INTERNSHIP REPORT

PRASAR BHARATI
[BROADCASTING CORPORATION OF INDIA]
ALL INDIA RADIO - BENGALURU

NAME LIKITH S

USN_NO 1BM16EC052

COLLEGE BMS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

BRANCH ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION

ENGINEERING
DURATION 14/1/2019 TO 19/1/2019
 Introduction
In recent times, the habit of radio listening has grown-up leaps and bounds, unraveled the
Radio Programme Listenership (RPL) surveys. Radio listeners were more than 95 percent
across the socio-economic and demographic classes of the society. The increased number of
FM channels has enhanced the number of radio listeners in urban area. The audience are
almost five per cent more in urban than rural area. The primary channel of AIR Bengaluru is
predominantly listened in rural areas while the Vividh Bharati and Rainbow are the urban
favourites. Assured daily reach of FM Rainbow was almost 45 per cent. It was the No.1 radio
channel in Bengaluru. with amazing reach. The daily reach of the channel was more than 50
per cent in any socio-economic class of audience and it is almost uniform, testify the
effective media planning of AIR Bengaluru. Significantly, the listeners for the classical music
channel, Amruthavarshini, a channel of high class were chiefly from the higher socio-
economic classes of the society, whereas the audience for Primary and Vividh
Bharati channels were mostly from the middle and lower orders of socio-economic classes.

With the changing mass communication scenario, Audience Research has occupied the
centre stage. World over, almost all the big media organizations have been doing in-house
audience research in one form or the other. Without ‘Market Research’ (in marketing) no
media organization can afford to put their precious resource at stake without knowing the
potential audience (consumers) and market for their media content. Besides, they are also
subscribing to syndicated research done by the various media and market research
organizations. The secret behind the success of private TV and Radio channels lies in their
capability to feel the pulse of audience through continuous audience research and to design
and modify the programme content including presentation accordingly. All India Radio has
been a pioneer in this field. Presently, it has a network of 38 Audience Research Units across
the country which started with a humble beginning in 1946 as ‘Listeners’ Research Wing’.
 Power distribution at AIR-BENGALURU

BESCOM POWER HT PANNEL STEPDOWN

SUPPLY-11KV TRANSFORMER
11KV TO 400V

UPS (GENERATES
400 V BACKUP
POWER)

LT PANNEL

GENERATOR(400 V
BACKUP POWER)

ELECTRCAL
DEVICES (3-PHASE)

 The power from electricity distributor BESCOM (around 11kV) is given to the HT
panel. HT panel –It stands for High Tension panel and is mainly used to handle and
stabilize power transmitted in high tension cables. The basic design of a HT panel
comprises of circuit breakers or switch fuse which protects the equipment from
sudden voltage fluctuations. They are generally outdoor substations .
 The output of HT panel is given to the step-down transformer ,which brings down
11kV power down to 400V , in order to run the 3-phase electrical components .
 However the output of 400v cannot be given directly to the components , so we
require a LT panel to handle this 400V power.
 LT panel - LT Panel is an electrical distribution board that receives power from
generator or transformer and distributes the same to various electronic devices and
distribution boards. Such panels are used in industries both for internal and external
use and, therefore, they are quite rugged to withstand different climatic conditions .

 The power from stepdown transformer is not the only source of power at AIR , a
backup diesel generator is used to provide power when there is a BESCOM power
cutoff , however there is time lapse/delay between the disruption of main power
and generation of backup power by the generator . In order to have continuous
uninterrupted power supply , an UPS has been installed as a backup power source till
the generator turns on .

