STATION PROFILE
A visit to AIR Tutucorine
Tutucorine is a district Head Quarters in Tamil Nadu state of South India. It was pronounced in Tamil as Thoothukkudi. Major industries such as SPIC, Chemical Industries, Heavy water plant and Thermal plant are located here. It is also called “Pearl city” in the view of the pearl fishing being conducted periodically.
The city is also famous for the production of salt. Sri Sankara Rameshwarar Temple and one Sri Vaikundapathy Temple built by the Pandya King Sankara Pandyan. I went Tutucorine for present one program to AIR Tutucorine on the topic of “Radio: Yesterday, Today and tomorrow”. It was the 6th AIR Station that I visited and here are some of the details of the station.
All India Radio, Tutucorine was inaugurated on May 31, 1994 with a 2 x 100 KW. Its offices and studios are located at Millarpuram, about 5 Kms away from the town.
The present studio block was inaugurated on 1994 May 31 and consists of Talk, playback and Music studios. There are three transmissions daily viz in the morning, noon and evening/night. The morning broadcasts start at 05.30 am (0000 UTC) and night broadcast close down at 09.00 pm (15.30 UTC).
The Morning transmitter starts with External service of Tamil to South East Asia (SEA) starts at 05.30 to 06.15 relays from AIR Delhi. 06.15 to 06.45 Sinhala language relay from AIR Delhi. AIR chennai relay for news at 06.45 to 06.55 and 08.10 to 0815 (Special News bulletin to SEA). AIR Tutucorine programs start from 06.55 to 09.00.
The second transmitter start at 03.30 to 04.30 pm with General Overseas Service from AIR Delhi, 04.30 to 04.45 AIR Tutucorine program and again the SEA Tamil starts at 04.45 to 0545 pm. It is relay from AIR chennai. Then again AIR Tutucorine broadcast from 05.45 to 06.30. The evening Sinhala Service starts at 06.30- 08.30 pm relays from AIR Delhi. In night again the original production of AIR Tutucorine start from 08.30 to 09.00 pm.
The target area of this station transmitter is the South East Asian countries. But mainly concentrate on Sri lanka. Most of the programs are in the Sinhala and Tamil. “Thirai Kadal Adivarum Tamizh Natham” (The name of the External Service Tamil) morning transmitter relayed from Delhi and the Evening transmitter from Chennai.
The recording and playback equipment consists of Turntables, Spool tapes and CD players. There is also facility for phone in program. Most of the allied equipment is made by Keltron and Meltron.
The transmitting station is at a little remote area called Meelavittan, about 15 Kms away from the studios. The transmitter is a 2 X 100 KW BEL HMB 140, which was commissioned on 31, may 1994. The antenna is a self-radiating mast 130 meters high. The studio to transmitter link is via UHF link operating on 1440 Mhz.
In the transmitter site they monitor with SONY ICF 7600 DS (1989 Model). The station operates on 1053 KHz. The postal address is All India Radio, Millarpuram, Tutucorine – 8, Tel: 0461 2310 228.and the Transmitter site address is Asst. Station Eng., All India Radio, Meelavittan, Tutucorine – 628 002.
