Radio Scrappage Scheme

[murphyv310]

Paul
Good idea I get 10% off in Dixons group shops as well so I'll give it a try.

[mickjjo]

I could be tempted to trade in one of my £3 "bootsale" DAB sets for a nice Hacker.....

Regards, Mick.

[Patrick Dixon]

LOL, Mick.

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

This scheme is just a marketing gimmick to generate publicity and sell a few more DAB radios. I very much doubt that 'traded in' radios will be sent to Africa or anywhere else - most likely, they'll end up in a big skip.

Well, hopefully someone will hold them to their promise - the ASA maybe?

[kalee20]

So if any analogue radio is traded in, does one get 10-20% off the price of the new DAB set? I have a couple of cheapo £2-99 FM radios (that operate into earphones) - will these qualify? What are the ground rules I wonder - presumeably the only thing is that the analogue radio traded in, has to work, else everybody would just be bringing in junk!

[mickjjo]

See also:-

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s....php?t=1263862

I can't see much enthusiasm for this scheme...

Regards, Mick.

[Oldtestgear]

Hope no one in my part of south Devon is dumb enough to trade in their old radio -- we don't have DAB coverage & seems unlikely that we ever will.


Phil.

[Station X]

We'll have to wait until the likes of Argos, Comet and Tesco make the terms and conditions known. Dixons and Currys aren't participating in the scheme.

Dare I say that I have a couple of modern non-descript transistor radios that I'd happily trade in to get 20% off a new DAB set.

[avro]

Interesting to note that for the next month several national retailers are offering a Radio Amnesty for portable analogue radios in exchange for a discount on a new DAB set. The analogue set does not have to be in working order.

[dave walsh]

Rob Manning [Ed PW] has just been on R4's PM re this. At least it was a calm discussion although the first point re Africa got a little lost. Dave W

[Station X]

Amnesty is a strange choice of word. It implies that listening to an old radio is illegal.

[HamishBoxer]

Could be a tax on owning/listening to old radios come June 22nd budget!I personally dont see the scrapage scheme working that well though.

David

[G8HQP Dave]

I heard Rob Manning on R4. He was repeating his claim that DAB will not work on Band II. As far as I understand it, there are no plans to put DAB on Band II anyway. I have emailed him about this. Surely the editor of PW is not confusing Band II and Band III?

I have no plans to make use of the scrappage scheme. I already have a DAB tuner - it has stayed in its box for some years now after a few weeks use showed it to be inferior to FM.

Perhaps we could retaliate about the 'amnesty' by calling them 'digital lemmings' or 'digital turkeys' or 'analogue deniers'? What you call something can have a big effect on the general public.

[HamishBoxer]

I do own the Pure Marshall dab radio(looks like the amp) and it works very well up here on its whip aerial in fairness.

David

[julie_m]

Well, if it's an unlicenced station, then you might be considered aiding and abetting. And when there are no licenced stations on the analogue bands anymore, then any station you are listening to will, ipso facto, be unlicenced.

It's pure loaded language -- the same thing that makes you subconsciously insert the word "binge" everytime you hear the word "drinking".

I can only get a DAB signal in one room in my house (so far down a valley that it's an uphill trek to the river.)

[Hybrid tellies]

Totally agree with what Paul says. Also in many parts of Africa our analogue radios will be of little or no use as many people live in remote locations which are impossible to cover using FM and reception on long and medium waves are made difficult due to high groundwave losses and high levels of lightning static. These parts of the world still use the tropical bands ie 120m band 90m band and 60m band which you do not find on many sets sold in the high street.

[marconimen1901]

I understand from an employee of Curry's that most of what they take in, actually goes to landfill, because of the difficulty of recycling dangerous substances, sometimes of unknown origin.

Here in Scunthorpe they have an arrangement with a local recycling firm but end up with skips so full and recycling company frightened by the volume of traffic, (old round Ecko's in various colours - you can dream), that the huge landfill, once part of the steelworks iron ore mine excavation, is the only route.

This might explain why they are not taking part in something that nationally would be a huge and expensive headache.

One final thought, I suppose if we all throw away Eddystone radios they will at least cover the tropical bands that we listen to as well!

DAVID

[chipp1968]

As stated I suspect this is just a publicity stunt to advertise and remind people to buy a digi radio.Im afraid the average general public can be easily led with all this terminology. When showing a neighbour my new efficient condensing boiler , he said "is it digital" .. I did point out that probably its weakest point was the electroniics board which already had had one problem...
I was very disappointed after buying a DAB Roberts some years back .It would only work intermittently if it was held up somewhere in the middle of the living room.I now have a roof aerial at great expense. It is very dependant on where you are whether it will work well or not at all, which is its main problem .I cant see how it can be made to work as well as the analogue system which is bullet proof ...and already there!

[geofy]

The digital radio which comes with freeview which is so compressed it is not worth listening to, presumable comes in on the UHF band, so does the stand alone digital radio use this band, which could explain why the reception is so bad unless a suitable aerial is used.

But unlike television radios will still continue to work, and the whole world is not going to go to digital switchover.

But the present effort to get people to buy sets is so the critical 50% mark can be met by 2015 to give the excuse to switch over, if this isn't reached then digital will probably not happen.

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by geofy

The digital radio which comes with freeview which is so compressed it is not worth listening to, presumable comes in on the UHF band, so does the stand alone digital radio use this band, which could explain why the reception is so bad unless a suitable aerial is used.

DAB uses part of VHF band III in the UK.

The radio stations on Freeview are nothing to do with DAB, though both systems use the old MP2 audio codec. If you think radio on Freeview sounds bad (and it does) you'll be horrified to hear DAB, which generally uses even lower bitrates.

Please don't discuss sound quality further in this thread folks, as it is OT.

Paul

[wireful3]

Geof makes a very good point.

There is a world outside the UK that will not abandon AM. In fact the geography of some countries almost makes it impossible to use the VHF bands to get satisfactory coverage.

We will still be able to use our collectable sets to receive broadcasts, so I will not scrap any of mine. The problem for us is that the MW frequencies might be used for other purposes that produce serious interference. This could make it difficult to receive programmes from abroad . The saving grace is that it would also spoil the use of MW for other European countries, especially in the evenings, so we might find bigger fish fighting on our behalf to keep the interference down.

Unfortunately I can not see this applying to FM analogue, as the transmission coverage is very similar to that of DAB.