RadioWorld June 2004
2wcom keeps ORF TMC in Check
User Report - ORF / Austria by Andreas Fröschl
Vienna, Austria. For on-site checking of traffic message channel (TMC) data, Austrian pubcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) equipped transmitter stations with A10 decoders from 2wcom. In addition to its television operations, the ORF runs three national and nine provincial services. The first trial of the ORF RDS-TMC service got under way in 1991.
Major advantage
For the project, ORF partnered with Autobahnen- und Schnellstrassen-Finanzierungs-Aktiengesellschaft (AFI-NAG), the company responsible for planing, financing, building and maintaining the Austrian motorway and high-speed road network, and with the BMVIT, the Austrian federal ministry for transport, innovation and technology.
In October 2002, following the success of pilot trials on Vienna/Niederösterreich and on the transalpine Brennerpass crossing, which connects Austria with Italy, the service became a national one. The national RDS-TMC service improves the quality of traffic information considerable. Drivers get information for their individual route as soon as it becomes available at the ORF national traffic information center (TIC).
The major advantage is that information is provided whenever it is most needed, not just at fixed time slots that interrupts programming twice an hour. At the TIC, messages from the police, the highway operators, emergency services and drivers, as well as relevant data from Bavaria, Italy and Switzerland, are encoded and transmitted via the national youthstation Hitradio Ö3.
ORF installed a UDP server at the TIV, which is based at Hitradio Ö3, to multiplex RS Radiotext, program type identification (PTY), program service name (PS), traffic program (TP) and TMC data.
The TMC data output format follows the ALERT-C protocol. For exchange between the TIC and the transmitter sites, the data is embedded in TCP/UDP.
Data transport works via WAN/LAN network; the RDS encoders are connected through UDP client PCs. For the existing n+1 backup of RDS encoders, the UDP client software has to reroute data streams as necessary. The switching information comes from an automatic switchover unit. ORF established this infrastructure at all 25 of its main transmitter stations (Figure 1). In the meantime, ORF replaced its existing RDS encoders, which had been in use since the introduction of RDS to Austria in 1988.
ORF carefully evaluated the new C02 DSP RDS encoder from 2wcom, selecting it to meet both present requirements and future applications (Figure 2).
Automatic System
The ORF transmission planning department developed an automatic RDS and TMC monitoring system, too.
The UDP clients send out pulses via UDP/IP to a main control station, where a software-based UDP monitor recognizes these signals and resets a time-out counter. In the event of failure of any UDP client, the system automatically sends alarms to transmitter maintenance personnel.
The development of the 2wcom A10 decoder was directly influenced by proposals from ORF. For example, 2wcom implemented automatic frequency scanning and e-mail alarms at the request of the public broadcaster. In addition, the A10 has a TCP/IP remote control capability (Figure 3).
For years, ORF has operated its RDS broadcasts across many alternative frequencies and used the enhanced other network (EON) feature, which makes administration of the ORF transmitter network very complex.
Previously, specialized software was used to manage the RDS broadcasts, but the network upgrade made it necessary to renew the existing database system. For this reason, 2wcom developed Arcos Network software, which is based on a Microsoft Access database structure.
During the development of this tool, 2wcom implemented many ORF proposals for the handling of complex alternative frequency (AF) lists, as well as automatic EON-AF list generation. Arcos also manages C02 DSP encoder configuration settings to the network.
Due to the growing prevalence of automobile navigation systems, with a lot of cheaper models equipped with only one tuner now in the marketplace, ORF is extending the RDS-TMC services to its other national and provincial stations.
Andreas Fröschl is head of planning and design in the RF planning department at ORF in Vienna, Austria.