Tech 3357 Case Studies on the Implementation of Drm+ in Band Ii

The DRM Consortium carried out a high-power field trial of the DRM+ system [G1] in the FM band inthe central Scotland area, centred on the city of Edinburgh, in the United Kingdom during Januaryto May 2011. The DRM Consortium members contributed their expertise and equipment to the trialto enable the system to be tested in a real commercial environment with a wide variety ofreception conditions. The BBC provided project management and measuring effort for the trial.This document describes the trial and results. G1. Location and environment for the trialThe trial was conducted in the eastern Central belt area of Scotland from the Craigkellytransmitting station located just to the north of the town of Burntisland, Fife. The area ischaracterised by a mixture of dense urban, urban, suburban, and rural terrain, including the city ofEdinburgh, several towns, open farmland and light industrial districts. The physical geographyincludes open water, gently undulating hills and rocky outcrops which contribute to variouschallenges for radio services, including multipath and terrain shielding. Figure G1: DRM+ trial location * Original title: BBC White Paper WHP 199, Results of the DRM+ high power field trial in the UK. Lindsay Cornell, 07/2011.65 DRM+ Implementation in Band IITech 3357 Figure G2: DRM+ trial location detail with terrainThe Craigkelly transmission site is owned and operated by Arqiva. It is a commercial broadcastingsite which provides transmission facilities for analogue and digital television (using the PAL-I andDVB-T standards), analogue and digital radio (using the FM and DAB standards), and a variety ofancillary mobile communications, links facilities, etc. The site is 182 m above sea level.The FM radio services use two antenna systems providing mixed horizontal and vertical polarisation.Each antenna system is fed from a combiner. The site provides the following FM services: Table G1: FM radio services from CraigkellyStation NameFreq. (MHz) Erp Power (kW) Antenna Antenna height (m)BBC Radio nan Gàidheal104.15A119Capital FM105.710B107Forth FM97.39.8A119Real Radio101.19.6B107Talk 107*107.010A119* Talk 107 is no longer on-air Figure G3: Craigkelly tower (left) and top section showing FM arrays (right)