A few years ago I had a number of projects in the broadcast world, where I was looking a national digital television and radio plans. I needed to look at what assignments were coordinated internationally to reconcile this with national data and look at neighbouring use. I then looked at opportunities to use coordinated assignments in some way, as some of the assignment plans were created before there was a good vision of national requirements.

Usually this kind of process involves using the ITU BRIFIC which is not for the faint hearted! Having much work to perform, I set about creating a tool to gather the relevant ITU data and import data from national databases, so I could compare, then modify and use in a coverage planning tool. The software needed good filtering, sorting, editing and comparison tools as well as a nice GUI with a map interface. These needs gave birth to the Broadcast data pump!

The tool can read BRIFIC databases with aplomb and has a number of file import filters for many types of ITU eNotice and the CEPT formats from Wiesbaden 95 and Chester 97. When it comes to export it has good support for exporting to Excel, Google Earth and planning tools such as ATDI ICS Telecom along with some limited support for LS Telcom CHIRplus_BC. The tool even has support for various legacy tools for Band II FM like ITU GE84PLN and even for EBU LEGBAC (requires a compiled version of the FORTRAN source).

The tool is available for download here as a free version with some of the specialist database connectors and obscure tools removed. Beyond this I may still develop this software occasionally to correct or add minor new features on request and some ad-hoc support, but just don’t ask for a manual!