ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is my proud privilege to acknowledge with deep sense of gratitude and devotion, the keen
interest rendered to us by revered employees of ASIANET NEWS NETWORK.

I am also very thankful to our training and all the concerned and non-concerned instructors and
members as well as the university who gave us a chance to learn a lot in the form of summer
training. Without their support, it would have been difficult job to successfully complete the
training.

I want to thank the Department of Electronics and Communication of the SRM Institute of
Science and Technology for giving me permission to commence this thesis in the first instance,
to do the necessary research work. I have furthermore to thank the honorable Guide, whose
help, stimulating suggestions and encouragement helped me in all the time of research for and
writing of this thesis. Especially, I would like to give my special thanks to him whose patient
help enabled me to complete this work.
 ABSTRACT

The objective of the thesis is to study the various sections of ASIANET NEWS NETWORK
broadcasting and appropriate execution and working of the news studios and Captive Earth
Station. The ‘core’ service covers major developments in diverse fields in a compact form. The
broadcast of a program from source to listener involves use of studios, microphones, announcer
console, switching console, telephone lines / STL and Transmitter. A broadcast studio is an
acoustically treated room. It is necessary that the place where a program for broadcast purposes
is being produced should be free of extraneous noise.
Networking can be defined simply as an interconnection of two or more computers. The
Captive earth system consists of a satellite system. The advantage of satellite technology is
based on the potential for reaching wide expanses and serving discontinuous user bases without
the cost of traditional terrestrial services. The training section ends up with the outside
broadcasting section. Outside Broadcasts (abbreviated as OBs) form a substantial portion of
program s radiated from a Radio Station. Major events that occur at different parts of a country,
such as sports events, important functions of political, cultural and national important and other
such programs.
The study carried out for this thesis lead to significant new knowledge, which has resulted
in elaborated concepts for the sections of Asianet News broadcasting.
CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Digital Modulation
 Introduction…………………………………………………………………...…... (01)
 Amplitude shift keying………………………………………...………………...... (01)
 Frequency shift keying…………………...…………………………………...…... (02)
 Quadrature phase shift keying……………………………………………......…… (04)

Chapter 2

Network Maintenance
 Networking………………………………………………………...………...….… (05)
 Purpose of networking…………………………………………….….…….….…... (05)
 Types of Networking……………………………………………….………....….... (06)
 Client server Model………………………………………………………...……… (06)

Chapter 3

Captive Earth Station And OB

 Introduction………………….……………………….……………………………. (07)
 Geostationary orbit………………………………….……………………………... (08)
 Orbital alternatives………………………………….……………………………... (09)
 Captive Earth station………………………………………….…………………… (10)
 Outside Broadcasting……………………………………………………………… (11)

Summary and Conclusions…………………………………………………………….… (13)

 DIGITAL MODULATION

Introduction

Digital communication system falls into 3 categories in their design. They are Bandwidth
efficient, Cost efficient and power efficient. These three criteria are applicable in different
environments. Radio spectrum is no more a luxury. And for broadcasters the digital system
should be able to deliver within the BW available whereas mobile communication system like
Cell Phone or a pager etc. must be both power and cost efficient.

Modulation of digital signal comes at the end of the transmission chain. The packetized,
encoded data is to be transmitted over the medium to the end user. The medium of transmission
could be satellite, terrestrial or cable. Besides bandwidth one of the other criteria for the design
of digital system is the ruggedness of the system, immunity from multi-path and environmental
degradation. COFDM is a type of transmission to meet these challenges. Here we shall discuss
the basic digital modulation techniques of ASK, FSK, PSK, QPSK & QUAM

1)ASK (Amplitude Shift Keying)

The simplest forms of band pass data modulation is ASK. Here the symbols are represented
by discrete amplitudes of fixed frequency. Digital data is nothing but bits of 0 and 1 .To
represent 0 and 1 the carrier is turned on or off. Hence this is also called as On-Off keying
(OOK). Alternately we can use 2 amplitudes to represent 0 & 1.
1

If more than 2 symbols are used then M levels of ASK process is involved where different
amplitudes levels are used to represent different symbols.
 Cos(mt) c-m c+n

Cos(ct)

The figure indicates the ASK process. The base band signal stream Cos mt is multiplied by
carrier Cos ct. In other words the digital bit stream changes the different levels of the carrier.

