The Ondas system in brief. But will it ever come to pass and will the programmes tempt us to order one for our new car? Will Ondas become known in the UK in 2010? Probably not!

Worldspace – another rescue?
Every time I plan to relegate my Worldspace radio and outdoor yagi antenna to the loft or the skip another glimmer of hope appears. In 2009 the buyout of the failed direct broadcasting satellite radio by its original founder Noah Samara collapsed and the project seemed at an end. In November 2009 a story appeared on Reuters that the financial team that rescued Sirius XM is keen to over what’s left of Worldspace. Apart from the legal issues of winding up the Chapter 11 bankruptcy there are the issues that Afristar will reach the end of its design life in 2010. This really means that the station keeping fuel will be used up and the satellite’s orbit will become more erratic over time. Worldspace has a spare satellite in storage in France but it is the same vintage as Afristar and might require updating before it is launched to replace or supplement Afristar.

Figure 4: Worldspace is confusing at the moment - it is very difficult to find out if Asiastar is actually carrying these services. The Asiastar satellite has a bit more life in it but reports indicate that operations in India may now be shut down. So far as I can tell from various sources the AsiaStar satellite is only carrying a handful of services while any programming is being carried in the Worldspace Top-Up package for the AirTel Digital TV system.

Figure 5: AirTel DTH seems to be the primary delivery system for Worldspace in India.

Technically the Worldspace system is similar to the Sirius system in that the receivers pick up a TDM carrier. Sirius has two TDM carriers and one COFDM carrier on each beam with a spacing of 4.2 MHz while Worldspace has three TDM carriers spaced 2.3 MHz apart. So even though the parameters are different the engineering is quite similar and I think that absorbing a third system into a global transmission network won’t be too difficult.

Worldspace wouldn’t be able to carry all the Sirius XM channels (number up to 250) in high quality audio but might manage 100 or so of them. In fact many of the Sirius XM channels would be a direct replacement for the defunct Worldspace ones.

Pie in the sky? Very probably and likely some years away from a real deployment. If you want access to Sirius/XM then it would make more sense to have one of their Internet subscriptions.

More radio on Freesat?
Riding on the back of Sky Digital the service has failed to shine in 2009 with less than half of the radio services on Sky now available as part of the package. To be fair Freesat does have a handful of services that are not on Sky. At the current rate of expansion I can’t see Freesat becoming a ‘must have’ system to access radio programmes.

More radio services on Freeview?
Following the multiplex reshuffle making transmission space even more limited it is now unlikely that any more radio services will be added on. The BBC’s enhanced radio services are a great example of what can be achieved by combining the audio with other stuff like text; this has never been developed with images or ‘real-time’ information on the content. Perhaps this will come when the next generation of Internet-capable TVs that will appear in 2010?

Innovative plan to deploy DAB+ in the UK?
Last year was very disappointing for us in the UK especially as no consortium came forward to take over the licence handed back by Channel 4 Radio to operate the second national DAB multiplex. I am still of the view that a Freeview style rescue (give the second national multiplex to a BBC/Arqiva consortium) might work wonders and that DAB+ or DMB could be introduced on part of the vacant multiplex as a HD version (CD quality) of the current DAB system to promote the move from FM. This would ensure backward compatibility for the current DAB only receivers and promote the development and sale of new high quality audio services. Of course there would need to be a stipulation that this multiplex wasn’t used for just another bunch of low bit rate services.

Muxco that won 9 local multiplexes last reported an update in July 2009 saying that they were in discussions with Arqiva (transmitter operator) about distribution and transmission costs. There is also a hint in their statement that Ofcom might need to change its thinking slightly and allow operators some more latitude in doing things like combining multiplexes so that they cover a much wider area. I can see the logic in this in that Muxco could combine three of its local multiplexes (Wrexham/Chester, North Wales and Mid/West Wales) into a regional one; likewise Gloucester could be merged with Hereford/Worcester in some way to reduce the number of transmitters and distribution circuits.

2010 requires some new thinking otherwise more of the small broadcasters are going to ignore DAB and hang on to FM well beyond the 2015 target date set out in the Digital Britain report. The umbrella organisations that represent local AM/FM stations are already seeing quite influential members resigning and planning to go it alone.

The trend for DAB is for it to be a bulk replacement for mono radio that would usually find a home on AM radio. I did a scan of the DrG multiplex in London and of the 14 audio services just 4 are is joint stereo and just two of the four use 128 kbits/sec.

Will anyone break free of this philosophy and actually go for high-quality audio? I can’t see it myself!

Increase in DRM programmes & a choice of receivers?
Regular readers will know that I am a staunch supporter of DRM and tune in regularly to the broadcasts especially from the BBC & DW. As I was writing this I received the December issue of the DRM consortium’s newsletter and it looks like 2010 may be just the same as 2009. The newsletter highlights past and future conferences where more talking will be done, a transmitter here and there and a hope that the BBCWS and DW will continue to fund their combined DRM service.

The key catalyst is always missing from the roadmap: low cost functional receivers from a mid-size to major manufacturer. It is pretty clear that no other major broadcaster like RTL Luxembourg is going to launch such services.

Will we see a DRM radio from the likes of Sony, Eton or Panasonic? I think we know the answer to that question!

HD Radio in Europe?
2010 might just see Switzerland adopting the USA’s HD-Radio (IBOC) system as the digital replacement for FM radio. It is a long shot but the logic put forward is that HD-Radio is a working system with lots of radios available and that Switzerland’s mountainous landscape limits interference between stations so relatively high-powered services could be put in place.

Figure 6: Some Swiss broadcasters are really keen on HD Radio. Would Europe really adopt a US radio system? It is just possible that the Swiss might go for this.

Next Month
In February we will get back to reality and keep up to date with the latest digital radio news. Good listening.