The DRM Consortium held its virtual General Assembly on March 30 with members and guests from India, Indonesia, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Germany, Romania, Australia, India, Canada, Brazil, Romania, Denmark, South Africa, Tanzania and the United States.
The first members-only session reviewed the progress made by DRM in the past year and confirmed the election of the new officers of the Consortium for 2022–2024 and their roles on the steering board and other Consortium bodies for the next two years. The board reconfirmed Ruxandra Obreja as chairman.
More than 80 participants attended the open session, which included live presentations from India, South Africa, Pakistan, Brazil and Denmark and data gathered during the India DRM FM trial. Nigel Fry, the director of distribution for the BBC World Service, focused on the value of DRM (for AM especially) in places with the greatest need for information and education.
One session focused on progress made in getting receivers and new prototypes to market. Receiver and chipset manufacturers NXP, Skyworks, Cambridge Consultants/CML Microcircuits, Gospell, RF2Digital, Inntot, Fraunhofer IIS, Starwaves and others now support the full DRM standard (for both AM and FM) and features set with extra benefits like emergency warning functionality, distance learning and content in various languages.
The presentation videos are now available on DRM YouTube.
According to DRM Chairman Ruxandra Obreja: “The General Assembly proved that the Consortium is strong, very active and looking with confidence to the future. The world is changing, and DRM has a great window of opportunity to meet the new and diverse expectations of the listeners. The chipset and receiver progress records a real step-change.”