Redundant DAB sets?

[Bazz4CQJ]

I notice that "TalkRadio" has come back on the air again, running alongside TalkSport which it spawned a couple of year ago. The TalkRadio presenters frequently tell their listeners (presumably Internet listeners) to re-scan their DAB radios as the station has appeared there in the latest MUX updates. However, if you have an old DAB radio, no amount of re-scanning is going to find it!

Although it's not to everyone's taste, I'm very glad TalkRadio has re-appeared. There are one or two presenters on there who are worth a listen. In contrast, I've become totally disenchanted with LBC.

Now that it's established that Amazon's Alexa could avail me of 1000's of stations via the Internet via verbal command, I think the January sales will be too much to bear and I'll pension off off my ancient Goodmans DAB, which although a budget brand, has given long and faithful service.

B

[AC/HL]

Originally Posted by hamid_1

Ultimately, I predict online listening (streaming) will kill off DAB(+) in the next 10-20 years.

Quite likely, given the timeline of broadcasting technology. AM to FM to Digital to Internet. Each stage has been shorter than the previous one, so Digital terrestrial is quite likely to be transitory. Elements of each method remain, possibly permanently, as long as a significant residual demand exists.

Some people seem to think that just because they don't need something, or like something, no one else should either.

Indeed, live and let live, I don't have a mobile ('phone) that can lead to interesting conversations.

[Junk Box Nick]

Radio is such a neat and cheap broadcasting solution. Transmitter to receiver with no vulnerable infrastructure in between and with a capability to go near or far depending on choice of frequency. Simple reliable receiving equipment and no subscription to service providers to be paid - the only outlay being batteries or electricity - and completely private. It could catch on.

[Junk Box Nick]

Originally Posted by hamid_1

Unfortunately, although the chipsets that support DAB+ are used in both sorts of radios, many manufacturers disable the DAB+ in software. This is because the patents for original DAB have expired, and no royalties are payable.

Thanks for this - it explains a lot about the cheap supermarket DAB radios. However, DAB+ enabled radios are hardly expensive items.

I accept that most folk will have all the choice they want with a bog standard DAB radio. Unless you have a desire for one of the stations only availble on DAB+ the lack will be of little consequence. I was pleased to find that TalkSport2 test match coverage was available on plain DAB.

Radio from tx to rx will take a long time to die out. Much listening is done on the move and with cars easily lasting 20 years or more there will remain a ready audience a long time to come.

[MurphyNut]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

I can see DAB transmitters being turned off before FM ones.

It's ironic that the BBC had been pushing DAB hard over the years but recently not so much.
I've always stuck with FM, the sound quality is superb, better than any DAB I've heard.

[electronicskip]

Originally Posted by MurphyNut

It's ironic that the BBC had been pushing DAB hard over the years but recently not so much.
I've always stuck with FM, the sound quality is superb, better than any DAB I've heard.

I've never had the inclination to buy a DAB Radio, as you say, the sound quality of FM is excellent and in my car I have AM which is perfectly fine for me.

[Junk Box Nick]

Ultimately it may be down to delivery cost. I have heard it said that DAB is a cheaper delivery method than FM, especially for nationwide coverage where regional FM transmitters are running a couple of hundred kW that can only broadcast a single channel. However, there are probably several DAB txs required to cover the same area as one regional FM tx so I don't know how this pans out. Perhaps someone on the forum has the knowledge.

There is bound to be pressure due to environmental considerations if nothing else to decommission big transmitters.

[paulsherwin]

I was given a Roberts DAB set as a present about a decade ago and have hardly used it. Some people clearly like and use DAB for a number of reasons though, and there's nothing wrong with that. We shall have to see how technology develops.

[Hartley118]

Originally Posted by Junk Box Nick

Radio from tx to rx will take a long time to die out. Much listening is done on the move and with cars easily lasting 20 years or more there will remain a ready audience a long time to come.

Totally agree. I guess that there's now a majority of the population whose main radio listening occurs on the move.

I was pleasantly surprised when I first got a car fitted with a DAB radio at its consistent noise-free quality when travelling nationwide. It only seems to fall down in one or two coastal areas, typically where FM is also weak.

Interestingly, in some places, DAB actually provides reception where other frequencies fail. For obvious reasons, the Lake District is a nightmare for radio reception - even Droitwich being unavailable in many parts. However, DAB does come to the rescue in some key places: for example, we regularly visit Glenridding on Ullswater where MW/LW/FM are pretty dead, but DAB is strong within the village. It would require a vast number of relay stations though to provide proper Lake District coverage - an eternally unsolvable radio problem in that terrain I guess!

Martin

[dave walsh]

What a good response to Eddie Mair, drawing out issues that we didn't know about in some cases. I broadly agree with Graham [p40] that, what's good for self may not be good for others but sport is the exception-far too much on the Beeb where it gets used as "meat paste" ie cheap, bland and filling" even within the general so called "News". E Skip say he's happy with AM/FM [p47] and that's fine but it''s often a matter of content and not JUST the technical medium delivering it. I was required to go DAB in the end because 4xtra and 6music aren't Analogue, also because I don't have a continuous Internet Radio option in Rammy-"different strokes for different folks" as they say.

Paul R [post 29], with his Internet Radio to AM set up in the Pantry, illustrates my earlier point that there will always be a way to overcome the death of Terrestial Transmitters! I think this secret business of DAB+ may be more than a disingenuous move and possibly illegal. Perhaps one of the many Trading Standards experts on the Forum would like to rattle the regulatory cage? Finally and back to Alexa, "Destroyer of Worlds and Human Self- Determination" only kidding!... [perhaps]. Maybe it will be possible to ask "her" for the content in "AM or FM quality please Alexa?"