2)Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)

Here the frequency is switched from one frequency to another to represent 2 symbols. The
modulator switches between two carriers of different frequencies to represent 2 symbols. This
is shown in the diagram.

Cos(1t)
Data

Switch

Cos(2 t)

Alternatively, a VCO (Voltage controlled oscillator) can be used as source for frequency shift
keying. If the frequency shift can be minimized to 90 degrees phase shift, the same is known
as Minimum shift keying.

The spectrum of FSK is dependent on the frequency of each symbol state. The spectrum looks
like as shown below.

Composite FSK
ASK1
ASK2

f1 f2
3)Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

Here the phase of the carrier is changed by 180o absolutely to indicate another symbol. The
receiver watches for the changes in phase of incoming signal to recover the symbol.

Phase Change
0 1 0

Phase Change

If the instant of phase change is indicated by a symbol it is known as differentially coherent

PSK. The spectral occupancy is similar to ASK.

4)Differential Phase Shift Keying (DPSK)

While recovering the data from the Carrier there may be ambiguity due to phase changes by
noise. To minimize this effect differential data encoding is used. “Exclusive OR” gate is used
for this purpose.
The coming bit is compared with previous one. 1 is sent if there is a change and a zero (0) for
no change. Decoding is simple as shown in the given figure.

Arbitrary
Starting
1011010

01101100 01101100

Delay
= Ts
Logic 1 = Change
Logic 0 = No change

Logic 1 = Change
Logic 0 = No change
Delay TS
Logic X = Don't Care
 5)QPSK Modulator (Quadrature phase shift keying)

This is the most commonly used modulation scheme in digital satellite communications.
Sometimes this is known as 4 QUAM (Quadrature amplitude modulation) as there are 4 states
of symbols - one in each quadrant.
In this carrier is modulated with 4 phase states 0o, 90o, 180o, 270o or 45o, 135o, 225o, 315o. This
is called QPSK. Due to orthogonality the information can be sent twice the speed of BPSK.
Data is split into 2 streams and filtered before modulated orthogonal. The coding employed is
known as gray coding as the symbol change is only 1 bit in successive symbols. In QPSK we
can send 2 bits /symbol as shown in the constellation diagram. Bandwidth efficiency = 2
bits/sec./Hz

01 00

10 10

Serial Serial
data to Cos ct X
Parallel

Sin ct

QPSK Demodulator
The detection of QPSK signal is shown in the block diagram given below. It is a coherent
detector requiring carrier recovery and symbol timing recovery. A process known as “4th power
process” is used for accurate carrier recovery. Incoming signal is mixed with a carrier in two
channels with 90o shift. This is filtered and removed. Further symbol timing is recovered.
Then the bit stream from each channel is serial converted.

Comparator

Carrier
Symbol Parallel
recovery
Input timing to Output
Serial
o
90

Comparator
 NETWORK MAINTENANCE

NETWORKING:
Networking can be defined simply as an interconnection of two or more computers. This can
be attained by connecting with optical fiber cables or UTP Cables. Recently the wireless
networking has become popular because of its mobility.