 The stabilized output of the LT panel (400 V)is used to run various 3-phase electrical
components .
 Station profile
 Amruthavarshini FM -100.1 MHz ; 3kW FM transmitter

 Vividh Bharati FM -102.9 MHz ; 10kW FM Transmitter

 Rainbow FM- 101.3 MHz ; 10kW FM Transmitter

 Primary Channel AM - 612KHz ; 200kW AM Transmitter

 Raagam 24X7 DTH

 DTH - Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite television is becoming a buzzword in the

satellite broadcast industry due to the fact that DTH offers immense opportunities to
both broadcasters and viewers. Thanks to the rapid development of digital
technology, DTH broadcast operators worldwide have been able to introduce a large
number of new interactive applications in the television market besides a large
number of entertainment programmes over a single delivery platform. In addition,
since digital technology permits a highly efficient exploitation of the frequency
spectrum, the number of TV channels that can be broadcast using digital technology
is significantly higher than with analogue technology. The increased number of
television channels allows the operator to satisfy the demand of a number of niche
markets with dedicated transmissions.
Transmission in Ku band is most appropriate and widely used for the purpose. As
mentioned above, all the encoded transmission signals are digital – thus providing
higher resolution picture quality and better audio than traditional analog signals. All
the advantages of the digital transmission, as applicable to the terrestrial
transmission are relevant in the satellite transmission also.

AIR KANNADA – Uplink – 6337 Mhz, Downlink – 4112.000 MHz

FM RAINBOW – Uplink – 6336.6 Mhz, Downlink – 4111.600 MHz.

RAAGAM – Uplink – 6339 Mhz, Downlink- 4114 Mhz.

 FM Transmission - Line of sight propagation

At AIR Bengaluru , FM channels include Amruthavarshini FM(100.1 MHz) , Vividh

Bharati FM(102.9 MHz) ,Rainbow FM(101.3 MHz).

Frequency modulation (FM) is a technique used to encode data on an alternating

digital or analog signal. The method includes varying the frequency of the carrier
wave on which useful information is imposed or impressed upon. The signal on
which data is imposed is known as the carrier signal and the resulting signal with
variable frequency is called a frequency modulated signal.

A FM transmitter involves a tower of height 100 meters with 3 Bay and 6 bay
antenna of size (ƛ/4) fixed at the top of the tower . The antennas that are used are
isotropic antennas, An isotropic antenna is a theoretical antenna that radiates
equally in all directions - horizontally and vertically with the same intensity. The
antenna has a gain of 1 dB in the spherical space all around it and has an efficiency of
100%. The concept of an isotropic antenna is often used as a reference antenna for
the antenna gain. Many antennas specify gain in dBi (decibels over isotropic), which
is the power transmitted by an antenna in specific direction, divided by the power
transmitted by an isotropic antenna emitting the same total power.

3-D Antenna Pattern of an Isotropic Antenna

FM transmission follows Line of sight communication(LoS) , Line-of-sight

propagation is a characteristic of electromagnetic radiation or acoustic wave
propagation which means waves travel in a direct path from the source to the
receiver. Electromagnetic transmission includes light emissions traveling in
a straight line. The rays or waves may be diffracted, refracted, reflected, or absorbed
by the atmosphere and obstructions with material and generally cannot travel over
the horizon or behind obstacles.
Analysis of line of site is particularly important for planning wireless network
deployment. A clear line of site between two antennas is ideal for the best
reception. However, a radio signal can permeate and bend or bounce around some
obstruction, unlike line of sight for an eye. LOS is often categorized with separate
abbreviations for the different levels of obstruction. A fully open path is the situation
abbreviated as LOS. A near line of site with partial obstructions is abbreviated
as nLOS and a completely blocked non-line of sight as NLOS.

However , the region of coverage or the maximum distance upto which FM signals
can be transmitted depends on height of the tower and power of the transmission
tower.
 AM transmission – Medium Wave propagation
Medium wave propagation is usually used for long distance communication and in AIR
Primary channel (612 kHz) implements medium wave propagation. Wavelengths in this
band are long enough that radio waves are not blocked by buildings and hills and can
propagate beyond the horizon following the curvature of the Earth; this is called
the groundwave. Practical groundwave reception typically extends to 200–300 miles, with
greater distances over terrain with higher ground conductivity, and greatest distances over
salt water. Most broadcast stations use groundwave to cover their listening area. The
ground wave propagation is also very dependent upon the nature of the ground over which
the signal travels. Ground conductivity, terrain roughness and the dielectric constant all
affect the signal attenuation. In addition to this the ground penetration varies, becoming
greater at lower frequencies, and this means that it is not just the surface conductivity that
is of interest. However there is a higher probability of distorted signal being received due to
interference by mountains and undesirable landscapes . The noise factor is predominantly
high.

