Minutes of the Technical Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (B-TAC) FINAL MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON NOVEMBER 14, 2008.
Final Minutes of BTAC 2008-11-14 1 Chairman s Opening Remarks: - the chairman opened the meeting by welcoming the members - completed technical negotiation on DTV spectrum sharing with the US - completed the DTV post allotment plan - have an exchange of letters which takes into considerations the lapse in start up dates and protects Canadian analog stations and also takes into account the use of mobile above channel 52-especially the safety band - hope to gazette both the exchange of letters and the DTV post allotment plan after the elections -attended CITEL meeting in Argentina where there is some activity in Latin America to use other bands other than UHF for mobile. Canada and Brazil got a resolution passed stating that the vacated Broadcasting band will still be used by broadcasting. Brazil also suggested using channels 5 & 6 for digital radio and to reallocate existing FM band for other uses 2 ATTENDEES Name Affiliation Pascal Marcoux CBC John Feltmate Consultant Michel Mathieu Consultant. Harrie Jones CHUM Radio François Gauthier Spectrum Expert Kerry Pelser DEM Allen & Associates Jack Hoeppner Corus Entertainment Inc. Doug Macaulay D.H. Macaulay Engineering Pierre Labarre Pierre Labarre & Associates Ltd. Ed Bogdanowicz Bogdanowicz Engineering Inc. Wayne Stacey CAB/ Wayne A. Stacey & Associates Kirk Nesbitt Rogers Media Bill Dormer Consultant Joseph Sadoun YRH Inc Tom Young Consultant Patrice Lemée Spectrum Expert Martin Daigle CRTC Imen Arfaoui CRTC Mitch Jevtovic NAV Canada 2
Vassilios Mimis Chairperson Don MacMillan Jack Dadourian Lorne Toll Lianne Chong Howard Wang Jean-Marie Boilard Paul Vaccani John Dexter Amhad Youness Martin Dumas Debbie Kinross Ghinwa Karouni Alain Leduc Sylvain Faucher Quebec Region 3 Approval of Agenda -agenda was approved with the following additions and deletions: Other Business: 7.1 use of white spaces K. Nesbitt 7.2 regional enforcement of Safety Code 6 K. Nesbitt 7.3 land use authority J. Hoeppner 7.4 MPH demo by CBC 4 Draft Minutes of First Meeting of 2008 -the modifications suggested by W. Stacey were accepted and the minutes were approved by the members 5 Matters arising from the Minutes - Mr. A. Youness presented the word from his group to be included in the previous BTAC minutes. The protected contours are produced by software tools, which use parameters as entered into the BCDBS database, which include ground wave conductivity, RMS power, Antenna Tower, etc. These parameters are those from the approved brief, and are not measured values from the proof-of-performance. Variations from design parameters, if significant, are stored as augmentations which are determined based upon explications and justifications provide in the proof-of-performance. 3
6 Status Report 6.1 BPR Updates -BETS 7 issued- focus on digital transmitter -BPR 3 gazetted in July 2008 concerning advance notice of domestic protection rules changes for FM to be effective Jan 01, 2011 6.2 CRTC Updates - public hearing on accessibility of telecommunications and broadcasting services to persons with disabilities is ongoing (started today) - decision on BDU policy was issued on October 30, 2008 - call for radio applications in Halifax, NS issued October 8, 2008 last day for applications Dec 8, 08 - call for applications in Quebec, QC issued October 8,2008 last day for applications December 8, 08 - decision on new radio stations to serve Winnipeg published on August 21,2008 - decision on new radio stations to serve Ottawa-Gatineau published August 26,2008 - decision on new radio station to serve Edmonton published October 17,2008 - decision on new radio stations to serve Red Deer published August 21,2008 - OTA renewals letter will be going out soon requesting technical information - public hearing starting soon for Orillia and Gravenhurst in Ontario - Commission is concerned about digital radio and especially digital television transition - call for comments was issued on services offered in minority languages - held public hearing for new stations for London and Guelph October 20,2008 and we will be working on the decision 6.3 SC 21 DTV Post-Transition - distributed BPR-10 in draft and gave members 30 days to comment (by Dec 12, 2008). If major revision requested then will hold another meeting, else will publish a provisional version in January 09. However, the plan must be published first. - Department to publish a software package which will allow parameters to be entered to find if any short spacing exist to allotments in the DTV post transition allotment plan 6.4 SC 16- BPR-3 FM Rules - BTAC members suggested that Intermods be mentioned in the final document - will hold next meeting prior to May BTAC meeting to finalize the document and to present the final version to all BTAC members at the May 09 BTAC meeting. 4
6.5 SC 22- Digital Radio - broadcast circular on digital radio was gazetted in June no response as yet - IBOC stations in Canada- no applications however some thinking about it - in US IBOC stable- no change in status quo and no policy in FCC to convert to IBOC - NAB board of directors have requested that FCC allow a hybrid IBOC power increase of up to10db, where technically feasible. No decision from FCC yet 6.6 SC 23- Review Coordinates -had two meetings with decisions made on mandate, methodology & accuracy. Resolved 27 issues with one remaining - close to writing procedure as all members have agreed to basic principles - one major hurdle-restructuring the database to 100 th of a second accuracy. Informatics stated that there is a major overhaul of the database over the long term with no short term solution possible - P. Vaccani to ask Department for short term fix and report back to the next SC meeting with information - Subcommittee chair suggested that if no short term fix could be found then he requested to postpone the subcommittee work until such time as a permanent fix could be found 7 Other Business 7.1 White Spaces -BTAC members asked how the Department was approaching the white space issue as the FCC has approved unlicensed devices in this band. Industry Canada is following it but there is no policy for Canada - RRBS may also be affected in Canada as they use this space and are licensed in Canada and will have to be taken into account - FCC also requires wireless mic s used for broadcasting to move to channels below 52. - Canada will probable follow the US assignment standards -Chairman stated that the Department is waiting to see the FCC decision on white spaces and is keeping an eye on it. He also told the members to write a letter to our policy people to express their concerns about this issue 7.2 Safety Code Enforcement (SC-6) - members complained that there were different interpretations of SC-6 presently. Would like one rule of interpretation to be decided upon - this issue has been brought to senior management s attention with a decision to be made to eliminate the different interpretations - Health Canada is the authority and has the guidelines and there web site for Q & A s will be included in the minutes Site: www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/smt-gst.nsf/en/sf08792e.html 5
7.3 Land Use Authority - this issue was brought up by Mr. J. Hoeppner. He claimed that various interest groups are getting on municipality boards and in places of decision making and are hold Broadcasters to ransom in order for them to be issued a building permit for their broadcast site - Mr. Hoeppner to provide the Chairman with specific information on cases he has encounter and the Chairman will follow up with this matter 7.4 CBC Invitation - CBC invited any interested members to participate in the MPH demo they were conducting this afternoon. 8 Date of next meeting MAY 12, 2009 CD Howe Building 235 Queen Street Ottawa, ON Room 929A 6