Digital Audio Broadcasting

First regional implementation and fielding of Digital Audio Broadcasting system.

As a Public government owned enterprise, National Broadcasting Company in preparation to comply with EU regulative stipulated in the European Electronic Communications Code, pioneered the implementation of digital terrestrial radio (DAB+). To this account, Netra won the pilot project, which intended to provide coverage for the capital of the Republic of North Macedonia, Skopje.

The solution with which we won the project was based on digital/analog transmitter TMV9 made by Rohde & Schwarz, configured to operate in wideband DAB + single drive 1+1 mode, delivering up to 750W before the output filter.

Each transmitter features PMV901 output amplifier and TCE900 exciter suited to accept EDI or ETI digital inputs and a GPs receiver for synchronization in SFN networks in case of future expansion in of the broadcasting sites in the region.

In addition to the transmitter system, NETRA also provided a completely redundant DAB headend based on the solution by Audio Video Technologies Gmbh and Fraunhofer DAB ContentServer, streaming steady uninterrupted EDI signal towards the broadcasting system as well as providing the necessary SFN synchronization through two redundant NTP servers.

Overall system has no single point of failure since each subsystem, including the UPS is doubled.

All system components (transmitters, headend components and UPS systems) are visualized, remotely controlled, and managed through Orion Solarwinds NPA Network Management System as an SNMP based umbrella application tweaked to accommodate the process on control and management by Netra for the specific system.