Analysis of Television Station Wireless Digital Transmission Technology

Tibet Autonomous Region Radio and Television Station, Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, 850000

Abstract

[Objective] This paper provides an in-depth examination of television station wireless digital transmission technology to understand its role in enhancing program transmission quality, expanding coverage, and improving user experience. [Method] Through detailed analysis of key components including signal encoding, modulation, power amplification, and antenna feed systems, this study seeks to master the technical aspects of this technology. [Results] Wireless digital transmission technology significantly improves signal transmission stability and clarity, expands program coverage, and delivers superior audio-visual experiences to users. [Conclusion] Television station wireless digital transmission technology represents a critical force driving digital transformation in the broadcasting industry, and is expected to continue playing an important role in fostering innovative development in radio and television.

Keywords: Television Station; Transmission; Wireless Digital; Program Delivery; Transmission Technology

1. Current Status of Wireless Digital Program Transmission at Television Stations

In today's era of information deluge, the media sector is undergoing a profound transformation driven by emerging technologies. This transformation not only propels industrial upgrading but continuously reshapes the forms and connotations of media products. The rapid rise of new media technologies has brought unprecedented opportunities to the media domain while simultaneously presenting numerous challenges. Audiences now demand greater novelty and uniqueness in content as well as more intelligent transmission methods, compelling media organizations to continuously explore new technologies and approaches to revolutionize traditional program transmission methods and break free from homogenization constraints to stand out in fierce market competition.

Overall, wireless transmission technology is demonstrating increasingly significant advantages in media applications. Compared to traditional program transmission technologies, wireless transmission has achieved substantial progress in both equipment utilization and transmission methods. Through continuous technological innovation and improvement, wireless transmission has realized a qualitative leap, not only greatly enhancing transmission efficiency and stability but also effectively solving resource waste problems inherent in traditional methods. According to the predictive report China Wireless Transmitter Data Monitoring Research Report 2025-2030, transmission efficiency using advanced wireless digital transmission equipment has reached up to 20%, with high-end equipment achieving transmission frequencies of up to 40%—representing remarkable results from comprehensive application of wireless digital transmission technology. As technology continues to develop, these efficiencies will further improve, injecting stronger momentum into media sector development.

Moreover, wireless transmission technology can amplify signal frequency accordingly, effectively addressing attenuation and interference issues during wireless signal transmission, avoiding transmission deviations and distortion, and making signal transmission smoother, more efficient, and stable. Users will no longer face problems of unavailable or intermittent signals, and signal reception quality will be significantly improved. Simultaneously, wireless transmission enables precise signal management and control, providing media organizations with more flexible and convenient transmission solutions.

In this context, media organizations have gradually improved their operational efficiency and development platforms by fully utilizing and continuously updating advanced scientific technologies to adapt to changing market conditions and audience demands. The equipment used for program transmission features higher power and superior performance, resulting in significantly improved power supply quality. This not only reduces resource occupation and waste, facilitating sustainable and recyclable program utilization, but also promotes green development across the media industry—aligning with modern ecological concepts and sustainable development requirements while enhancing overall service quality and competitiveness.

2. Methods for Wireless Digital Program Transmission at Television Stations

2.1 Wired Transmission Approaches

When implementing wired transmission systems, the primary step involves laying optical cables, followed by necessary debugging and configuration at the signal receiving end—key to ensuring smooth installation and commissioning processes. During end-to-end transmission, program content is typically embedded into SDI digital television optical transceivers to serve as an information transmission bridge, enabling efficient delivery. SDI technology enjoys widespread acclaim primarily due to its extremely high transmission accuracy, ensuring signals reach users without obstruction. SDI technology features broad application scope and excels at handling various television signals. When operating independently, SDI systems can achieve transmission distances of up to 40 kilometers without auxiliary equipment—far exceeding traditional television tower coverage ranges while maintaining stable and clear signals.