Medium wave transmission involves a high power transmitter (200kW) located in a buffer
zone and contains a high tower/mast wherein the entire mast radiates signal in all
directions. For broadcasting, mast radiators are the most common type of antenna used,
consisting of a steel lattice guyed mast in which the mast structure itself is used as the
antenna. Usually mast antennas are series-excited (base driven); the feedline is attached to
the mast at the base. The base of the antenna is at high electrical potential and must be
supported on a ceramic insulator to isolate it from the ground. Shunt-excited masts, in
which the base of the mast is at a node of the standing wave at ground potential and so
does not need to be insulated from the ground, have fallen into disuse, except in cases of
exceptionally high power, where series excitation might be impractical. If grounded masts or
towers are required, cage or long-wire aerials are used. Another possibility consists of
feeding the mast or the tower by cables running from the tuning unit to the guys or
crossbars at a certain height.
In very rare cases dipole antennas on the transmitter are used for medium wave
transmission.A dipole antenna is a straight electrical conductor measuring
1/2 wavelength from end to end and connected at the center to a radio-frequency (RF) feed
line. This antenna, also called a doublet, is one of the simplest types of antenna, and
constitutes the main RF radiating and receiving element in various sophisticated types of
antennas. The dipole is inherently a balanced antenna, because it is bilaterally symmetrical.
 AM transmission - Short wave propagation
Radio waves in the shortwave band can be reflected or refracted from a layer of electrically
charged atoms in the atmosphere called the ionosphere. Therefore, short waves directed at
an angle into the sky can be reflected back to Earth at great distances, beyond the horizon.
This is called skywave propagation. Thus shortwave radio can be used for very long distance
communication, in contrast to radio waves of higher frequency which travel in straight lines
(line-of-sight propagation) and are limited by the visual horizon, about 64 km (40 miles).
Shortwave radio is used for broadcasting of voice and music to shortwave listeners over
very large areas; sometimes entire continents or beyond. It is also used for military over-
the-horizon radar, diplomatic communication, and two-way international communication
by amateur radio enthusiasts for hobby, educational and emergency purposes, as well as for
long distance aviation and marine communications.

A typical phenomenon of shortwave propagation is the occurrence of a skip zone where

reception fails. With a fixed working frequency, large changes in ionospheric conditions may
create skip zones at night.As a result of the multi-layer structure of the ionosphere,
propagation often simultaneously occurs on different paths, scattered by the E or F region
and with different numbers of hops, a phenomenon that may be disturbed for certain
techniques. Particularly for lower frequencies of the shortwave band, absorption of radio
frequency energy in the lowest ionospheric layer, the D layer, may impose a serious limit.
This is due to collisions of electrons with neutral molecules, absorbing some of a radio
frequency's energy and converting it to heat. Predictions of skywave propagation depend
on:

 The distance from the transmitter to the target receiver.

 Time of day. During the day, frequencies higher than approximately 12 MHz can
travel longer distances than lower ones. At night, this property is reversed.

 With lower frequencies the dependence on the time of the day is mainly due to the
lowest ionospheric layer, the D Layer, forming only during the day when photons
from the sun break up atoms into ions and free electrons.

 Season. During the winter months of the Northern or Southern hemispheres, the
AM/MW broadcast band tends to be more favourable because of longer hours of
darkness.

 Solar flares produce a large increase in D region ionization so high, sometimes for
periods of several minutes, all skywave propagation is nonexistent.
 Captive Earth Station
CES/Captive Earth Station is mainly used for uplink/downlink of information to/from the
satellites respectively.

 The CES design at AIR involves the uplink of Rainbow FM,DTH Kannada and
Raagam 24X7 to the satellites through a C-band antenna.
 Rainbow FM, message signal is given as input to the 3 way analog switch
along with CES comp output, the output of the 3-way switch is given to an
audio processor.
 Two o/p lines of audio processor are taken out and given ANALOG SONIFEX
DA and ATIDIGITAL DA which then are cross connected to encoder .

