Victor Pinchuk
MOSCOW—Our operation faced an amazing challenge in connection with the Russian government’s 2009-2015 program for Digital Terrestrial TV proliferation. According to the plan, every Russian citizen has to have access to DTTV by 2015. To target this far-reaching goal requires the deployment of digital transmitters at more than 5,000 stations across the country.
This was obviously a very tight deadline and the program involved enormous quantities of equipment. In order to achieve this goal, we selected Trade House Sviaz Engineering as an integrator and Thomson Broadcast as the transmitter supplier, as the company offers a flexible internal manufacturing capacity and high quality of service. Thomson’s Futhura, Elite 100 and Elite 10 product lines provide a complete range of power outputs between 25 Watts and 10,000 Watts and share common modules to make maintenance easier and less expensive.
‘PLUG-AND-PLAY’ INSTALLATIONS
Uncomplicated installations are very important when you’re deploying this type of network. With Thomson’s pretuned modules and full in-factory product testing, it’s only necessary to trim output power according to site requirements.
We had specific transmitter requirements, including support for single frequency and multiple frequency network operation, high-efficiency operation across the entire UHF band, and flexibility in reallocating transmitters to new sites during deployment. Another program requirement was the ability for referencing the Russian Glonass (Global Navigation Satellite system) signals, and Thomson Broadcast quickly adapted their product for this.
When it came to the transmitter exciter, a high quality of service was at the top of our list. Thomson Broadcast’s latest generation DVB-T2 platform met this requirement and its DVB-T2 multiple mode provides an automatic new configuration when changing parameters from the gateway. The exciter design also offers such advanced features as digital adaptive precorrection for automatic real-time linear and nonlinear precorrections, providing really high-quality digital transmission.
Thomson’s Futhura high-power models provide highly reliable liquid-cooling system operation with the use of dual pumps and blowers. And their low- power and medium- power Elite 10 and Elite 100 transmitters feature an air-cooling system that lends itself to fast installations. In addition, Thomson’s local user interface of both the transmitters and associated cooling systems is user-friendly and allows quick and easy local management. The units are also equipped with remote access as a standard feature, which is very useful as we move forward in our deployment program.
HELPING TO REDUCE THE COST OF OWNERSHIP
Energy efficiency is a big item everywhere right now and this entered into our discussions with our integrator and Thomson during the planning stages. The latest developments in energy efficiency have been incorporated in Thomson’s Futhura and Elite 100, high- and medium-power lines, ranges, providing energy savings of as much as 50 percent. This will be a big plus in our network operating budget.
Thus far, we’ve completed high-power transmitter installations in several key Russian cities with very good results and are still on schedule for our complete deployment thanks to Thompson’s assistance.
Victor Pinchuk is first deputy general director at RTRN and is in charge of the management and the development of the network. He may be contacted atvp@rtrn.ru.
For additional information about Thomson Broadcast products, visitwww.thomson-broadcast.com.
