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Old 25th Jun 2022, 5:42 pm   #21
buggies
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Default Re: Threads getting more modern?

We want a DAB pantry transmitter design now...
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Old 25th Jun 2022, 6:53 pm   #22
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Default Re: Threads getting more modern?

Here you go then:

The RF side of things is not difficult, you'll need one of the wider bandwidth quadrature digital radio transmitter chips. The fun comes in the encoding and protocol side of things and the digital OFDM modulator. Some parts may be still under patent control by Fraunhofer and others.

ADCs and a rather large FPGA ought to do it.

David
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Old 26th Jun 2022, 12:27 am   #23
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Default Re: Threads getting more modern?

Quote:
Originally Posted by agardiner View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cobaltblue View Post
We also get a lot of users try to classify "vintage looking" radios as vintage even though they are still in production. We try to weed those out and put them in Modern Technology. Maybe by around 2045 they will be "vintage"
By 2045 they will be scrap!
Which would make them extremely rare and desirable
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Old 26th Jun 2022, 1:12 am   #24
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Default Re: Threads getting more modern?

David!!, ( Radio Wrangler )

I draw your attention to page 12 of the aforementioned script. The oscilloscope "pictures " look like exactly how digital sounds.

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Old 26th Jun 2022, 7:35 am   #25
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Default Re: Threads getting more modern?

Ah, what you're seeing there is analogue stuff (genuinely random noise) getting into someone's attempt at a nice, clean digital waveform. However hard you try, there is always noise. All clocks have jitter because oscillators are noise-based machines. Right down at the particle physics level, quantum mechanics throws random uncertainty into the mix. You just can't make nice Boolean digital things, the analogue world corrupts them. What you can do is get close enough that you can live with the remaining uncertainty.

Eureka147 was the project which developed DAB. They got two big things wrong. They underestimated progress in microelectronics, that soon improved processors would have allowed them to do a better system, and we are having to live with their compromise. They tried to make a system that would work for all purposes. They tried to keep processing demands down to help battery life in portables, so that you could get at least a few hours listening on a set of batteries.

The nature of the deployment of such a system means that we're stuck with it for at least a few decades. Battery consumption still hasn't been made competitive with a basic old-school FM receiver. Even at the highest data rate options and a clear channel over a short distance, the choices of bit depth, compression and data-rate prevent it being competitive with a good FM receiver within the service range of a transmitter. What Eureka147 has delivered is lots more channels, though many are in the heavily compressed low rent district.

A less obvious effect is that transmission is as a number of multiplexes, each carrying a large number of 'stations'. If you want to transmit your station on DAB, you have to do a deal with the infrastructure operators for a slot on their multiplex. You can no longer get a licence and run your own transmitter. This also means there is likely to be no empty space to sneak a pantry transmitter in.

DAB is already obsolescent, it has been for some time. Radio services over internet are scaleable, different data rates are easily offered and the end user can download new software to handle new formats as they arise. Internet access is becoming mobile with data rates targeted ar movie-watching and fast game-play.

Maybe the frequency space of some multiplexes will become vacant and a pantry transmitter becomes viable for someone to demonstrate radios from this period? However, there is now a lot of DAB radios in cars, where most radio listening happens, and they are built in. This adds a lot of inertia opposing change. But change is inevitable, eventually.

Joe, digital stuff can be done very well, better than the limitations on analogue stuff, but that doesn't mean that it has been done that well. Decisions and choices early on often set the bar disappointingly low... usually for the profit motive.

Cheap and nasty has always beaten the good stuff in terms of both fame and fortune. The public are aware of Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar. Few have heard of Peter Walker and Arthur Radford.

David
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Old 26th Jun 2022, 8:20 am   #26
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Default Re: Threads getting more modern?

Once again thankyou for a very eye opening ( for me ) explanation.
People often ask me to listen to their digital setups and all I can hear ( even with my deafness ) is digital power supplies. After all, thats all digital audio is, switching the speakers on at varying bit rates.
I am very far from any DAB stuff here. I have never seen ( nor want to see ) a DAB radio, in a car or anywhere else. If I go out west I use AM around 1 mHz, because it goes the five or six hudred kliks from a city and my car. Actually, my radio in the car ( the ONLY radio I own ) is always on smackdab 100 Mhz FM and every now and then it says ( fully synthesised )
"In 300 metres, turn right "
"In 300 metres, turn right "
If I continue it gets all bitter and twisted and says,
" Turn back "
" Turn back "

The GPS can get hold of 27 satellites, but cant get anything worth listening to.
Thanks again for your education on digital, but alas, I remain highly pessimistic about it. Its expensive, lasts two years and need replacing, there are no "parts " inside that can be changed, there are no "teknishuns " that can work on them,
WHY is it so popular ?

with respect as always

Joe
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Old 26th Jun 2022, 10:13 am   #27
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Default Re: Threads getting more modern?

This Thread has gone way off topic, there is only so much you can say so its time to close.

Cheers

Mike T
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