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Harris Corporation Named HD Radio Transmission Preferred Vendor for Buckley Broadcasting Corp.


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Harris to supply HD Radio transmitters, FLEXSTAR™ products and additional transmission products to all 19 Buckley stations over four-year period

CINCINNATI, December 8, 2005 — Harris Corporation’s (NYSE: HRS) Broadcast Communications Division today announced that Buckley Broadcasting Corp., a privately owned broadcasting company that owns and operates 19 radio stations in seven markets plus the syndicated WOR Radio Network, has selected Harris as its HD Radio™ transmission Preferred Vendor. Harris and Buckley Broadcasting have agreed on a four-year commitment for the provision of HD Radio transmitters, FLEXSTAR™ HD Radio products, and DEXSTAR® exciters to Buckley Broadcasting’s ten FM and nine AM stations in New York, Connecticut and California. The first installation is currently underway at WDRC-FM in Hartford, and installations will continue early next year at WSEN-FM in Syracuse, New York, and KWAV-FM in Monterey, California. Subsequent installations will be staggered over the remainder of the four-year period.

“Considering the introduction of the FLEXSTAR™ range and the technical and business advantages of Harris’ Split-Level™ combining method, we quickly looked to Harris for our group-wide HD Radio transition,” said Tom Ray, vice president and corporate director of engineering, Buckley Broadcasting Corp. “The FLEXSTAR™ system allows us to do all of our processing at the studio instead of the transmitter site. This is especially important for our engineers in California who can’t access certain transmitter sites four to five months out of the year due to snow. And the level of service we get from Harris, which is always excellent, is built into the overall price.”

Buckley Broadcasting’s FM stations will install Harris Z-Series™ and Mini-HD™ separate amplification FM transmitters (depending on power requirements) with FLEXSTAR™ HDX-FM exciters, while its AM stations will install a mix of 3DX™-50, DX® and DAX™ AM transmitters with DEXSTAR® exciters. The FM stations also will install Harris FLEXSTAR™ HDI-100 importers and HDE-100 exporters at the studio to combine audio and data into a single bandwidth-efficient stream en route to the transmitter. The entire transmission platform will allow Buckley Broadcasting to launch multi-channel broadcasting, or multicasting, at each of its FM stations.

Buckley Broadcasting’s WOR-AM made HD Radio history in 2002 as the country’s first high-power AM station to launch a daytime HD Radio broadcast. (WOR currently uses a Harris DX50® AM transmitter with a DEXSTAR® exciter and is now installing Harris 3DX™-50 AM transmitters at its new site as part of a previous deal.) Ray believes HD Radio is important to the medium’s long-term future. “With all the competition terrestrial radio is facing today, HD Radio provides a solution for both programming and technical issues,” he said. “WOR is a talk station, and listeners who have heard our AM HD Radio broadcast have reported that the improvement is astonishing. HD Radio technology also will help us to eliminate multipath issues for our FM stations in Syracuse, Hartford and mountainous areas of California. Buckley Radio is very technically oriented, and we are very big on HD Radio.”

Most of the FM stations also will employ Harris’ exclusive Split-Level™ combining method to lower RF-related power costs and vastly reduce the amount of wasted heat common in other combining methods. Ray added that Split-Level™ combining also allows Buckley Broadcasting stations to retain their current transmission assets by combining older analog transmitters with the new HD Radio transmitters for maximum efficiency. This also provides additional redundancy in the event of maintenance or operational issues with either transmitter.

“We are pleased to be selected as Buckley Broadcasting’s HD Radio transmission Preferred Vendor,” said Debra Huttenburg, vice president and general manager of Harris Broadcast Division’s Radio Broadcast Systems business unit. “Buckley Broadcasting has been instrumental in making commercial broadcasters take notice of HD Radio and the many benefits it provides. We believe that Buckley Broadcasting’s continued support of Harris proves our ability to deliver custom HD Radio solutions that are technically innovative, cost-efficient and comprehensive in their ability to create multicasting opportunities.”

About Harris Broadcast Communications Division
Harris is an international communications and information technology company serving government and commercial markets in more than 150 countries. With headquarters in Melbourne, Florida, the company has annual sales of over $3 billion and has more than 13,000 employees — including 5,500 engineers and scientists — dedicated to the development of best-in-class assured communications™ products, systems, and services. The company’s operating divisions serve markets for government communications, RF communications, broadcast communications, and microwave communications. Additional information about Harris Corporation is available at www.harris.com.

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HD Radio™ is a trademark of iBiquity Digital Corporation.



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