Broadcasters around the world are adopting new transmission standards, while in the U.S., stations are preparing to move to new channel assignments, even as they eye single frequency networks as their ticket to reaching consumers moving around outside the home. All of these transmission changes open up new possibilities for in-band and co channel interference, and as engineers prepare to cope with those, they will also need solutions for dealing with the special monitoring needs of SFNs.
It all adds up to the need for a new level of sophistication in signal monitoring and analysis.
A clean signal monitored by Avateq’s ActiveCore® RF Layer Monitoring Receiver and Signal Analyzer.
Television broadcasters around the world are entering a period of accelerated transition with regard to the type of signals they transmit, the channels used to transmit those signals and the RF infrastructure necessary to provide the quality of service needed to reach viewers in the home and on the go.
In Europe, Africa and Australia, broadcasters are expanding their adoption of DVB-T2, with rollout of the standard likely to be complete in Germany by mid 2019. In China, broadcasters have deployed several thousand DTMB high and low-power transmitters since 2016.
In the United States, more than 1,000 full-power and Class-A television stations will be changing channel assignments thanks to a government initiative to clear the 600MHz band for use by wireless carriers. On a parallel track, many U.S. broadcasters will begin deploying ATSC 3.0, an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) TV transmission, as government regulators move forward on its authorization. The move to ATSC 3.0 will likely trigger a spike in demand for single frequency networks (SFNs), which allow TV stations to reach consumers on the go. With such dramatic changes in digital TV transmission, television broadcasters the world over must rethink how their signals are monitored and analyzed, particularly with respect to in-band interference and SFN. Traditional signal monitoring and analysis tools are oftentimes not capable of diagnosing and managing the kinds of in-band interference TV engineers will soon be coping with.
Avateq's RF layer monitoring receivers and signal analyzers provide convenient and easy-to-use tools to diagnose in-band interference.