PURPOSE OF NETWORKING:
 Sharing of files
The file from one computer can be shared to another computer.
 Sharing of resources
In a office scenario network printers are the most cost effective sharing of resource.
Hard disk space can also be shared.
 Sharing of program s
Instead of providing each and every clerk with a word program we may provide a
server-based office suite which will be cost effective.
 Users communicate with each other
Networking can be used for communication between two computers in text form. If
sound cards are installed voice can also be interchanged like intercoms with chat
program s.
 Video conferencing
This is also a part of communication in which the picture and voice can also be
transmitted to the other computer. This has attained great popularity along with internet
as the expatriate population has increased. The only viable communication channel is
video conferencing with instant messengers.
 Entertainment, distributed games
 Audio & video streaming
This has attained great popularity along with internet as the expatriate population has
increased. This will satisfy the thirst for hearing their own language program s.
 Doom and other games
This is very much popular among youngsters. The games involved are multi-player
games.
  Commerce
Ticket booking, Purchase of articles and banking.
During earlier times one had to travel to the booking centre for booking a ticket for
flight or a train and now it can be booked through Internet.
 Control of equipment
Domestic like washing machine, Microwave etc.
In the present scenario where the employees are working for the long time and mostly
they are bachelors and it will be helpful if they have machines which can be controlled
through internet.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF NETWORKING:

LAN (Local Area Network) - LAN is normally a small network within a building.
MAN (Metro Area Network) - This will be connection of two networks situated in two
different locations within a city.
WAN (Wide Area Network) - This will be a connection of network situated in two
different cities. One more variant of this is the VPN (virtual private network) which uses public
network for connecting offices in different cities. The VPN concept had improved with win
2003 and will be cheaper as it is using public network.

Two modes of configuration in a network:

The two modes of configuration are Client Server model and the Peer to Peer model.

The other features are:

DNS (Domain Naming System) - We know that the computers are comfortable with the
numbers and the human beings are comfortable with the names. Whereas computers check for
the IP address of a particular system, the human beings check for names like stit.gov.in. As a
via media the DNS stores the IP address as well as the name of the computer and when the user
types the IP address, it will provide the name or
if the user types the name, it will take the IP address from the table.
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) - In a set up with more than 15-20
computers, it will be physically impossible to go and give static IP address to each and every
computer. The DHCP is provided with the range of IP addresses which can be allotted
whenever a computer logs in.
 CAPTIVE EARTH STATION AND OB

BASICS OF SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS:

INTRODUCTION
After four decades of development, satellites have gained recognition as the key to
solving many land-based transmission limitations. Today's geosynchronous, low earth orbit
(LEO), and medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites enable numerous services within the telecom
market. Lowering costs and innovative new services will only accelerate the growth of satellite
communications markets.

Types of orbits:
 Low earth orbit (450km-1000km)
 Medium earth orbit (1500 km)
 Geo stationary orbit (36000 km)
Out of these the Geo stationary orbit is utilized for the satellite establishment.

Geo-stationary orbit

Figure 3.1: Geostationary Orbits

The laws which are of fundamental importance in understanding satellite motion were
formulated by Kepler in the 17th century and may be expressed as:
a.) Each satellite moves in an ellipse with the earth at one focus
b.) The area swept out by the radius vector per unit time is constant.
c.) The square of the period is proportional to the cube of the orbit’s major axis.

These laws lead to the general theory of orbital motion for an object constrained by a force
directed towards a central point. However, we are concerned with one particular orbit – the
geo-stationary orbit. This orbit is circular having a period equal to that of the earth’s rotation
about its own axis and lying in the equatorial plane. The importance of the geostationary orbit
lies in the fact that because its period is the same as that of the earth’s rotation, a satellite in
this orbit will appear fixed in the sky and hence the receiving antenna may be aligned in a fixed
direction. All other orbits would require a steered receiving aerial to track the satellite.

The geostationary orbit, being in the equatorial plane, has zero inclination. Although it is
possible to have a geosynchronous orbit, that is, one which has the same orbital period as the
earth’s spin period, at some inclination, this will not be geostationary. As viewed from a fixed
location on earth, such a satellite would appear to move in a figure of eight pattern.

