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in April 2010, Mr. T. R. Rajeesh from South India, Alokesh Gupta from Delhi,
and Anker Petersen from Denmark made a visit to the headquarters of All India
Radio AIR in New Delhi. The visit was
arranged in advance by Alokesh Gupta, and an interesting feature article was
written subsequently by T. R. Rajeesh.
The information in this AIR feature here in Wavescan is based upon the
written article by Rajeesh, together with additional historic information from
other sources.
All India Radio is one of the world’s largest radio
networks and it is still active on
shortwave for both international and domestic audiences. AIR as an organization started broadcasting in
January 1936 and since then it has enjoyed
a steady growth. At the time of
their visit four years ago, All India Radio was on the air
with 54 shortwave transmitters, 149 mediumwave transmitters and 172 FM
transmitters.
They have achieved a national area coverage of
nearly 100%, and an average listenership of 350 million. All India Radio broadcasts in 11 Indian and
16 foreign languages.
The AIR headquarters is located in
Parliament Street, New Delhi and they maintain strict security
arrangements. The headquarters
facilities are housed in three buildings, the oldest of which was built in 1943
during the British colonial era, and it was designed in the shape of a round
cassette spool.
This ornate red building was originally
constructed for use with a set of production and recording studios and
administrative offices for the entire nationwide network. These days though it is now in use as a radio
museum with still some recording studios and offices for a few officials. An extension to the building was added in
1954.
There is a new building at the same site with
four floors exclusively for the Spectrum Management and Synergy (formerly
Frequency Assignment Division), as well as Planning & Transmitter
Maintenance. This building was
constructed in 2002 and within it is the office of the Director General of All
India Radio.
There is also another newer building at this
site, the New Broadcasting House, where the External Service Division and state
of the art digital studios are located.
The Deputy Director of Engineering in SMS, the
Spectrum Management Division, Mr. B. K. Oberoi, welcomed the
three visitors and introduced them to Mr. M. S. Ansari
who is the Division Director. An interesting discussion on the shortwave medium ensued, its challenges and future.
The verification policy of AIR was also a
subject of discussion and it was indicated that they receive a large flow of
reception reports and at any point in time many reports are still pending. When a reception report is received it is sent
to the concerned language department or the regional station for verification
of program content. The report is then
returned to SMS where a QSL is issued.
Regarding their verification policy, they said that they plan to discontinue
QSLing mediumwave and FM broadcasts in the future.
It was also stated that reception
reports for the AIR General Overseas Service beamed to the European target area
come mostly from Finland, Germany and England, but in total, most of the flow
of reception reports come from the United States. Even though AIR does not intentionally target
North America, yet the AIR General Overseas Service is well heard in the United
States.
There was also a discussion
regarding
the experimental DRM transmissions, which are regularly monitored by Alokesh
Gupta in New Delhi. It was stated that AIR
plans to convert some shortwave transmitters, nearly 10%,
to DRM capability in the near future. In
addition, both mediumwave and FM transmitters will be
converted to DRM capability in the next phase of development.
At the conclusion of the discussions,
the three visitors were accorded a tour of the three building complex, including the
twelve digital state of the art studios in the new building, New Broadcasting
House. They also visited the External
Services Division where the Deputy Director Ms. Nayyar Sadrudin received them.
Ms Nayyar enquired about
the broadcasts they listened to and Danish international radio monitor, Anker Petersen,
handed her a reception report from a recent broadcast of the General Overseas
Service. She called the announcers
mentioned in the report and the visitors met Kaushik Roy who hosts the mailbag program “Faithfully
Yours” and also Sanjiv
Baruah. Interestingly, Sanjiv Baruah is
the son of the former All India Radio Director General, Mr. U. L. Baruah who
wrote the authoritative book on AIR, “This is All India Radio”, published
back in 1983.
After visiting the External Services Division, the
trio proceeded to the old red coloured building, the original Akashvani Bhavan,
where they saw the Radio and TV museum on the ground floor. Lots of old receivers are displayed there,
including Philips and Grundig from the 1920s and 1930s, as well as old TV
cameras, and many other items of historic importance.
Comments about the General
Overseas Service are encouraged and All India Radio may be contacted by direct
email at goesdair@yahoo.co.in. The Spectrum Management Division of All India Radio welcomes all reception reports and in particular reports from listeners in the European target
area. Reports and monitoring observations
for DRM transmissions are also especially appreciated.
A number of people have recently
commented on the poor audio quality of the AIR DRM transmissions. They seem to be feeding the DRM trans jitters
with off air signals from the analog shortwave transmitters. Thus, DRM reception doesn’t sound any
better than analog and it certainly doesn’t showcase the quality of DRM. So if you want to , you may give AIR your
feedback on this matter.
Postal reports may be mailed
to The Director, Spectrum Management & Synergy, All India Radio, Room
No.204, Parliament Street New Delhi-110001, India. Email reports are welcomed to: spectrum-manager@air.org.in.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 285)