Based on specific transmission requirements and conditions, wireless digital program transmission systems must select appropriate optical transceiver models to ensure signals follow predetermined paths efficiently and stably. However, wireless transmission technology demonstrates significant advantages in broad geographical coverage and low usage restrictions, making it ideal for many applications. Particularly when optical cable installation proves difficult—such as when encountering numerous road obstacles or insufficient signal strength—wireless transmission becomes an indispensable alternative, ensuring continuous broadcasting and maintaining service stability.

Digital microwave transmission, as an important form of wireless transmission, employs parabolic antennas and panel antennas as its core components. These antennas feature small beam angles, enabling highly directional signal transmission that significantly enhances stability during emission. In current wireless transmission technology development, signal frequencies primarily concentrate in the 750–850 MHz range. In digital microwave signal transmission, the COFDM system has become one of the most advanced technologies available, widely applied and validated in radio and television transmission systems. Its most prominent advantage lies in excellent anti-multipath reflection performance, enabling stable signal transmission even in complex propagation environments. In wireless transmission applications, transmission rates of up to 25MB can be achieved directly within specific channels, with potential for further increases under favorable conditions. Wireless technology effectively resists numerous instability factors and can penetrate areas where wired technology cannot reach.

3. Characteristics of Wireless Digital Program Transmission Technology

3.1 Intelligence

Television station wireless digital program transmission technology features remarkable intelligence, leading innovation in the media sector. This technology not only enables digital signal transmission but incorporates intelligent regulation and management mechanisms during the process. Through advanced encoding and modulation techniques, wireless digital transmission ensures high-quality, high-stability signal transmission while employing intelligent algorithms for real-time signal monitoring and optimization to effectively address various transmission interferences and attenuations. Additionally, the technology includes intelligent transmitter equipment management functions that can automatically adjust transmission power and frequency to adapt to different environments and requirements. This intelligent characteristic not only improves transmission efficiency and reliability but also enables television stations to respond more flexibly to market demands and user preferences.

3.2 Practicality and Accuracy

Television station wireless digital program transmission technology has become a crucial pillar of modern media due to its outstanding practicality and accuracy. Through efficient digital signal processing, the technology converts program content into stable digital signals, significantly enhancing anti-interference capability and transmission quality while ensuring content accuracy. Its practicality manifests in broad adaptation to various complex environments and transmission conditions, achieving stable and clear signal reception in both densely populated urban areas and remote rural regions. Moreover, wireless digital transmission technology demonstrates strong compatibility, easily interfacing with various receiving devices to meet diverse audience needs. In terms of accuracy, the technology employs precise synchronization mechanisms and error correction coding to effectively prevent signal distortion and bit errors during transmission, ensuring program content integrity.

3.3 Reliability

Television station wireless digital program transmission technology has set new benchmarks in the media sector with its high reliability. By employing advanced digital signal processing technology, the system ensures stability and accuracy of program signals during transmission, maintaining clarity and continuity even in complex and variable environments. Wireless digital transmission technology utilizes efficient encoding and modulation methods to effectively resist external interference and noise, significantly reducing signal distortion and loss risks. Furthermore, the technology possesses powerful error detection and correction capabilities, enabling timely identification and repair of errors during transmission, further enhancing reliability. Whether in bustling urban centers or vast remote areas, television stations can deliver high-quality program signals stably and accurately to millions of households through this technology, providing audiences with rich and colorful audio-visual experiences.

4. Key Technologies in Wireless Digital Transmission

4.1 Digital Signal Transmission Technology

Digital signal transmission technology plays a vital role in television station wireless digital program transmission systems. By converting traditional analog signals into digital format, it dramatically improves transmission efficiency and stability, bringing revolutionary progress to the broadcasting industry. The core advantage of digital signal transmission lies in its powerful anti-interference capability and transmission stability. Compared to analog signals, digital signals better resist noise and interference during transmission, ensuring program clarity and continuity. This characteristic enables television stations to provide high-quality, stable program content even in complex transmission environments such as urban areas with dense high-rise buildings and severe electromagnetic interference.

