The Australian Broadcasting Corp. and Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service were in need of some work on a tower for FM broadcast in the Perth area of Western Australia. Working with transmission infrastructure specialist BAI Communications a Dielectric DCR-U ring-style system was installed.
BAI RF Engineering Manager Matt Betts explained, “Structural standards have evolved since this tower was first built in the 1960s, and we needed to reduce the weight and wind load to maintain compliance. That required taking a fresh look at design options beyond the panel array for a secondary antenna. The ring-style design both kept us in compliance and was a perfect design choice as we needed to install the system on a sloping section of the tower.”
Furthermore, “Our previous secondary antenna system was strictly horizontal and also unable to operate at full power. Dielectric has supplied us with a circularly polarized antenna with the capacity to support six 20 kW services and reliably radiate the full power of our FM transmitters. The antenna’s sturdy design, streamlined componentry and center-fed design also gives us the confidence in the system’s longevity and low risk of failure.”
Looking forward Betts added, “Dielectric’s engineering team also developed a futureproof design with capacity to add future services on any channel within the FM band.”
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