The High Frequency Coordination Conference (HFCC), held in conjunction with the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU), took place at the Dreams Punta Cana Resort in Punta Cana, on the east coast of the Dominican Republic, from August 17 to 22. Just over 100 delegates attended from nearly 40 countries, plus about 28 family members and about a dozen Dominican broadcasters from local and national radio stations. It was hoped that the participation would be about percent more, but the world economic crisis has greatly affected many shortwave station budgets, so some stations were unable to send representatives, and others were forced to send fewer representatives than they normally send. Nevertheless, the overall turnout was considered a success given the current economic conditions. There were large delegations from China, Russia, Iran, the FCC and the IBB in the United States, and VT Communications from the UK, among others.
The NASB was the organizer and main sponsor of the conference, with the government regulatory entity Dominican Telecommunications Institute (INDOTEL) as co-sponsor. NASB associate members International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) and Continental Electronics sponsored the conference's coffee breaks during the week. Thomson Radio Broadcast sponsored the closing reception, and VT Communications provided the conference name tags. Both Thomson and VT Communications are also NASB associate members.
NASB President Jeff White was the conference chairman. He was assisted by a staff including his wife Thais (NASB Assistant Secretary-Treasurer), Johanna Silva (who also worked on our NASB HFCC Conference Committee in Mexico City in 05), Adriana Brito (who is from Venezuela but is the granddaughter of famous Dominican baritone singer Eduardo Brito, for whom the National Theater is named in Santo Domingo), Pedro Estrella of Radio Discovery in Santo Domingo, and WRMI studio operator Javier Garcia from Miami. The NASB sent WRMI's chief engineer José Raul Mena from Miami to Punta Cana for nearly a week before the conference began in order to help set up the Internet connections and other technical arrangements for the meeting together with the HFCC's technical guru Vladislav Cip, who manages all of the data processing for the conference, producing the collision lists, etc. After most of the delegates end their coordination work each day at around 5:00 pm, you can still find Vladislav working in his data processing cubicle until nearly midnight, or sometimes even later.
Well-known Dominican broadcaster Rodolfo Espinal – who originally suggested having an HFCC in Punta Cana – assisted the NASB conference committee and worked as a liaison between the NASB and INDOTEL, the Dominican Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Tourism. NASB Board members Brady Murray and Glen Tapley; George Ross of member station KTWR in Guam; Jerry Plummer of member station WWCR in Nashville; and Terry Borders of member station WEWN were also present and were part of the FCC delegation headed by Tom Lucey. Other members of the U.S. delegation included Dave Hultsman of Continental Electronics; John White of Thomson Radio Broadcast; and Russ Erickson and Duane Williams of the IBB, as well as Arto Mujunen of the IBB's Helsinki office. The speakers at the opening session of the HFCC/ASBU Conference included Jeff White, President of the NASB; Rodolfo Espinal, who delivered a message from the President of INDOTEL; Dr. Virgilio Cedano, the Dominican Republic's Vice-Minister of Tourism in charge of the Eastern Region, which includes Punta Cana and is the most rapidly-growing tourist area in the country; and HFCC Chairman Oldrich Cip. (See the texts of the opening remarks by Espinal and Cip elsewhere in this issue of the NASB Newsletter.)
The conference delegates spent five days coordinating their frequency schedules for the B09 season, which begins in October of this year and goes until March of 10. The usual negotiations took place between the various country delegations to try to reduce interference from one station to another.There was some discussion about the future of shortwave on a worldwide scale. James Serpell of Christian Vision announced that CVI has decided to cease operations at its Julich, Germany transmitter site at the end of the A09 season. He cited as reasons for the closure financial considerations and "the changing patterns of how people are using media." HFCC Chairman Oldrich Cip noted that although many large international broadcasters have reduced or eliminated their shortwave broadcasts due to budget cuts and in favor of new media such as the Internet, the shortwave bands are still crowded, and there is no danger of shortwave broadcasts disappearing in the near future. So worldwide frequency coordination is still very much needed.At the Plenary Session on Friday morning, it was announced that the deadline for the collections of B09 season operation data is October 5, and that the tentative location for the A10 HFCC/ASBU conference is Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at the beginning of February 10. Jakarta, Indonesia was the other possibility for the B10 conference, but some people were concerned about safety in the wake of the recent bombings of two tourist hotels in Jakarta. So far, there are no volunteers to host the B10 Conference in August of next year.
