It is difficult to monitor the technical quality of either the Medium-wave, or the Shortwave broadcasts originating from an entire state, but in the case of FM broadcasts, technical quality of broadcasts originating from an entire state can be monitored and evaluated. During the past half a century the summer time temperatures in the plains of Punjab have gone so much out of control that without a very heavy dose of air-conditioning, it is impossible to survive in the plains.
After observing the severity of the summer in the Punjab, I decided to buy a small sized flat in the HIMUDA owned construction project almost eight miles short of the Himachal Pradesh capital of Shimla. The temperature of this hill station is almost twenty to twenty five degrees lower than that of the plains of Punjab. The pleasant temperature makes the summer more bearable. Owning and listening to radio is my hobby. While summer time dwelling so close to Shimla, I get the added advantage of listening to all the broadcasts from the LRS stations located at Amritsar, Jalandhar, Fazilka, Ludhiana, Patiala and Bathinda.
Some of the frequencies of these All India Radio stations severely clash with some other stations of All India Radio. For example AIR Fazilka powered by a 20 kilowatt FM Transmitter and commanding a range of 100 + kilometres broadcasts on 100.8 MHZ and it severely clashes with All India Radio’s high altitude FM transmitter with power of 10 kilowatts at a high powered hill area location of approximately 7000 feet above the sea level and broadcasting on 100.9 KHz commanding a range of 100 miles or 162 kilometers . Thus Fazilka gets totally drowned in entire Northern Punjab negating the purpose for which it was created.
All India Radio Amritsar was built as a similar one to AIR Fazilka with an identical 20 kilowatt transmitter at a border village called Gharinda almost 22 miles away from downtown Lahore and about 15 miles away from downtown Amritsar. Commanding a designed range of 100 + kilometres. But broadcasting on 103.6 kilohertz, it is suffering a double whammy of clashing with the adjoining frequency of 103.7 megahertz with another hill station called Shimla. Rather than trying the other options of separating the frequencies of 103.6 MHz of Amritsar from totally adjacent frequency of 103.7 Megahertz of AIR Shimla. Going deeper into the problem, it can be concluded that owing to some structural problems during its construction, some problem about the vertically was encountered. In order to find a solution, in 2020 the upper 97 meters of All India Radio Amritsar’s 300 meter high tower was removed, which leaves it with a height of only 203 meters corresponding to 660 feet. At this height also it can easily command a range of 50 miles or 80 kilometers, but in stead of using the remainder of the 300 meter high tower, Prasar Bharati has improvised a dwarf 100 meter high tower at the same location at village Gharinda. Although a 20 kilowatt transmitter is being used at this location, its range has been drastically reduced to merely 37 miles or 60 kilometers. It miserably fails to cover the downtown areas of Amritsar and Lahore. A radio station, which was designed to cover entire pre-1947 Lahore Division, with a population of nearly 4 crores, does not cover even 33% of that division. In fact three AIR Radio stations at Dharamshala 103.4 MHz, Amritsar 103.6 and Shimla 103.7 MHz are clashing with each other with Shimla overpowering Amritsar. I could do this research very conveniently at the Shoghi suburb of Shimla. Although Dharamshala too is inhibiting the performance of AIR Amritsar. Technically Amritsar is a very important radio station, covering Pakistan’s second largest city of Lahore, plus India’s entire Majha region. India has not accorded due importance to All India Radio Amritsar, which it deserved all along.
Further research indicates that All India Radio Ludhiana frequency 100.1 MHz with a power of 10 kilowatts is clashing headon with All India Radio Patiala with frequency of 100.2 MHz and power of 10 kilowatts. These two frequencies badly deserve separation.
