Delivering Digits to Rural Radios: Making Digital Radio Mondiale Work

This paper describes work done at BBC research towards ensuring that Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) can be received reliably by our listeners. Our work in testing the first generation of consumer receivers is briefly described, followed by a detailed description of methods which next- generation receivers might use to extend reliable reception to a larger coverage area. The two techniques of diversity reception and seamless switching are described, and field-trial results are presented. Whilst polarisation diversity is shown to give a significant benefit under some reception conditions, frequency diversity looks likely to provide a greater benefit.