Minutes of the Technical Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (B-TAC) FINAL MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON MAY 12, 2009.
Final Minutes of BTAC 2009-05-12 ATTENDEES Name Affiliation Vassilios Mimis BTAC Chairman Lorne Toll BTAC Secretary Pascal Marcoux John Feltmate Michel Mathieu Bill Dormer Arie Lubienietzky Tom Young Harrie Jones François Gauthier Patrice Lemée Kerry Pelser Gordon Neilson Pierre Labarre Wayne Stacey Jack Hoeppner Jim Moltner Doug Macaulay Ed Bogdanowicz Kirk Nesbitt Joseph Sadoun Maurice Beausejour Brian Sawyer Martin Daigle Michèle Guillet Jeff Conrad Imen Arfaoui Mitch Jevtovic Jack Dadourian Lianne Chong Howard Wang Jean-Marie Boilard Paul Vaccani John Dexter Ahmad Youness CBC CHUM Radio Spectrum Expert Spectrum Expert DEM Allen & Associates DEM Allen & Associates Pierre Labarre & Associates Ltd. CAB/ Wayne A. Stacey & Associates Corus Entertainment Inc. Teknyx D.H. Macaulay Engineering Bogdanowicz Engineering Inc. Rogers Media YRH Inc YRH Inc YRH Inc NAV Canada 2
Martin Dumas Debbie Kinross Ghinwa Karouni Alain Leduc Harki Sehgal Khiem Lê Sylvain Faucher Quebec Region 1 Chairman s Opening Remarks: - The chairman, Vassilios Mimis, opened the meeting by welcoming the members. - He hopes to soon have BPR10 published, as it is in the DG s office awaiting signature & approval. 2 Approval of Agenda -The agenda was approved with the following additions: Other Business: 6.2 AM supplementary proof requirements 6.3 AM allotments 6.4 Requirements of BPR10 NLBC- Grade B concept 6.5 EMCAB issues & IM requirements 6.6 BPR3 & 4 discrepancies 3 Draft Minutes of 2008-11-14 Meeting -the modifications suggested by W. Stacey were accepted and the minutes were approved by the members 4 Status Report 4.1 Digital TV (sub 21 DTV post transition) -draft BPR10 is in the document queue to be signed. It replaces BPR7 and follows same BPR7 layout -new concept of BPR10 is the noise limited bounding contour used for compatibility assessment not coverage -SG21 is dormant until BPR10 published then revisit- may need to revisit for the implementing of gap fillers (on-channel repeaters) 4.2 BPR Updates -changes to FM protection rules (domestic protection criteria for Jan 2011), were gazetted; modifications to BPR-3 on 3 rd and 4 th adjacency protection criteria to improve spectrum efficiency should still need to be made and should be done in the near future 3
-the exchange of letters between Canada & US concerning the transition of DTV was gazetted -DTV post transition plan was published Dec 20, 2008 -modifications of all BPR s with respect to EMCAB & antenna policy were published 4.3 Updates - public hearing on accessibility of telecommunications and broadcasting services to persons with disabilities was held in fall of 2008 with decision expected in early summer 2009 - will hold public hearing for Quebec City & Halifax in May 09 -Commission has received an Order-in-Council to review the Ottawa FM decision (2008-222). New information was presented to the commission on potential use of 94.5 MHz. Commission asked CRC & CBC to submit information on the acceptability of the use of 94.5 when the Commission reconvenes to study this issue on June 12, 2009 hearing - private OTA licence renewals will be held in two parts (1) policy matters (2) license renewals. Commission predisposed to issue one-year renewal. Scope of first hearing limited to Canadian programming, programming expenditures, local programming, improvement fund and digital transition - two reports made public i) Industry working group recommended hybrid mode- OTA DTV transmitters in major markets & distribution of signals by BDU s in other markets ii) commissioned a study from YHR & Spectrum Expert to estimate cost of DTV conversion in Canada. Three scenarios studied with cost ranging from $187 M to $425M. -Commission considered an application by Pelmorex for mandatory distribution of its two programming services in basic packages of BDU s. Decision in June 09 expected. - Commission published report on minority languages with the intent of increasing the number of radio services. Suggested that reassign TV channels 5&6 to radio. It was also suggested that a detailed review of the FM allotment plan be undertaken to identify & reassign frequencies of licensees in congested areas: Quebec Windsor corridor and Vancouver 4.4 SC 16- BPR-3 FM Rules - presented document TAC09-02 to members pertaining to 3 rd & 4 th adjacent channels - to hold a meeting with sub committee members to try & finalize the 20dB maximum antenna directivity issue prior to the fall 09 BTAC meeting 4.5 SC 22- Digital Radio - nothing to report 4
