Harris Corporation Helps Bring HD Radio Broadcasting to Thailand

Harris Corporation (NYSE: HRS), an international communications and information technology company, announced that Fatima Broadcasting International of Thailand has begun multicasting using Harris® HD Radio™ transmitters — becoming one of the first HD Radio™ broadcast services in the Asia-Pacific region.

In 2006, Fatima Broadcasting International won the rights to a broadcast over a country-wide sub-carrier service for 85 FM stations from the Public Relations Department of Thailand’s government. The broadcaster opted to use the in-band, on channel (IBOC) implementation of the HD Radio™ broadcasting standard to broadcast supplementary services alongside the main channel program service — known as multicasting in the HD Radio™ standard. Fatima now broadcasts the secondary program services alongside the government’s main channel FM programming.

Harris delivered two HD Radio™ transmitters to Loxley, a Harris representative in Thailand for more than 25 years. Loxley handled installation, technical training and post-sales service for the two-region project. The company installed a Z8HD+ transmitter to service the Bangkok region and a ZX2000 transmitter for the Chaingmai area.

“The Harris transmitter installations have allowed us to launch a reliable HD Radio™ service in two distinct regions of Thailand, offering a superior technical platform with plenty of bandwidth to take advantage of the multicast capabilities in the HD Radio™ standard,” said Sangchai Apichatthanapath, Ph.D, president and CEO of Fatima Broadcasting International Co., Ltd. “The reliability of the transmitters, along with excellent audio quality, offers obvious benefits over the older FM sub-carrier service.”

Harris® Z-Series™ medium-to-high power and ZX™ low-power transmitters are among the wide range of Harris solutions that optimize the transmission workflows of today’s FM and HD Radio™ broadcasting operations.

Harris Broadcast Communications provides products, systems and services that deliver interoperable workflow solutions that span the entire broadcast delivery chain. The Harris ONE approach brings together highly integrated and cost-effective products that are ideal for emerging media business models and for customers upgrading media operations to digital and high-definition services.