Digital Radio Mondiale – Neil Savin G0SVN
The subject for our June meeting was a mode of Broadcast Radio that most of us had not used or experienced, Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM).
Thankfully, Neil G0SVN from the Maidenhead and District Amateur Radio Club has been a follower of the mode since it’s early transmissions and visited to give us a comprehensive presentation on and demonstration of the mode.
Neil explained the concepts of this modern mode of LF, MF, HF, and VHF Broadcast format and some of the recent extensions and improvements to the format. It was good to see and actually handle some of the DRM Radios that Neil has collected over the years and to see how they have evolved in design and construction.
There was great interest in the subject and our meeting room was at full capacity. The presentation was a great introduction to DRM and has inspired many of us to investigate the subject further.
DRM1000 Prototype DRM Portable Radio – Matthew Phillips G6WPJ
On the morning prior to our meeting I was contacted by Matthew Phillips, a member of the ‘Steering Board’ of the DRM Consortium, a grouping of companies formed to promote the adoption of DRM worldwide. Matthew was in Somerset on business and kindly offered to join us at our evening meeting to give our members an exclusive look at the world’s smallest and lowest power SDR platform designed to receive DRM broadcasts on LF/MF/HF and VHF.
Matthew gave us a presentation on the latest specification and developments in DRM and also brought along a near production prototype of the DRM1000 portable, low power usage, DRM Radio. It was good to hear a DRM broadcast on both the DRM1000 and Neil’s Roberts DRM Radio using just an extending antenna from inside the meeting room.
On behalf of us all at Bracknell ARC, I would like to thank both Neil and Matthew for their taking the time, effort and energy to visit us and make the meeting so interesting and fun.