Figure 1.1.2: Geostationary and Geosynchronous

A precise geostationary orbit cannot be attained in practice due to disturbance forces in

space and gravitational effects of the earth, moon and sun. These forces cause a drift in latitude.
The earth’s equatorial ellipticity causes the satellite to drift eastward along the orbit to one of
the stable points at 75E or 105W. In practice, station-keeping maneuvers have to be
performed quite frequently to correct for these shifts. Thus, the key command and control earth
stations must have tracking facilities. Typically, the satellite is maintained within 0.1 in the
C band and 0.05 in the Ku band, in both latitude (north south) and longitude (east west).

ORBITAL ALTERNATIVES

 LOW EARTH ORBITS – LEOs

 MEDIUM EARTH ORBITS – MEOs

NETWORKS:

RADIO NETWORK
 Key Distribution Infrastructure.
 SCPC Audio & / or Data Network
 Audio MPEG-1, LII Encoding
 Audio program distribution for Recording OR Local transmission

CES NETWORK:
 BROADCAST Network
 Captive Earth Stations (CES) uplinks radio programs.
 RN Terminals at AIR stations receive down linked Radio program s
 Uses INSAT series of satellite
 Distribution all over India possible
 RN Network consists many UPLINK Earth Stations
 Caters to the Regional Audio program distribution

OUTSIDE BROADCASTING:

INTRODUCTION

Outside Broadcasts (abbreviated as OBs) form a substantial portion of program s radiated from
a Radio Station. Major events that occur at different parts of a country, such as sports events,
important functions of political, cultural and national important and other such program s that
originate from outside the broadcast studio are covered as OB’s.
Different Types of OBs

OBs can be classified into two types:

i) Live Broadcast
Events of national importance such as Independence Day Celebrations, sports events etc. are
generally radiated as Live program.
ii) Spot Recordings
Most of the OB program s are recorded at the OB spot with the help of a portable, battery
operated OB amplifier and or an Ultra-Portable Tape Recorder (UPTR) or a cassette tape
recorder. Some program s, depending on their importance are recorded at the studio end. In
this case, it is necessary to book telephone lines, from the OB spot to CR. Normally three such
lines are booked. One for feeding the program to CR, one for inter communication between the
OB spot and CR using a magneto telephone, and one as a standby program line.

Equipment normally used in OBs

OB Amplifier
An OB amplifier is a portable mixing unit. Normally four low level microphone inputs and one
high level input from a PTR or UPTR, can be mixed and controlled by this unit. The individual
channel output levels as well as the level of the program after mixing can be controlled by
rotary step attenuators.
A tone generator providing three spot frequencies (75 Hz, 750 Hz or 1 kHz, 7.5 kHz)
is incorporated in this unit so that the frequency response of the telephone line on which the
program is fed can be quickly checked at CR end and equalization done, if found necessary.
The auxiliary output can be used for random operation or for feeding a public-address
system. Thus, two OB amplifiers can be cascaded, and nine program sources can be controlled.
A portable mixer has recently been developed by M/s Meltron which can be used with Nagra
or Meltron UPTRs. This mixer enables use of three microphones and has a high-level input.
The main feature of this mixer is that it is of light weight and takes power supply from UPTR
itself.
Microphones
The choice of the correct type of microphone and its proper handling and placement is very
important for the success of an OB. The microphones used in OBs must be robust, insensitive
to wind noise and popping effects, and having a good front to back ratio to avoid feedback.
Hence, when choosing a microphone, for OB operations the directional characteristics of the
microphones should be considered carefully. Suitability of different microphones for OB
recording is discussed below.

Omni directional Microphones

Omni-directional microphones are sensitive to sound from all directions equally and hence they
are preferred in studio recordings. But dynamic cardioid microphones are better suited for OB
recordings.