4.6 SC 23- Review Coordinates -submitted a report, TAC09-01, to members and gave a discussion of items that the sub committee had found - main concern is modification of database to increase accuracy of sites to 0.1 second to have an accuracy of 3-5 metres - CBC to do study on all their sites and update their database and provide accurate coordinates for CBC sites - committee s estimated time frame to accomplish its mandate is 3 years - committee wants to decide if department s database can be modified and if wants the committee to continue. stated that modifications to the department s database would require a VERY strong business case now that SAM has started. wants to wait until a definite answer is received from Informatics with regard to the database modification before a final decision is made on the future of SG 23. 5 Informatics - TSID is part of a stand-alone file and is now ready, as well as being in HEX Digit format - Spectrum server moving to a server farm and the websites links will be changing - try any save links to find out which ones work and which ones do not. If encountering problems contact Informatics 6 Other Business 6.1 Use of channels 5&6 for FM Broadcasting - J. Hoppner attended a meeting in Vegas and gave a site for the members to visit to see the report of the meeting www.broadmax.org - lots of issues to overcome in the US. We need to monitor the FCC. - we need to do a review of the existing FM plan to see if modifying technical criteria and relaxing rules would be beneficial. We discussed the need to set-up a new subcommittee, chaired by, with mandate to see if allotment review is necessary and modifications of protection rules are of any real benefit - needs to coordinate this with Heritage and. Also, this is not a decision that Canada can make unilaterally 6.2 AM Supplementary Proof - there seems to be discrepancies in the requests for AM supplementary proofs by. Some consultants questioned whether these proofs need to be submitted on demand from or at certain intervals - S. Faucher to schedule an internal meeting to review the discrepancies and clarify s position 6.3 AM allotments -consultants wondered if there is a need to protect vacant allotments, If they propose a drop-in or change of facilities, is there a real need to protect vacant allotments 5
and/or replace them as many have been unused or never used for years and some have been vacated due to a shift to FM from AM - allotments have been put in Region 2 agreements and concerned about international complaints & ITU comments. for now will look at each situation on a case by case basis - may setup a new SG to study this issue 6.4 BPR 10 Requirement NLBC-Grade B Concept -SG 21 to discuss this issue noise limited bounding contour (NLBC) does not always represent the realistic area where digital OTA signals can be received reliably. There is no realistic coverage contour to submit with the brief for use as of yet - will accept the NLBC for now. Applicants are to be provided with an estimate of population within the NLBC - gap-filler (on-channel repeaters) requirements & procedures should be in place by 2011 - informed the consultants that they should not be concerned with protection of analog services when submitting DTV application for post transition - consultants requested that a set of procedures for analysis and the type of information that would be required by & be issued. They were informed that their concerns were under discussion and hopefully, more information would be available by mid June 09 6.5 EMCAB & IM Issues - consultants under the impression that the new BPRs would drop IM requirements and only be concerned with EMCAB - CPC available for EMCAB - there is no measurement methodology available from - continues to deal with IM s only overload were replaced with immunity consideration as per the new CPC on antenna siting 6.6 BPR 3 & 4 Discrepancies - BPR-3 a paragraph referred to but is omitted from the document - BPR-4 distance UHF table + 14 taboo - BPR-1 revisions were sent to J-M. Boilard by P. Marcoux 7 Date of next meeting November 30, 2009 Room 949A 235 Queen Street 10:00am to 4:00pm 6