ALL INDIA RADIO

1. INTRODUCTION:
History of Indian Radio is the history of radio broadcast that started in India
with the setting up of a private radio service in Chennai, in the year 1924.
In that same year, British government gave license to the Indian
Broadcasting Company, to launch Radio stations in Mumbai and Kolkata.
Later as the company became bankrupt, the government took possession of
the transmitters and began its operations as the Indian State Broadcasting
Corporation. In the year 1936, it was renamed All India Radio (AIR) and the
Department of Communications managed it entirely. After independence, All
India Radio was converted into a separate Department. All India Radio has
five regional headquarters in New Delhi, for the North Zone; in Kolkata, for
the East Zone; in Guwahati, for the North-East Zone, in Mumbai, for the
West Zone; and in Chennai, for the South Zone.
In the year 1957, All India Radio was renamed Akashvani, which is controlled
by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
AIR today has a network of 232 broadcasting centers with 149

medium

frequency (MW), 54 high frequency (SW) and 171 .FM transmitters. The
coverage is 91.79% of the area serving 99.14% of the people. The
introduction of the commercial channel VividhBharti in October 1957
increased the interest and popularity of radio. The Government run
broadcasting set up was called the India State Broadcasting Service (ISBS)
which is then turned into AIR (All India Radio) in June 1933.

Motto of All India Radio: Bahujan Hitaya: Bahujan Sukhaya

All India Radio serves;
Information
Education
Entertainment

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2. PRINCIPLE OF AIR
TRANSMITTING
A radio wave carries information signal; signals are converted into electrical
signals. A carrier wave is then produced from the modulation. The wave is
then amplified, and sent to the antenna that then converts signal into an
electromagnetic wave.

RECEIVING
Antennas on receiving the signal send it to the receiver this then converts
the electrical signal sends it to the amplifier either a speaker/headphones
jack this is then converted into a wave sound.

How radio electromagnetic waves are changed to radio wavesThe sound wave is equivalent to a pressure wave.

Fig.2.1-How radio electromagnetic waves are changed to radio

waves

3. STUDIO CHAINS IN ALL INDIA RADIO STATION

1. Studio Center
2. Broadcast Studio
3. Mixing
4. Control Room
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1. STUDIO CENTRE
The studio center comprises of one or more studios, recording and
dubbing room, a control room and other ancillary rooms like battery
room, a.c. rooms etc. the size of such a center and the number of
studios provided depend on the programme activities of the station.

FIG.3.1-STUDIO CENTER
2.

BROADCAST STUDIO

A broadcast studio is an acoustically treated room. It is necessary that the

place where a programme for broadcast purpose is being produced should
be free of extraneous noise. This is possibly only if the area of room is
insulated from outside sound.
The entry to the studios is generally through sound isolating lobby called
sound lock. Outside of every studio entrance, there is a warning lamp,
which glows red when the studio is ON-AIR.

MIXING

3.

Various equipments are available in a studio to generate programme as

given below:

Microphone, which normally provides a level of 70 dBm.

Turntable which provides an output of 0 dBm.

Tape desk which may provide a level of 0 dBm.

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CD and R-DAT will also provide a level of 0 dBm.

ANNOUNCER CONSOLE

PC

TURN
TABLE

MICRO
PHONE

PROGRAM AMPLIFIER

To Control Room
FIG.3.3-EQUIPMENTS OF STUDIOS

4.

CONTROL ROOM

Broad functions of switching console in control room:

Switching of different sources for transmission like news, O.Bs. Other

satellite based relays, live broadcast from recording studio.

Level equalization and level control.

Quality monitoring.

Signaling to the source location.

Communication link between control room and different studios.

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SWITCHER

RNT SWITCHING
CENTRE

MIXER

STUDIO

PROGRAM
AMPLIFIER

FROM AIR
DELHI

FIG.3.4-MIXING AND SWITCHING

4. MICROPHONES
Microphone is a device which converts acoustical energy into electrical
energy. In the professional broadcasting field microphones have primarily to
be capable of giving the highest fidelity of reproduction over audio
bandwidth.

TYPES OF MICROPHONES
1.

Condenser Microphone

2.

Dynamic microphone

3.

Ribbon microphones

1. CONDENSER MICROPHONE
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This is the simplest type of all studio microphones. They work by converting
signals caused by acoustic energy to electrical energy resulting in a stronger
signal.

FIG:4.1- Condenser Microphone

Condenser microphones use energy from the studios mixing station or from
a battery supply to operate.