Dave W

[Bazz4CQJ]

Originally Posted by dave walsh

Finally and back to Alexa, "Destroyer of Worlds and Human Self- Determination" only kidding!... [perhaps]. Maybe it will be possible to ask "her" for the content in "AM or FM quality please Alexa?"

Dave W

Yes, the idea of buying one fills me with disgust, but if it helps my insomnia, then no contest. If you ask Alexa "AM or FM", she should reply "FM, no static at all" (after Fagen and Becker). And if she then plays that track, all will be very well with the world .

[Junk Box Nick]

My original DAB sets lay dormant after the first time Jazz FM disappeared so that the outlet could be commandeered for Smooth although for other listening I had been using FM (and AM) with the various sets, vintage and otherwise around the house.

However, for whatever reason, FM reception has become increasingly difficult in my location. I would find a good position for the telescopic aerial(s) and the following day would have to change it. Eventually I could find no position in the kitchen where the FM signal was clear - the set even resided on a chair for a while! What was even more curious was that a good aerial position for Radio 3 was a poor one for Radio 4 (I get my transmissions from Sutton Coldfield - a mere 12 miles away). This was a problem with several sets in different rooms and I found it such a faff, nay annoying, that I went over to DAB which, whatever other drawbacks of the system, is solid on every set. The only room that is FM-only is the bathroom with a little Sony portable: it has a position on top of the cabinet - carefully placed where it gets a clean signal.

My neigbour's big plasma TV saw off, with the exception of strong local signals and Radio 4LW, my AM listening though thankfully this nasty telly has since gone to the tip where it truly belongs. Caroline on 648 and Manx/Caroline North on 1368 is a possibility once more.

[G6Tanuki]

I rather suspect that 'broadcast', whether AM/FM/DAB-radio or terrestrial/satellite TV - is a technology whose time has passed. Apart from a few things like sports-events (where everyone wants to watch at the same time) there is really no need for it any more; unicast or multicast "on-demand" much better fits with the lifestyles and desires of the modern audience.

[There is historic precedence for this: at one time if you wanted to hear what the Bible contained, you went to church and the priest read out excerpts on Sunday morning to the assembled congregation. Then came the printing-press and literacy, so people could have their own bible and read the verses for themselves, when they wanted to. There were some people who felt such on-demand access, without a clergyman as 'gatekeeper', was a deeply bad - even sinful - idea].

Who needs 'radio' or 'TV' when your phone/iPad/laptop has all-you-can-eat streaming data and you can catch up with the latest goings-on in Eastenders/Corrie/Emmerdale at 3AM when you get in from clubbing, or while on the bus/train on your morning commute?

IMHO DAB, if anything, was a brave early attempt to address a perceived 'problem' that technology has long since worked-round. Perhaps if the criteria for getting a licensed 'slot' on a DAB Mux had been a lot simpler/cheaper/easier there would have been faster initial takeup? I guess the same could be said for FM in the early days (the lack of commercial content and the stupid 'shared' BBC R1/R2 thing being examples). To this day I find the most interesting content on FM comes from this century's equivalent of Caroline Luxembourg and Veronica.

Will people in future-times be collecting DAB sets in the same way as others collect Betamax VCRs and chemical-film-cameras?

[Scimitar]

Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell

I need DAB (+) on my motorcycle for the radio (4 extra and world service) no internet on the

Well with the silly low price of the Echo Dot original, I am toying with putting one in the car. I would put one on the 'bike but can't think of an easy way to interface it with the helmet microphone as yet.

[Scimitar]

Originally Posted by Station X

Some people seem to think that just because they don't need something, or like something, no one else should either.

I don't like BBC R2 much, but clearly a lot of people do and good luck to them.

It depends! There are two programs worth listening to per week currently. I'm sure that the BBC would like to do away with them too if they could get away with it.

much better fits with the lifestyles and desires of the modern audience

I neither have a "lifestyle" or am "modern" and that is at a mere 58. I do much prefer finding out by myself than having some sort of AI tell me what to do.

I would put one on the 'bike but can't think of an easy way to interface it with the helmet microphone as yet.

Or the needed WiFi!

[mark2collection]

It really comes to something when the number of unused DAB radios/Tuners around the house exceed the number of vintage sets to restore!

That can't be right, can it? A perfect excuse to buy more vintage wireless's perhaps.

Those 'Alexa' devices make me laugh, well actually, the owner of one such device, 'but it only listens when you say "hey, Alexa" ... erm, no, it's ALWAYS listening.

Hmmm, I'll stick which what I have, and I'm happy with that, even the poorly ones awaiting attention (down to 5 now).

Mark

[Paul_RK]

This one will be perfectly redundant at the DAB switch-off: DAB only, and no connections except mains input and the aerial socket. It seems to have been the first self-contained DAB set brought to market, briefly as only 300 were made: it couples Pure's tuner of the day with a stereo amplifier and pair of speakers, in a small but fairly heavy box, and sold out in about an hour in December 2001 at its heavily subsidised price of £100.

[G8HQP Dave]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

I rather suspect that 'broadcast', whether AM/FM/DAB-radio or terrestrial/satellite TV - is a technology whose time has passed.

Has anyone done an estimate of what internet bandwidth would be needed to allow everyone to listen to their favourite radio/TV station while, say, eating breakfast? I vaguely recall someone doing it some years ago and quietly burying the result. I realise that the 'sending end' bandwidth can be reduced by various multicast methods, but ultimately each user gets his own personal bucket of bits squirted at him - I don't think even FTTC puts an internet cache in your street. I suspect that online 'broadcasting', like wi-fi, is one of those technologies which only works properly provided that most people don't use it.