Also at the Plenary, the Group of Experts mentioned that a layman's guide to the new HFCC collision lists would be available on the HFCC website within the coming weeks. There was some discussion about the advisability of including schedule information from non-members in the HFCC/ASBU frequency lists. Some of these schedules include a lot of “wood” (i.e. listings for transmissions that are not actually on the air), and there was concern that these stations would be getting a “free ride” from the HFCC since they would be getting their schedules included in the coordinated lists, but they are not paying membership fees to the HFCC. As non-members, they would not take part in the coordination conferences, so there would be no way to negotiate with them at the conferences regarding any collisions that they might be causing or involved in. In effect, they would be notifying everyone else that they plan to use certain frequencies at certain times, and it would be up to the HFCC/ASBU members to avoid these frequencies at these times, which is not the spirit of frequency coordination, This situation will continue to be discussed, but for the moment it was decided that a text list of non-members' schedule requirements would be distributed to members during the conferences.
The Group of Experts also mentioned that there is a new HFCC language code list, and that members should be encouraged to include language information and the design frequency of their antennas in their requirements. They also discussed developing a list of specific Internet requirements for future conferences, in view of certain limitations on the hotel Internet systems at this and other previous conferences.
Continuing with items discussed at the Plenary, it was reported that an audit of the HFCC budget by Bernd Friedewald showed that all but one member had paid their membership fees, and the financial report was approved by the membership. One new application had been received for associate membership in the HFCC by the BBC. Oldrich Cip noted that the BBC had been among the original members of the HFCC in the early 1980's, but it had been basically replaced in more recent years by VT Communications, which took over the former BBC shortwave transmitter sites. Now the HFCC rules permit associate members, and it seemed quite appropriate that the BBC should become an associate member.
A half-day forum about DRM -- Digital Radio Mondiale -- took place on the afternoon of August 21 , and many Dominican national broadcasters participated in that event. There were presentations by DRM Consortium board members Horst Scholz from Deutsche Welle and Ludo Maes of TDP, and from DRM Commercial Committee Chairman Michel Penneroux from TDF in France (“DRM – A Strong Reference for Digital Radio in the Dominican Republic”). Speakers also included Geoff Spells of VT Communications (“An overview of the International Technical and Regulatory Situation”) and Antonio Reyes of Christian Vision in Santiago, Chile (“Experiencia de CVC Chile Utilizando el Formato DRM en sus Transmisiones de Onda Corta”). Special DRM transmissions were directed to Punta Cana for the event from Radio Netherlands in Bonaire, CVC in Chile, TDF in French Guiana and Radio Canada in Sackville, New Brunswick. The new Uniwave consumer DRM receiver was demonstrated, and all of these special transmissions were picked up, along with a DRM broadcast from Vatican Radio as well. Well-known Dominican broadcaster Teo Veras attended the forum, and he expressed the hope that at least one large Dominican broadcasting organization might initiate a shortwave service in the foreseeable future.
A new tropical band shortwave station was inaugurated during the HFCC-ASBU Conference in Punta Cana. Radio Discovery broadcast on 4730 kHz during the event. No confirmed reports were received from outside the Dominican Republic, but the station's antenna situation was very limited by the physical restraints of the hotel from which the broadcasts emanated. Radio Discovery will resume transmissions in the near future from its permanent location in Santo Domingo on the frequency of 4780 kHz, which has been authorized by the Dominican Telecommunications Institute INDOTEL. It had been hoped to conduct tests in the WinDRM digital transmission mode from Radio Discovery in Punta Cana, but these were not done due to the antenna limitations. However, Pedro Estrella of Radio Discovery hopes to do the WinDRM tests after the station is re-constructed in Santo Domingo and operating on 4780 kHz.