H
o
w
e
v

 However , this cross-connection is done for backup purpose in situations of
failure of the working line. The frequency of the message signal at this stage
in KHz and in order to uplink to a satellite we require the frequency to be in
several GHz.
 In order to achieve this the corresponding MPEG data is given to a
superheterodyne receiver. A superheterodyne receiver is a type of radio
receiver that uses frequency mixing to convert a received signal to a
fixed intermediate frequency (IF) which can be more conveniently processed
than the original carrier frequency. The intermediate frequency generated is
about 70.6 MHz and the entire circuit is broadly called a modem.
 Both the main and backup lines are combined at the redundancy switch and
then given to a RF combiner which thereby combines similar intermediate
frequency message signals of DTH Kannada and Raagam 24X7. It is called a
R/F combiner as it combines Intermediate frequency signals in Radio
frequency range.

 The output of RF combiner is given to a 1:1 converter switch which is used to

switch lines with the main UP converter and a backup UP converter . The UP
converter is used to convert the frequency range of the signal from MHz to
GHz range so that it is suitable for uplink to a G-SAT 10 satellite.
• This output is then given to a High Power Amplifier through a RF splitter and
then given to a C-band antenna for uplink. At AIR the uplink frequency is 6
GHz and downlink frequency is 4 GHz.

CES BLOCK DIAGRAM

 DIGITALIZATION IN RADIO TRANSMISSION
• With the advent of Digital Radio Transmission in Short-Wave band significant
improvement in the reception and coverage of AIR programmes is expected. People
can listen to near FM quality programmes of above services by tuning the respective
frequencies on DRM Radio receivers only.

• Digital Radio Mondiale(DRM) is a digital transmission system recommended by the

International Telecommunication Union (ITU) that offers not only audio broadcasting
in near-FM quality, but also different types of multimedia data services. The system
can be applied to all AM broadcast bands below 30 MHz (LW, MW and SW) and it is
understood as a one-to-many delivery system. DRM is intended to substitute the
current analogue AM transmission systems.

• While it is true that AM (Amplitude Modulation) allows simple receivers and has an
average of 2.2 billion receivers worldwide, its poor audio quality (due to a small
bandwidth), its out-dated receiver handling (no station label, no automatic
frequency switching) and its high power consumption for transmission are just some
of the important points to take into account. FM (Frequency Modulation) has a good
audio quality compared to AM, but a far smaller coverage area.

OVERVIEW OF THE DRM SYSTEM

• For the broadcast signal, the DRM system uses a high number of QAM modulated
carriers spread over a regular AM (SW, MW, LW) spectrum channel. On the
transmitter side (to generate the signal in the air), the DRM transmission block
diagram consists roughly of the stages explained below. First of all, on the source
encoder and data pre-coder, the signal is adapted to an appropriate digital format.
This source data stream is then combined in the multiplexer with descriptive
information about the RF-signal, the transported data and services and additional
functions. The multiplex can support up to four audio/data streams.

• The next step is the channel encoding, which adds redundant information in order to
permit the receiver to reconstruct a distorted signal and defines the mapping of the
digital encoded information (the DRM multiplex which is e.g. provided by the DRM
ContentServer) onto QAM cells. After that, a set of QAM symbols is interleaved, so
that adjacent QAM cells are spread, before the transmission, across the carriers and
re-ordered again in the receiver in order to avoid possible long blocks of lost data.
Thus, the robustness of the bit stream to channel errors is highly improved.Then, in
the OFDM cell mapper, the different types of QAM cells are collected and placed on
the time/frequency grid. OFDM symbols are separated by guard intervals between
 every symbol. And finally, the modulator converts the digital representation of the
OFDM signal into the analogue base band signal.

COMPONENTS OF A DRM-MULTIPLEXER
• The DRM-Multiplex Generator produces the three different components of the
DRM-Multiplex:

• the Main Service Channel (MSC),

• the Fast Access Channel (FAC)

• Service Description Channel (SDC).

