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The Herald, March 22, 1979

TELEVISION reception in the Midlands will be improved soon, the director of RBC, Mr James Naill, said yesterday.

He said he and the engineer will go to Fort Victoria tomorrow with test equipment to demonstrate to the Mayor Councillor Ron Scott Rodger, that the new signal is, “so much better than the old one and is completely interference-free”.

Within the next few weeks he hoped there would be a breakthrough in reception in the whole of the Midlands area.

He said RBC was doing all in its power to improve transmission in the face of manufacturing delays and procurement difficulties.

Mr Neill’s comments arose from a second petition from Shabani residents.

Deploring the poor quality of television reception in the Shabani, Belingwe, and Mashaba areas, the petition, which is open for signatures in the Shabani Town Board’s offices, says: “We, the undersigned, do hereby again protest at the shocking reception in the Shabani and Belingwe areas.

“Considering there are an estimated 500 licence holders in the Shabani, Belingwe, and Mashaba areas, and that Shabani is an extremely sensitive area and people are loath to travel at night, even to visit friends, good television reception is vitally important.”

LESSONS FOR TODAY

Television is a very important medium for communication, and in most nations it plays an important role in the dissemination of important information that is of national interest to people in different parts of the country especially those that are inaccessible.

In Zimbabwe, the Government through Transmedia is spearheading the instalment and maintenance of new broadcasting infrastructure as part of efforts to achieve Vision 2030 and ensure that the whole country receives TV reception.

It is not sufficient to only transmit television signals but the signal has to be of very high quality. In this regard, the Government has charged Transmedia with the responsibility of spearheading the process of migrating the television network from analogue to digital broadcasting technology, in compliance with the migration requirements set by the International Telecommunications Union.