Additionally, digital signal transmission technology offers efficient data compression capabilities. Through encoding and compression, digital signals significantly reduce bandwidth requirements and improve transmission efficiency. This not only helps lower operational costs for television stations but also provides audiences with richer program selections. Data compression technology also enables television stations to transmit more diverse content using limited spectrum resources to meet growing audience demands. Another key feature is powerful error detection and correction capability. Digital signals can automatically detect and correct errors caused by various factors such as signal attenuation and noise interference, ensuring content integrity and authenticity—crucial for transmission quality and audience viewing experience.

4.2 Modulation Technology

Modulation technology plays a critical role in wireless digital program transmission, serving as the key link in converting digital signals into carrier signals suitable for wireless transmission. This technology determines signal quality and efficiency during transmission by adjusting carrier amplitude, frequency, or phase to embed program-carrying digital signals into the carrier. In television station transmission systems, modulation technology must not only accurately and efficiently convert digital signals but also possess strong anti-interference capability and adaptability to ensure stability and clarity in complex transmission environments.

Typically, modulation technology precisely controls carrier parameters through Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK), Frequency Shift Keying (FSK), or Phase Shift Keying (PSK) to map digital signal information onto the carrier. These modulation methods each have distinct characteristics, providing flexible and efficient signal transmission solutions based on different requirements and scenarios. For high data rate applications, high-order phase modulation can be employed to improve spectral efficiency and transmission capacity. Furthermore, modulation technology incorporates powerful error detection and correction capabilities. During transmission, channel noise and multipath effects may cause signal distortion or errors. Modulation technology addresses this by introducing redundant information and employing error correction coding to automatically detect and correct errors, ensuring signal integrity and reliability.

4.3 Antenna Technology

Antenna technology plays a pivotal role in television station wireless digital program transmission, concerning not only signal transmission efficiency and quality but also being crucial for achieving broad coverage and stable reception. As the core component of signal transmission, antenna design principles and performance optimization focus on improving transmission efficiency and anti-interference capability. In wireless digital transmission scenarios, antenna technology must feature high sensitivity, wide bandwidth, and strong directionality to ensure stable transmission and clear reception even in complex electromagnetic environments such as dense urban high-rise areas with severe interference.

Television stations typically employ various antenna types including high-gain antennas, directional antennas, and smart antennas. High-gain antennas optimize structure and design to increase signal gain, maintaining signal strength during long-distance transmission to ensure high-quality coverage. Directional antennas adjust radiation patterns to concentrate signals in specific directions, reducing multipath transmission loss and interference while improving stability and clarity. Smart antennas utilize advanced signal processing algorithms for adaptive adjustment and optimization, enabling real-time parameter adjustments based on environmental changes to ensure optimal signal transmission.

Additionally, antenna technology involves feed selection, reflector material and design, focal point determination, and high-frequency head support rod design. Optimization and combination of these design elements enhance antenna performance and ensure efficient, stable signal transmission. Antenna design must also consider polarization—vertical or horizontal—to accommodate different receiving device characteristics.

4.4 Frequency Modulation Transmission Technology

Frequency modulation (FM) transmission technology is crucial when television stations transmit wireless digital programs, directly affecting signal stability and transmission quality. FM technology carries audio or video program information by varying carrier signal frequency. This technology serves as a bridge in television transmission systems, converting digitally encoded and modulated program signals into carrier signals suitable for wireless transmission.

During transmission, television stations first digitize audio or video signals, then use FM technology to convert these digital signals into carrier signals. In the modulation process, transmitters adjust carrier frequency in real-time according to program content changes, enabling wireless transmission of program information. The key to this technology lies in frequency stability and modulation precision, as even minor frequency fluctuations or modulation errors can cause signal distortion or transmission interruption, affecting audience viewing experience.

