The sad thing is that in the UK the number of DAB sets sold is regarded as some sort of measure of the take-up of DAB, even though perhaps half of them are now never used. Even on this faulty measure, DAB take-up has been much slower than predicted. FM/AM sets (i.e. no DAB) are still being sold; most DAB sets include FM too so even DAB sets are not always used for DAB listening. Somewhat surprising is that there are still DAB sets being sold which do not support DAB+.
Here old DAB only sets are sold on second hand sites but new unsold older ones sporadically turn up in stores. Sad really.
There is a large campaign promoting "digital radio" as DAB+ is called here so maybe the consumer will be wiser. The old DAB was only known to a few and it failed miserably.
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I think DF96's skit on what honest advertising would say about DAB is spot on -
'Honest DAB advertising would go something like:
"Bored with near hi-fi sound on the radio? Prefer short battery life? Like standing by the window to get good reception? Want to throw away all your old radios? Go with DAB - join the lemmings! You too can choose between 26 stations all playing the same pop music with the same syndicated news service every hour." '
Sums it up beautifully. I do wonder if FM switch-off will ever happen in the UK. So many existing DAB sets that won't work with DAB+; so many FM sets still in daily use; BUT, new stations that only transmit by DAB - with insufficient room for them on VHF Band II; huge existing investment in Band III transmitters and BBC commitment to DAB; and the public not understanding or giving a damn about the technology used to get their radio to them provided it doesn't hit their pockets. Any retreat from the DAB programme is going to put a lot of egg on many important faces. Trouble is, sticking with the programme might do the same in the long run.
A right royal political mess!
'Honest DAB advertising would go something like:
"Bored with near hi-fi sound on the radio? Prefer short battery life? Like standing by the window to get good reception? Want to throw away all your old radios? Go with DAB - join the lemmings! You too can choose between 26 stations all playing the same pop music with the same syndicated news service every hour." '
Sums it up beautifully. I do wonder if FM switch-off will ever happen in the UK. So many existing DAB sets that won't work with DAB+; so many FM sets still in daily use; BUT, new stations that only transmit by DAB - with insufficient room for them on VHF Band II; huge existing investment in Band III transmitters and BBC commitment to DAB; and the public not understanding or giving a damn about the technology used to get their radio to them provided it doesn't hit their pockets. Any retreat from the DAB programme is going to put a lot of egg on many important faces. Trouble is, sticking with the programme might do the same in the long run.
A right royal political mess!
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It was much the same when the TV was getting ready to move from analogue to digital.
They did a trial in the mountains of Wales.
The first and only TEST regions was Scottish Borders where the low population was used to ensure the complaints level was low enough that they could cope with the letters and phone calls.
The first region to have analogue switched off was Scottish Borders. TV reception via digital is terrible. It has improved a bit since all the analogue power has been moved over to the digital transmitters, but it is still nowhere as good as the former analogue signals were.
I still have one analogue TV. It is good enough to show that the improved resolution of the HD transmissions is better than the substandard they rushed in so that they could sell more TVs to the improved HD standard and then sold more all over again in the move to full 1080 lines standard.
It seems our Governors are being paid by the manufacturers to introduce new standards before they have been developed to an acceptable standard. They should never have approved any 576line digital transmitters and receivers.
My old analogue TV shows a better picture on analogue and on HD, than the early digital resolution could ever show. Obviously my pure digital HD TVs show great pictures when the HD signal is being received adequately. But that is probably only for 60% of my viewing time. For the other 40% I get pixelations and drop outs and when it's poor I lose channels completely and when it's very bad I lose ALL CHANNELS.
They did a trial in the mountains of Wales.
The first and only TEST regions was Scottish Borders where the low population was used to ensure the complaints level was low enough that they could cope with the letters and phone calls.
The first region to have analogue switched off was Scottish Borders. TV reception via digital is terrible. It has improved a bit since all the analogue power has been moved over to the digital transmitters, but it is still nowhere as good as the former analogue signals were.
I still have one analogue TV. It is good enough to show that the improved resolution of the HD transmissions is better than the substandard they rushed in so that they could sell more TVs to the improved HD standard and then sold more all over again in the move to full 1080 lines standard.
It seems our Governors are being paid by the manufacturers to introduce new standards before they have been developed to an acceptable standard. They should never have approved any 576line digital transmitters and receivers.