2. DYNAMIC MICROPHONE:
These are the kind of microphones that generate signals by a conductor
which is in magnetic field being in motion.
The majority of microphones that fall under the dynamic microphone
category have a light, very thin diaphragm that gets in motion responding to
the pressure of the sound it is exposed to.

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3. RIBBON MICROPHONES:
A velocity microphone, which means that such usually respond to the
velocity of the air that is produced by the sound rather than the level of the
pressure caused by the sound which many other microphones respond to.

Fig;4.3.1- Ribbon Microphone

Ribbon microphones operate by suspending loosely small elements in a
magnetic field that is quite strong.

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Fig:4.3.2- Pickup pattern of ribbon microphone

5. POWER SUPPLY SYSTEM

1. Main supply to Transmitter : 415 V 3PHASE 50Hz AC
2. Supply voltage to PA and Modulator : HT 11kV (Thyristor Controlled for
smooth variation)
3. Screen Voltage to PA Valve : 800V
4. Screen voltage to Modulator valve : 1070V
5. Plate Voltage to RF Driver : 1900V
6. Grid bias to PA Modulator & RF Driver : -650V
7. Supply voltage to cathode of RF Driver : -600V (Supplied by way Way
of a tap on -650V supply)
8. Screen voltage of RF Driver : -100V
9. Thycon unit : +12V DC & -12V DC
10. Audio unit : +24V & +10V
11. Reflectometer : +15V & -15V
12. Control units :

VDDB : +15V Logic Circuits

VDDC : +12V Relays

VDDD : +15V For indication lamps

VDDE : -15V Comparator

6. FM TRANSMITTER
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AM broadcast bands gives shrinkage in the night-time service area due to
fading, interference etc. FM broadcasting offers several advantages over AM
such as uniform day and night coverage, good quality listening and
suppression of noise, interference, etc.

Working of an FM Transmitter:
The L and R audio signals are converted into the stereo signals by a stereo
coder.
The stereo signals also called multiplexed signal, then frequency modulates
the VHF oscillator which is a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) of the phase
locked loop (PLL).the PLL is an automatic frequency control (AFC) system in
FM transmitter. In this arrangement, the phase of the VHF oscillator is
compared with that of a reference crystal oscillator operating at 10 MHz the
frequency of the reference oscillator is divided by 1/1000 with the help of
three decade counters in cascade

to bring it down to the audio range

(10kHz). The VHF oscillator frequency is also divided by a factor N to scale it

down to 10 kHz.
The phases of the outputs from the two frequency dividers are then
compared in a phase comparator and the resultant error voltage is amplified,
rectified and filtered to get the dc error voltage of positive or negative
polarity which corrects and drift in the VHF oscillator frequency. The
operating frequency and the variable factor N are synthesized with the help
of digital frequency synthesis techniques. The FM signal obtained at the
output of VHF oscillator is then amplified in the VHF power amplifier with an
output power of 1.5 kW.

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Fig:6.1-FM TRANSMITTER

Cooling System Used in Transmitter

Hence some kind of cooling has to be provided to the transmitter
equipment. Different types of cooling are used in AIR transmitter at present.

1.

Air cooling

2.

Vapour cooling system

3.

Vapour cooling system

7. ANTENNA SYSTEM OF FM TRANSMITTER

Antenna is usually a metallic device used for radiating or receiving
electromagnetic waves. A tower of good height is required for mounting the
FM antenna since the coverage of the transmitter is proportional to the
height of the tower. For a 100m height, the coverage is about 60 km.
whenever new towers were to be provided, generally they are of 100m
height since beyond this height; there is steep rise in their prices because of
excessive wind load on the top of the tower.

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Fig:7.1- MW ANTENNA
The radio frequency power developed in the final stage of a transmitter is
delivered through cables/feeders, without themselves consuming any power
to the transmitting antenna.
The main requirements of the antenna to be used for FM transmitters are:

Wide-band usage from 88 to 108 MHz range.

Omni-directional horizontal pattern of field strength.

Circular polarization for better reception.

High gain for both horizontal and vertical signals.

Two degrees beam tilt below horizontal.

8. RADIO NETWORK TERMINAL

RNT acts as the ground terminal for satellite signal

reception.

Parabolic Dish Antenna: Circular polarization of INSAT

broadcast is used as it does not require any adjustment of feed or
polarization matching.

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Low Noise Amplifier: it contains two LNA PCBs to have

100% redundancy.

Front end converter: it has also got two chains for

redundancy. Any one chain can be selected by RF switch provided at its
input.

Fig:8.1- Block diagram of S-Band RN Receive Terminal (RNT)

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