Joint study group prefers ‘ Hybrid TV system’

Ahmedabad: Indian members of the Joint Study Group of Satellite Instructional Television prefer a “Hybrid television system” which is a combination on direct broadcast from satellite and five rebroadcast centres spread over the country.

In a paper presented at the third international symposium on Equatorial Aeronomy being held here, this group has shown that this system was estimated to cost about ` 1,680 million to provide TV receivers in the satellite in the orbit and in each of the 5,60,000 villages in India.

The conventional rebroadcast station with terrestrial microwave interconnection would cost 3.24 more than the hybrid system using a synchronous satellite.

The experts suggested that a pilot project, with a minimum of 5,000 community receivers, should be undertaken as precursor to the nation- wide plan. In additional ten per cent should be retained as “standbys” for quick replacement.

Three thousands of these receivers should be conventional community sets to be served by three VFH rebroadcast stations while the remaining 2,000 should be equipped for direct reception.

The experts said that one of these VHF stations was already in operation in New Delhi.

They suggested that one be located in a rural area within easy linking distance of the experimental satellite communication earth station at Ahmedabad.