Part of a visit that will also see them attend the National Radio Conference on the Gold Coast, representatives from an assortment of Indonesian from public and commercial radio broadcasters made a recent visit to Australia.

Top of the agenda, however, were a series of ‘technical and policy’ meetings with key Australian digital radio stations and an assessment of the Darwin DAB+ trial – a trial that is being conducted in similar climatic conditions to those in Indonesia. This is set against the Indonesian radio industry and regulator’s evaluation of DAB+ for its own digital platform.

The Indonesian delegation includes senior representatives from the PT Radionet Cipta Karya, PT Ramako Radio Group, Radio Republik of Indonesia and PT Siprama Komunindo, who will meet with commercial and the public service broadcasters, plus industry regulator, the Australian Communication and Media Authority, and the Department of Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy, to discuss the successful switch-on of digital radio in Australia.

‘Like Australia, Indonesia’s radio industry is made up of public and commercial radio stations and the delegation is very interested to talk about the policy settings and technical planning associated with the roll-out of digital radio in the five metropolitan markets,’ says Commercial Radio Australia CEO, Joan Warner. ‘The delegation will review the initial results of the DAB+ trial in Darwin to understand how digital radio responds in humid and wet weather conditions.’

Hosted by Commercial Radio Australia, the visors will also visit a tower site to inspect the DAB+ antenna, transmitters and multiplexes which are jointly owned and operated by Australia broadcasting consortia.