My old analogue TV shows a better picture on analogue and on HD, than the early digital resolution could ever show. Obviously my pure digital HD TVs show great pictures when the HD signal is being received adequately. But that is probably only for 60% of my viewing time. For the other 40% I get pixelations and drop outs and when it's poor I lose channels completely and when it's very bad I lose ALL CHANNELS.
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As a criterion that is just about as daft as the UK criterion: 50%+ of listening to be digital, but not necessarily DAB. In both cases there is no serious attempt to ensure that DAB is actually being happily used by the majority of people in preference to FM. There is a reason for this of course: such a sensible criterion might never be met.Fenalaar said:
Some politicians might claim that the 'successful' TV switchover to digital shows that radio can be done too. The big snag with this idea is that TV sets can be easily converted from analogue to digital by adding a fairly cheap set top box. Such a box for a radio would cost about the same as a new radio, and a typical household has many more radio receivers than TVs. Also, the extra TV channels made available by digital were of some interest to people; this is much less true for radio.
If I have kept count correctly I am on my fourth digital compatible TV aerial. The last two have the added cellphone filter.
Didn't you see my post about the cold weather and having to wait to get up on the roof to erect my new aerial?
Dab radio in Portugal
We had Dab radio from 1998 up until 2011.That year the public radio and television direction ordered the switch off based on 3 reasons: 1)Low number of listeners.2)The difficulty in getting spare parts for the transmitters. And the third reason cost: 11.500.000 Euros even with the fact that of the 74 planned transmitters they only instaled 44.
I saw this concerning an alternative technology (DVB-T2 Lite) DVB-T2 Lite vs. DAB+ for Digital Radio
With the widespread availability of DTT receivers digital radio would have a better chance.
Some time ago i discovered this blog with news concerning digital radio: Digital Radio FM Insider
We had Dab radio from 1998 up until 2011.That year the public radio and television direction ordered the switch off based on 3 reasons: 1)Low number of listeners.2)The difficulty in getting spare parts for the transmitters. And the third reason cost: 11.500.000 Euros even with the fact that of the 74 planned transmitters they only instaled 44.
I saw this concerning an alternative technology (DVB-T2 Lite) DVB-T2 Lite vs. DAB+ for Digital Radio
With the widespread availability of DTT receivers digital radio would have a better chance.
Some time ago i discovered this blog with news concerning digital radio: Digital Radio FM Insider
Oddly, we get better digital tv and radio here than the old analogue. The TV transmitter is about 35 miles away, and we had terrible ghosting on analogue TV. The old joke was, if you watch horse racing on TV bet on the ghost as it always wins....
Radio 4 was very patchy too when driving around.
But now, the digital TV reception is flawless, and dab coverage is better than the old r4 coverage. Sometimes you win...
Radio 4 was very patchy too when driving around.
But now, the digital TV reception is flawless, and dab coverage is better than the old r4 coverage. Sometimes you win...
Then, it seems to me that (as I believed) that digital communications aren't so god as the politicians argue?
Some time ago in ham radio packet service, I had a conversation with a friend John G8MNY who remarked me an interesting point. If in one analog channel, you can put up to six digital counterparts, then, the money that advertisers have to spent in publicity, will be more or less distributed in those six channels. So the production team will have 1/6th of the money to produce their programs. So, invariably, the quality of the programs content will be severely reduced. Then, TV quality (In the entertainment point of view, not the technical one), will be very poor, a fact that is clearly observable in Argentina, and in the foreign channels I sporadically watch.
I wonder if the same reasoning may be applied to digital FM's.
Some time ago in ham radio packet service, I had a conversation with a friend John G8MNY who remarked me an interesting point. If in one analog channel, you can put up to six digital counterparts, then, the money that advertisers have to spent in publicity, will be more or less distributed in those six channels. So the production team will have 1/6th of the money to produce their programs. So, invariably, the quality of the programs content will be severely reduced. Then, TV quality (In the entertainment point of view, not the technical one), will be very poor, a fact that is clearly observable in Argentina, and in the foreign channels I sporadically watch.
I wonder if the same reasoning may be applied to digital FM's.
In the UK there seems to be enough genuine talent and money to provide perhaps 2.5 TV channels of good programmes, and maybe a few more radio programmes. We have a lot more stations than that. Much digital TV bandwidth is wasted on '+1hr' channels, and repeat channels, and shopping channels, and thinly-disguised foreign government propaganda news channels. Much digital radio bandwidth is wasted on dozens of essentially identical pop music channels, playing at low bit rates and so low sound quality. I can't imagine that they have many listeners, as older folk all listen to BBC Radio 2 and younger folk don't use radio at all.
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