Main service channel

• The MSC contains the data for the services (audio and multimedia
applications).
• the MSC contains between one and four streams (see picture above). Each
stream is divided into logical frames of 400 ms length each. Audio streams
comprise compressed audio and optionally they can carry text messages.
 Data streams, and only they, may be composed of up to four data "sub
streams" (if the data stream is configured for DRM packet mode). A sub
stream carries packets for one service.
• A data service comprises one data stream or one data sub stream. The logical
frames from all the streams are mapped together to form multiplex frames of
400 ms duration which are passed to the channel coder.

Fast access channel

• Each transmission frame contains an FAC block. Each FAC block contains
parameters that describe the DRM channel (the on-air signal) and parameters
to describe one service. When more than one service is carried in the
multiplex, a number of FAC blocks are required to describe all the services.

Service description channel

• The SDC information is not sent within every DRM frame (400 ms) but only
once per DRM transmission super frame (1.2 sec).
• An SDC block is the SDC data contained in one transmission super frame. The
SDC is treated as a single data channel. The total amount of data may require
more than a single SDC block to send.
• Therefore it may take several seconds until the receiver has got all the
information required to playback and decode the DRM multiplex.
• Currently 13 types of SDC blocks (SDC Entities) are defined, each representing
a certain kind of information.
 DRM Content Server Transmission Chain
• Various sources of data and audio can be fed into the Content Server, which will
import, check, convert and manage this data according to the current Content
Provider and Service Component setup.

• The output of the DRM Content Server - a digital DRM Multiplex which is fully
compliant to the DRM standard, containing FAC, SDC and MSC streams plus
additional information - is transported to one ore more DRM Modulators, which
prepare the analog signal to be broadcast via an attached transmitter.

• The DRM Content Server supports a virtually unlimited number of DRM Modulators
to be fed with the identical DRM Multiplex including time stamp information.
Therefore it is the ideal central data source for SFN setups (Single Frequency
Networks), where each modulator/transmitter sends the identical signal at the same
time from different places into the same target area. To be optionally able to keep
the DRM Content Server located distantly from each modulator/transmitter, the
DRM Content Server as well as each modulator is synchronized via the worldwide
available GPS (Global Positioning System) timing information.
 Advantages of DRM Transmission
• Interference free reception on short, medium and long wave.

• High audio quality ('full' audio frequency spectrum; comparable to FM quality).

• Automatic frequency switching & simple user interface.

• One receiver for worldwide operation.

• DRM reduces the number of bits which is currently at 128 bits to 8 bits.

• DRM at the receiver end,results in increase in accountability.

• Large coverage areas.

• Inexpensive receivers available in the near future.

• Support of ground wave, sky wave and NVIS (Near Vertical Incidence Skywave).

• Bandwidth support for 4.5, 5, 9, 10, 18 and 20 kHz transmission channels.

• Support for single frequency networks.

• Up to four programmes/services on one frequency.

• Consumed transmission power only 1/4 of analog AM.

 CONCLUSION
In this sector of training I studied about the overall procedure and objective of the
broadcasting process in elaborate form. All India Radio had provided us all the equipments
and apparatus for understanding each and every section up to its depth. I visited various
sections like server and networking room, lines room, control room, captive earth station
etc. After studying these sections I get understood their execution and importance for the
transmission and reception of the data at All India radio.

The training started was with the server and networking room where I visited and studied
about the overall networking procedure and the interconnection between the servers to
access the private data as well as public data. The data like news, audio songs etc are
available to every server at any instance in any section. Every server is independent to fetch
and add the data to them. The servers are connected to each other via bus topology and
Ring topology. The next section was Lines room including all the lines containing data
decoding and arriving at same room and can be accessed. This data can be
further forwarded to the other studios and control room with help of Encoder. In the
Captive Earth Station I learnt about the reception and transmission of data in the form
of signals. Satellite communication is general and very important in today’s life. Today’s
human growth and development in the communication field is only because of the satellite
communication. However, digitalization is achieved through the use of DRM transmitter and
as a result aiding the quality of signal transmitted.

The entire internship was a wonderful experience and a very good opportunity to learn
about the new/advanced technologies used in real time systems.

Thank you