The project comes with a demanding 10-week delivery to Cairo timeline which is governed by the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, scheduled to take place from 21 June to 19 July.
Further to a story we broke last month about a major win for Rohde and Schwarz in Egypt, here are more details.
The Egyptian National Media Authority (ENMA) has selected an advanced system solution from Rohde & Schwarz to be installed at nine sites across the country to provide DVB-T2 coverage. The contract comes with strict timescales with all equipment to be installed and commissioned by mid-June 2019 so that DVB-T2 SD and HD broadcasts are on air before the start of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament. Rohde & Schwarz will work closely with local partner Egypt-based Integrated Communication Systems (ICS) to deploy this project.
The project will see one of the company’s most advanced large-scale DVB-T2 transmitter systems, the R&S THU9evo 2KW UHF transmitters, installed at nine sites across Egypt. The R&S THU9evo UHF high-power transmitter family is designed to minimise operating costs for terrestrial broadcasters whilst maintaining performance and reliability. With overall efficiency values of up to 40% for COFDM and 43% for ATSC, this product family represents the DVB-T2 transmitter solution.
“ENMA is planning to cover Egypt with DVB-T2 transmission and the current project will cover part of our plan, commented Mrs. Mervat Hassan, Chairman of Broadcast Engineering Sector at ENMA. This project is very important for us and we are looking forward to cooperating with Rohde & Schwarz to execute this project on the timeline as scheduled. ENMA is looking forward to Rohde & Schwarz support in the next two phases also.
An important consideration for ENMA were the measures that Rohde & Schwarz can employ to assure the Quality of Service (QoS) that the broadcaster can provide to its viewing audience. To this end, each transmitter site will employ R&S PRISMON base multiviewers, which are configured to monitor and analyze eight SD and one HD television channels. Also, the system will include five R&S ETL TV analyzers – a universal reference receiver which will be configured for DVB-T2 measurement together with power sensors.
In addition to transmitters, the project involves supply of UHF DVB-T2 antenna systems from Kathrein, RF feeders from RFS, combiner systems from Spinner and various auxiliary systems.
The project comes with a demanding 10-week delivery to Cairo timeline which is governed by the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, scheduled to take place from 21 June to 19 July. An important element of Rohde & Schwarzs contract with ENMA covers the provision of professional services. Through its local team of engineers and product specialists, Rohde & Schwarz will provide factory acceptance testing as well as project management services. In addition, Rohde & Schwarz Middle East & Africa staff will provide local installation supervision, onsite configuration and commissioning.
This is an ambitious project and will position ENMA as a leading broadcast service provider in the North Africa region, commented Rommer Balanon, Bid Manager at Rohde & Schwarz Middle East & Africa. We are delighted that ENMA has selected Rohde & Schwarz as their technology partner and we look forward to a busy period ahead.
