[cr-india] Conference offers solutions to impact of AIDS on education

[Vickram Crishna]

At 7:03 AM +0100 13/10/2003, nisha narayanan wrote:
>Analogue to digital: Radio slow to tune into transition

Thanks for these two links, Nisha.

Digital radio is truly a major advance in radio technology, but there 
are some genuine problems associated with deployment, outside of 
satellite radio. The receivers are still very high priced, upwards of 
Rs 5,000, and audio production and transmission through satellites 
needs million dollar budgets. It is hard to see this price come down 
to Rs 50 and Rs ten thousand respectively, at which point we may be 
able to get villagers and the poverty-stricken choose digital radio 
as a means of information gathering.

Is it strange or perverse that, as a community, we humans find 
ourselves completely unable to accept that 'older' technologies have 
a useful life outside of their original application?

I mean, of course, 'low power' wireless as distinct from 'community' 
wireless. The latter has a purely developmental role to play, and is 
thus intensely threatening to the status quo. We have all seen that, 
and several of us have had our developmental projects thwarted by the 
government.

The former can be molded like plasticine to work in many ways that 
have hardly ever been more than explored, other than in stray 
'pilots'.

For instance, the current outcry following the police closure of Rang 
Bhavan in Mumbai - the High Court order stems from the issue of noise 
pollution, intending to limit aural nuisance near schools and 
hospitals. If followed to its logical conclusion, all school halls 
would have to shut down, which is perhaps not quite what the court 
intended, but the police are behaving quite perversely in this 
particular instance. A very good case study of a solution to one 
social problem leading directly to the creation of another.

How can technology help? We have tested (in a live situation) the use 
of 'distributed' loudspeakers to deliver surprisingly pleasant sound 
quality (it was surprising, because each individual amplispeaker was 
actually low quality) in an open space. This is theoretically an 
extension of an idea first tested by Dr Amar Bose at MIT some forty 
years ago, and that eventually led to his 'small' speaker solutions 
for hi-fi that are now marketed in India. We hadn't thought of his 
work as a model, since hi-fi was not our purpose, rather PA, but I 
don't mind shamelessly riding on his coat-tails now that it has 
worked. The total sound levels, were kept low - so much so that a few 
meters away from the space the sound was almost inaudible. However, 
within the space, the sound was loud enough and 'full' enough to 
enjoy Western rock music.

The major difference between Bose' system and ours is the fact that 
the speakers were getting their sound inputs wirelessly, using a 
public FM frequency. This is legal indoors.

We have for two years now been trying to persuade organisers of 
public space events, such as the very successful annual Kala Ghoda 
festival, which is gradually transforming the degradation of this 
commercial district of South Mumbai, but the hesitation on their side 
is simply that legally speaking such an outdoors wireless solution is 
banned by the government. We don't know why - does anyone?

-- 
Vickram