FM transmission technology requires not only frequency stability and precision but also strong anti-interference capability and adaptability. In complex electromagnetic environments such as urban areas with dense high-rise buildings and severe interference, FM technology must resist various interfering signals to ensure stable program transmission. Television stations typically employ high-quality FM transmitters and advanced frequency synthesis technology to improve stability and precision, while implementing multiple anti-interference measures such as differential encoding and frequency diversity to further enhance signal robustness. Additionally, FM technology must integrate closely with digital signal processing, encoding, and antenna technologies to achieve efficient transmission and reception.

4.5 Power Amplification Technology

Power amplification technology is indispensable when television stations transmit wireless digital programs, primarily used to enhance signal power and ensure long-distance, high-quality transmission to receiving ends. In television transmission systems, power amplifiers serve as core equipment, receiving weak signals from sources and converting them through modulation and amplification into strong signals with sufficient power for antenna transmission. This process requires power amplifiers to deliver high power output while maintaining signal linearity and stability to avoid distortion and transmission interruption.

Power amplification technology encompasses various amplifier types including Class A, Class B, Class AB, and Class C, each with unique characteristics and application scenarios. Television stations typically select appropriate amplifier types based on actual requirements. Class A amplifiers offer high linearity but low efficiency, suitable for applications demanding extreme signal fidelity. Class C amplifiers provide extremely high efficiency but poor linearity, applicable for high-efficiency scenarios with less stringent linearity requirements. In practice, television stations often adopt Class AB amplifiers, which combine advantages of both Class A and Class B, ensuring signal linearity while maintaining relatively high efficiency.

Furthermore, power amplification technology must integrate with digital signal processing, encoding, and modulation technologies to achieve efficient transmission and reception. During digital signal processing, advanced algorithms can preprocess signals to improve anti-interference capability and transmission efficiency. During modulation, appropriate modulation schemes must be selected to ensure transmission stability and clarity.

4.6 Antenna Feed System

The antenna feed system constitutes a core component in television station wireless digital program transmission architecture, responsible for efficiently transmitting encoded, modulated, and power-amplified digital signals to receiving devices within coverage areas. The antenna feed system primarily consists of two subsystems—antenna and feed line—which work collaboratively to ensure transmission stability and quality.

As the key element of the antenna feed system, antenna design directly affects radiation efficiency and directionality. Television stations typically employ high-performance antennas such as directional or omnidirectional antennas to accommodate different transmission requirements and coverage scenarios. Directional antennas concentrate signal energy in specific directions to achieve long-distance point-to-point communication, suitable for precisely covering targeted areas. Omnidirectional antennas radiate signals uniformly in all directions, appropriate for wide coverage with dispersed receiving points. Antenna design must also consider polarization—vertical or horizontal—to match different receiving device characteristics.

The feed line system serves as the bridge connecting antennas and transmitters, responsible for losslessly transmitting high-power signals from power amplifiers to antennas. Feed line selection must consider impedance matching, loss characteristics, and mechanical strength. High-quality feed lines ensure low-loss signal transmission, thereby improving transmission efficiency and coverage range.

Conclusion

Television station wireless digital transmission technology, as the core technology of modern radio and television, demonstrates significant advantages in improving program transmission quality, expanding coverage, and enhancing user experience. Through in-depth analysis of key technical components including signal encoding, modulation, power amplification, and antenna feed systems, it is evident that wireless digital transmission technology is driving digital transformation in the broadcasting industry at an unprecedented pace. With continuous technological advancement, this efficiency will continue to improve, injecting stronger momentum into media sector development. The application of wireless transmission technology not only enhances signal transmission stability and clarity but also enables precise signal management and control, providing media organizations with more flexible and convenient transmission solutions. In the context of new media, television stations must continuously upgrade their equipment and facilities, optimize technical systems, and improve service efficiency and quality to meet evolving market demands and audience expectations.

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Author Biography

Wang Zhifeng (1981–), male, Han ethnicity, from Xiangcheng, Henan, Safety Broadcasting Supervisor, bachelor's degree, intermediate professional title, research direction: electronic technology application.

(Editor: Li Yansong)