Conference participants also had time to enjoy a bit of the local atmosphere in Punta Cana, the most popular tourist area of the Dominican Republic. The conference hotel has one of the longest free-form swimming pools in the Caribbean, as well as an attractive beach. There were optional tours on Wednesday to Cap Cana, currently the largest residential and tourism development in the Caribbean; and Thursday to Punta Cana Resort, which was the first tourism development in the Punta Cana area in the 1970's and owner of the Punta Cana Intenational Airport – the world's first privately-owned international airport. At the Punta Cana Resort, the tour passed by the homes of celebrities such as Oscar de la Renta and Julio Iglesias. At Cap Cana, the group was met personally by Ellis Perez, Cap Cana's Vice President for Communications and Public Relations, who was formerly the Dominican Republic's Minister of Tourism and for many years a broadcaster at Radio Universal, one of the country's major radio stations.
On Saturday, August 22, there was an optional bus tour to the Dominican capital city of Santo Domingo. About half of the conference delegates participated. The tour visited the old colonial zone of Santo Domingo where the oldest cathedral in the New World is located, the Columbus Lighthouse where the remains of Christopher Columbus are believed to lie, and it included lunch in a well-known restaurant that's inside a natural cave. The HFCC/ASBU B09 Conference officially ended on Saturday evening back at the Dreams Punta Cana Resort with a reception and group dinner sponsored by Thomson Radio Broadcast. The open-air reception was held at the edge of the beach, and it included a Latin trio playing live music. The dinner was held in the Bordeaux restaurant with a second-floor view of the beach at night, and the menu included cream of corn soup, black angus tenderloin and a chocolate dessert with vanilla ice cream.
What is an HFCC/ASBU Conference?
Twice each year, the world's major shortwave radio stations and governmental regulatory bodies gather at a different place in the world each time for what's called the High Frequency Coordination Conference, or HFCC. The HFCC, together with the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU), organizes this conference so that frequency planners, engineers and management from shortwave stations around the world can plan their transmission and frequency schedules for the following half-year. They all share their schedule plans in a master database, and the conference technical personnel produce lists of potential “collisions” where there is more than one station on the same frequency at the same time to the same geographical target area. The various delegations can then negotiate changes to their schedules in order to eliminate any interference before it actually begins. These HFCC conferences have been taking place for nearly years now, since the end of the Cold War. Participants include Russia, China, the U.S., most all of Europe, many Asian stations and some from Africa and Latin America.
The HFCC Conference lasts a week, from Monday to Friday. Each day a new set of “collision lists” is produced, and the conflicts are worked out. By the end of the week, the vast majority of potential interference for the coming frequency season is eliminated.
Planning an HFCC Conference takes a lot of work. The sponsors of each conference are often large organizations like Radio Canada International, Deutsche Telekom, VT Communications (which operates the transmitter sites of the BBC World Service) and China Radio International, to mention a few. The conference which just took place in the Dominican Republic from August 17-22 was hosted by the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters (NASB) of the United States.
Our work over the past year has involved choosing a hotel with adequate facilities for this group of nearly 150 delegates from nearly 40 countries, negotiating the hotel contract, planning the conference schedule, dinners, receptions, sightseeing tours, helping delegates arrange flight schedules and obtain visas from the Dominican Foreign Ministry when needed. We had to arrange special entry permits for the delegations from Iran and China, for example.
What this project has shown us is that, without a doubt, shortwave broadcasting continues to be an important communications medium around the globe. New technologies like the Internet, iPods and so on have helped shortwave stations expand their contact with listeners, but they have in no way replaced shortwave radio as the primary means of direct communication with listeners around the world. The shortwave bands are still full of transmissions, and it requires a tremendous amount of frequency coordination among stations to prevent interference and guarantee a good signal. We were proud to be a part of that effort in Punta Cana this August, and the results will be seen – or heard – around the world during the coming winter frequency season from October 09 to March of 10.
Jeff White, President, National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters
(NASB Newsletter Sept 2009)
