Thursday, September 17, 2009

HFCC B09 Conference Opening Remarks by Oldrich Cip

It is my pleasure to address our second shortwave co-ordination conference this year with a couple of opening remarks. First of all let me thank Mr. Jeff White, President NASB, and Mr. Rodolfo Espinal, representing INDOTEL - Dominican Telecomunications Institute and governmental regulatory agency for inviting members of the HFCC/ASBU association to this very exotic and relaxing conference venue here in the Dominican Republic.

The future of international broadcasting has probably been one of the very frequent talking points in our community in the recent past. This is quite natural since we work together with the aim of making listening more reliable and interference free and most of us enjoy doing it. But I believe that the fear of an impending demise of short waves is a bit premature and not quite rational.

We have already entered the multi-channel era and the delivery of the media content has become more varied or even fragmented. In other words the new platforms, and information technologies that are emerging for the programme delivery (that was based exclusively on wireless radio) are indeed strong alternative competitors to shortwave transmissions. But the traditional TV and radio for domestic listeners and viewers face an equally strong or even stronger competition.

We are probably luckier in that shortwave - as well as other transmissions that propagate via reflections from the ionosphere - have a long-distance outreach. In fact the whole range of the radio spectrum that has got this property - and this includes medium and long waves - is large, and it is quite unrealistic to expect that all these bands are going to be abandoned and allocated to other services - just because the sound quality of AM transmissions that are used there is lower than that of the new technologies.

Sometimes I am even more worried over the future of international broadcasting as a whole. The “War of the Words” of the Cold War era is long gone, but quite strangely the mandate of international broadcasting has not been properly redefined.

United Nations, Unesco and especially the ITU are all trying to implement a growing number of Information and Communication Technologies (or ICTs) for the introduction of so called Information Society. Global frequency plans that we co-ordinate represent a vital infrastructure for the technology of international broadcasting. The technology is capable of delivering rich media content over long distances. This could be very important for the dialogue among cultures and for the development of regional and international co-operation - in keeping with the aims and plans of the Information Society. But so far the potential of international broadcasting has been completely left out from the Information Society projects.

Yet there is a good chance that international broadcasting will join the family of the new ICTs that are based on digital technologies. All existing regional segments of global shortwave co-ordination, i.e. HFCC, Arab States Broadcasting Union as well as Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, and also our present host NASB, are associate members of the DRM consortium. We co-ordinate DRM transmissions in seasonal databases, and digitization of shortwave radio is always on the agenda of our conferences.

We had substantive discussions on the potential benefits of DRM for the vast territory of the Russian Federation for example with the management of GRFC telecommunication authority during the HFCC/ASBU Moscow conference only a year ago. We were very much encouraged to receive a letter from the GRFC colleagues earlier this year in that the DRM standard was indeed approved for broadcasting in Russia in the spectrum below 30 MHz.

Much nearer to this conference venue a public consultation is held at the moment for the best digital solution for AM broadcasting in the Federative Republic of Brazil. DRM has been chosen as an important contender and DRM experts take part in this evaluation with local authorities there. In fact during our own Punta Cana Conference this week a DRM seminar will be organised for broadcasters and telecommunication representatives in the Dominican Republic. More information on this will follow from Jeff White and other colleagues.

My brief opening notes would not be complete without welcoming to our conference our colleague and friend Mr Pham Hai Head, Broadcasting Services Division of the Radio Bureau of the ITU. The ITU is an important stakeholder of shortwave co-ordination, and during our last consultations with the ITU in Kuala Lumpur last year - together with our regional partners in ABU and ASBU - we agreed to try getting on board a few remaining users of the spectrum in Latin America and Africa.

I am happy to report that as a result of our joint effort a contact has been established with the director of RAE or Radiodifusion Argentina al Exterior. RAE have been traditional shortwave broadcasters for many years. Mr Luis Maria Barassi, Director of RAE has sent greetings both to the HFCC/ASBU participants and to the ITU, as well as to the conference organisers along with RAE frequency requirements for the incoming season. We have already agreed with the ITU to carry on with the effort to collect shortwave schedule data from stations that are active in external broadcasting but not present yet in our seasonal databases.

Turning back to the conference again I would like to express my admiration for Jeff White, Chairman of the Conference Organising Committee. Almost single-handed and with a very small team he worked as the main organiser, equipment buyer, visa consultant and tour operator – on a conference site very much removed from his home location. Many thanks on behalf of all of us.
(NASB Newsletter, Sept 2009)

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