TX Australia and Kordia won Innovation Awards at this year’s SMPTE Conference Gala evening. The 2009 C+T Awards for Innovation are designed to recognise innovation in productions, projects and products in the media industries throughout Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. Work done for Australia’s digital radio roll out was what won TXA and Kordia their prizes.

In the Radio Project/Facility Rollout section of the awards, 2SER was commended while TXA and Kordia won the award.

Kordia – Digital Radio Rollout

Kordia was commissioned as project manager for the rollout of Digital Audio Broadcasting by Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) and worked closely with the transmission site supplier to CRA, TX Australia.

Tight delivery timelines meant Kordia had to simultaneously deploy five specialist rigging teams across five capital cities. At least three tonnes of antennas and steelwork were installed at each site at heights of up to 200 metres above the ground. Website: www.kordia.co.nz.

TX Australia – Digital Radio Rollout

TX Australia upgraded all capital city VHF B-III legacy television antenna systems to accommodate DAB radio broadcasting in Australia.

This involved a world first for high power DAB transmission by replacing existing antenna systems to allow transmission of both television and radio services from the same towers. Website: www.txaustralia.com.au.

Sydney Educational Broadcasters – Relocation of 2SER Studios

In a nine month project, the 2SER studios were moved from the UTS tower building in Sydney’s Ultimo to a heritage building with frontage onto Broadway.

To preserve the heritage value of the building, the new studios were built as cubes within the existing “Bank Chamber” and floating floors were installed to overcome noise from Broadway traffic. Website: www.2ser.com.

In other awards, Channel Seven Head of Engineering Trevor Bird received a SMPTE Fellowship and Jack Thompson was awarded a SMPTE Lifetime Achievement Award.