Short Gun Microphones

In OB situations such as cricket test match or athletics coverages, the sound is to be picked up
from a distance and hence we require a microphone with a narrow acceptance angle.
Gun microphones are used on such occasions. Its constructional structure is such that
all sounds other than those from the wanted direction, arrive in such a manner as to produce a
very low output from the microphone. Hence, shot-gun microphones are used when the
microphone must remain at some distance from the sound or good rejection of sound from the
sides and rear is desired.

Radio/Wireless Microphones
In sports coverages, there may be situations such as in a big stadium where different athletic
events take place simultaneously where it is not possible to lay cables. Radio microphones are
best suited for these locations. In a radio microphone, the microphone is connected to a
miniature FM transmitter (held in hand) and the audio is picked up from the demodulator output
of a FM receiver.
Such radio microphones are used in locations where long cable distances are involved
or where it is not possible to lay the cable.

Use of Wind shields

When microphones are used out of doors, in windy conditions, wind shields are used. But wind
shields tend to have adverse effect upon the frequency and directional response of the
microphones. Hence, they should be selected with care, and used only when necessary and
suitable corrections are to be made to the frequency response and operational techniques.

Tape Recorders
Spot interview and glimpses of the various events taking place in a particular city, are covered
by spot recordings done with Ultra-Portable Tape Recorders (UPTRs) and cassette tape
recorders. They are light weight battery operated recorders and are provided with only
headphone monitoring facility in order to avoid the drain on the batteries. Generally, two sets
of either dry cells or chargeable cells are taken for the OB recordings, so that at least 30 minutes
of recorded program is made feasible.

Important Guidelines for coverage of OB s

Cassette tape recorders in our network are not of uniform quality. Each cassette recorder should
be thoroughly tested for satisfactory quality before sending it for OB recording.
For VIP recordings, Portable tape Recorders (PTRs) are used. A PTR is mains operated,
provides good quality and is also sturdy enough to withstand continuous operation. PTRs can
also be taken to those OB spots where AC power supply is available. It is preferable to take a
variance to take care of power supply voltage fluctuations.

OB Van
AIR has acquired a few OB Vans recently. The vans are of the size of a matador vehicle and
incorporate equipment of latest technology. Each van has been provided with a 6-channel audio
mixer 3 UPTRs and a Public-Address Amplifier.
The interior is acoustically treated and air-conditioned. A portable diesel generator can
be housed in the body. It is possible to record talks and interview inside the van. All
microphones inputs are terminated on a panel and cable drums provided for laying of the cables
for recording the outside program s and placement of effects mikes in the field. Provision is
available to meet most of the requirements of production, recording, editing and dubbing etc.
The van can also meet the requirements of a live coverage.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

In this sector of training I studied about the overall procedure and objective of the Broadcasting
process in elaborate form. Asianet News Network had provided us all the equipment and
apparatus for understanding us the each and every section up to its depth. I visited the various
sections like server and networking room, lines room, control booth, captive earth station etc.
After studying these sections I understood their execution and importance for the transmission
and reception of the data in Asianet News Network.

The training started was with the server and networking room where I visited and studied about
the overall networking procedure and the interconnection between the servers to access the
private data as well as public data. The data like news, audio songs etc. are available to every
server at any instance in any section. Every server is independent to fetch and add the data to
them. The servers are connected to each other via bus topology and Ring topology. The next
section was Lines room including all the lines containing data decoding and arriving at same
room and can be accessed. This data can be further forwarded to the other studios and control
room with help of Encoder. These data can also send through the telephone lines in the form
of Analog data., and further can be receive in the digital form. In control booth section the
overall control of the signals taken in the consideration., with the help of new technologies and
various amplifiers. In the Captive Earth Station, I learned the reception and transmission of
data in the form of signals via two types of channels cxc and cxs channel a digital and analog
form.
Satellite communication is general and very important in today’s life., because today human
growth and development in the communication field is only because of the credit satellite
communication. I studied the whole Asianet News Network broadcasting process with full of
attention and enthusiasm.