By Dr. Jerry Plummer, WWCR; and George Ross, KTWR -

The 8th GLOBAL SHORTWAVE COORDINATION CONFERENCE was held on 9-13 January, 2012 at the Hotel Istana in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in the Mahkota 2 Ballroom Level. The High Frequency Coordination Conference (HFCC), the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU-HFC) in conjunction held the Conference. Participants of the three coordination groups, representing around 90% of the shortwave in the world, took part in this conference to coordinate shortwave frequency schedules for the A-12 (summer) season.

The Hotel Istana was the site of the A10 HFCC Conference, and many of the attendees were pleased at the venue, given that they were familiar with the hotel, conference area and surroundings.

The final roster sheet contained exactly one hundred attendees, but there were probably a few less, due to travel problems, etc. Nevertheless, it was a sizable crowd in attendance Monday, January 9th at 9.30am local time when the Opening Remarks were issued by Sharad Sadhu, ABU and ABU-HFC; Chairman Oldrich Cip; Bassil Zoubi, Head of Transmission, ASBU, Horst Scholz, Vice Chairman of HFCC and Ahmed Nadeem, ABU. Major comments are listed below.

Of course, all recent HFCC Conferences have been concerned with the shortwave industry's general well-being, and this Conference was no different:

ABU Director Sharad Sadhu started by saying that "many broadcasters feel SW is in its sunset. ABU doesn't feel this way. We feel it is mostly governments that are causing the decline in their broadcasts. This is really a service that helps the governments. Places where SW lacks:

1) signal quality and continuity leaves much to be desired

2) listeners have other options to get better quality

3) Broadcasters have done nothing to improve the quality of the product.

The main issue is Signal quality / Content. Content is the most important issue. If this is not met then this will truly be the sunset of SW.

In his welcome HFCC President Oldrich Cip stated: "Current adjustments to our activities are a reflection of SW transmissions in many countries. I am concerned about international broadcasting overall. The ideology of things in the 20th century has changed. The potential of international radio to distribute content is being ignored. I'm sure we should repeat over and over again that a new technology has never replaced an old one. Today multiplatform can strengthen the reception of the international content. SW frequency management remains our activity.

Director of ASBU Bassil Zoubi gave the final speech he titled "The convergence of broadcasting media." "Connectivity on communication devices are widely acceptable. The shift in modern communication is more digital. Traditional is losing ground to a more social networking format. Social media is 'impacting' the ASBU countries. Surviving in the digital age requires more robust content and using other platforms specifically internet. The economic unrest in our area was not capable of responding media wise (talking mostly of the popular use of TV content.) FM most common media is Asia region. DRM is most attractive to Arab broadcasters - mostly DRM+ The biggest concern is for affordable DRM radios. Arab countries are exploring every way to be active on the international broadcasting (scene). We want to broadcast around the world. It's important to get good feedback from international listeners around the world. "

These comments show that it is important to see the perspectives of the three Global directors. They have a different approach and yet there is a trend with looking at where international broadcasting is going.

Once done with the Opening remarks, frequency negotiation began in earnest.

The schedule daily ran from 0900 to 1730 hours, with 1730 being the daily deadline for frequency submittal for HFCC database updates.

Representing the NASB were George Ross and Shakti Verma (also of FMO TWR) and Dr. Jerry Plummer of WWCR; who also represented FMO CBB (the Caribbean Beacon). NASB President William Glen Tapley was scheduled to attend, but flight cancellations and reassignments would have put him in KL on Thursday, making the trip very hard to justify. Kevin Chambers of WCB (Madagascar), and an NASB member, also attended. As usual, Tom Lucey of the FCC was present for the Conference, too-so there was a good contingent of NASB and NASB related attendees.

Two areas of interest were the advancement of DRM and of content distribution expansion. Regarding the latter, Chairman Oldrich Cip stated, “Kuala Lumpur conference is going to be another important global shortwave co-ordination event. At the same time we would like to carry on the debate on the broadening of our activity in the field of content distribution of international broadcasting.”

Regarding DRM, the CES electronics show in Las Vegas, NV was held the same week, where Ludo Maes was attending. During the week, a DRM chipset in the $30 price range was announced, with almost immediate implementation into India automobile production. India remains a leader in DRM usage, and it is hoped that this chipset and the usage by India will bode well for all shortwave broadcasters. NASB Board member George Ross detailed the activity on Guam with a new DRM transmitter currently in operation.

During the Conference, a presentation of Jerome Hirigoyen of TDF; DRM tests Brasil noted a good response in Brasil and included audio clips, which sounded very good. I know personally that WWCR sent a 30 minute program to Spaceline for their DRM testing, and it also sounded good.

It is hoped for that the new DRM chipset, accompanied by ramped up production for India will reduce costs lower and make affordable receivers available this year. From what is generally understood, this chipset could easily be integrated into hand held sets such as the iPod or Android, making it's availability tremendously greater.

Regarding content distribution, two other presentations were made during the Conference;

Where do Social Media Leave Traditional Broadcast Media? - a presentation of Graham Mytton presented by Tim Ayris and CDN: Content Delivery Networks – a presentation of Alfredo Cotroneo. Both focused on alternative options for International broadcasters.

Chairman Oldrich Cip led a debate about the Readjustment of the mission of HFCC; related as noted above to shortwave broadcasting's future in an increasingly digital world that was both timely and lively.

On Thursday, the Plenary was held at 400pm local time. It was noted that the place and date for B12 would tentatively be 27 - 31 August 2012, Paris, hosted by the NASB and TDF, Telediffusion de France. Hosts, places and dates of A13 would tentatively be Tunisia, February 2013. Gary Stanley was voted as successor to Geoff Spells, who unfortunately has stepped down for health reasons. Horst Scholz was reelected as Assistant Chairman. Horst then introduced Hai Pham, of ITU, who reported on ITU related matters. He is an excellent and captivating speaker. Horst then closed the Plenary meeting.

Kuala Lumpur is a wonderful place, albeit quite warm. Temperatures were in the upper to mid 90's fahrenheit (34 celsius) daily, with evening temperatures in the mid 70's (25 celsius). To me (Jerry) that was quite hot, but to George Ross it was a bit cool!

Less than a block from the Istana was Bukit Bintang (BB) Street, an approximate 20 block area of wall-to-wall shops, restaurants and the usual array of massage parlors. Knockoff Rolex watches, as well as pirated DVD's and replicas of virtually anything imaginable were available, at low costs. Of course, everything in KL is price negotiable. Unicef notes a per capita income of approximately $600 per month, but this is highly skewed towards the top 20% of income earners, making the “average” worker income much closer to $100 per month. This was verified with several “average” workers during the stay there; meaning that a US income was a lot of money compared to the “average” KL employee. As an example, a full blown steak dinner was less than $20!

The KL Twin Towers and Radio Communication Tower were nice points of interest to visit, as well as Chinatown, where a seemingly endless mileu of shopping bargains were available.

Foods of virtually all natures were available and affordable, including Indian, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese and Western. Yes, there were McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's, which seemed to be always busy but were unvisited by these writers.

The week of the Conference was the week before the beginning of the Chinese New Year; the year of the Dragon. Much pre-celebratory examples were present, including an exhibit at the Pavilion of Bears of all Nations, which was all countries as a bear, with particular national markings. The Cuban bear was smoking a Havana Cigar.

Many of the attendees used their spare time traversing these noted districts/areas, sampling the foods and purchasing varied items, as well as simply taking in the local attractions and views.

All in all, the Conference was a success, and the CES introduction of an inexpensive DRM chipset actually going into production was a positive attribute to learn of during the Conference.