Covert DAB Promotion ?

[Channel Hopper]

At least in the UK.

Does anyone know if there is a concerted effort to promote DAB/DAB+ by the slow reduction of power in existing FM transmitters in the country ?

On another site I frequent a number of people have mentioned reception getting progressively worse over the past couple of years, usually when in a car, but are unable to pinpoint the exact reason.



Any other conspiracy theory on this would also be gratefully received, since boiling frogs have already been covered

 

[Archive-8]

Dab barely works at all around Yeovil & Sherborne, occasionally I can get a very broken signal.

The only station that does seem to work is the Asian network.

I use a pure dab radio.

 

[PaulR]

The FM reception of Radio 4 on my new (to me) Citroen C5 was so poor round here that I had it back to the dealers several times before the three year warranty was up. There was a near constant shushing and warbling noise as if the signal was weak and it was looking for a better station to lock on to.

Now I know the signal round here from Holme Moss (I think) is not the best but I used to get better reception thirty years ago. The dealers replaced the roof aerial/amplifier (a waste of time and money as that only covers the sat nav), the two FM amplifiers in the rear and the radio itself. The reception is just as poor now as ever was.

In fact it's possible it's worse so maybe the conspiracists are on to something?

 

[Llew]

DAB works fine in house and locally in car here, but I prefer FM, as I have a good FM (not DAB ) tuner with my home audio setup. Also various portable FM receivers, not forgetting a 1958 Grundig table radio (FM goes up to 100MHz only, but I only use it for R3 and R4).

UK VHF/FM will disappear soon enough, hastened by subverting forces (government and/or radio manufacturers).

 

[Channel Hopper]

I'm only talking about a perceived reduction of the FM, not any comparison with DAB services.

 

[aceb]

Probably more to do with increased use of canbus, fuel injectors and processors in cars and the reduction or removal of decent length external aerials. On the other hand our Aygo has the best radio reception I've ever had in a car, on all bands.

 

[2cvbloke]

It's all just a big conspiracy, apparently.....

Or it's just crap antenna design, if they even remembered to fit one...

 

[Channel Hopper]

The general concensus is lower quality components in the vehicles that have brought up the issue, though the move away from standalone aerials and to those bonded to the glass of the rear window is also suspect. The car I have has separate aerials for AM and FM in each rear side window and an elaborate combiner system with amplifier in the panelling before it runs through conduit to the centre console.

BMWs use a triple diversity system (Fuba - sic) that combines the radio requirements with the door entry system in order to save cabling, though the downside is additional components to combine/triplex signals at each specific point. This is all before aftermarket and factory fits for DAB reception are considered.

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Aceb, does your Aygo have a 'DX' setting for selection of signals from afar ?

 

[PaulR]

I found it amazing that the Citroen dealer didn't know where the radio aerial was. The roof aerial is a stubby affair and I had previously tried putting a longer screw-in antenna to no effect and so had my suspicions already. The dealer only found out that the stubby antenna was for the GPS signal when they unscrewed it and the sat nav disappeared!

The radio antenna (two actually) are printed lines on the rear side windows. I'm not sure where the LW and MW aerial is but I presume that at least one of the printed lines serves that purpose.

I have considered electronic noise but the signal wavers even with the engine switched off (yes, I know some circuitry will still be active). I have a dash cam and the plug-in PSU kicks out an incredible amount of noise. Fortunately this only affects the LW reception. I upgraded the dash cam to a two camera version last weekend and the PSU for that is virtually silent.

Personally, I think it's just a really crap radio design.

 

[Channel Hopper]

The radio antenna (two actually) are printed lines on the rear side windows. I'm not sure where the LW and MW aerial is but I presume that at least one of the printed lines serves that purpose.

I have considered electronic noise but the signal wavers even with the engine switched off (yes, I know some circuitry will still be active).

On my car the reception of FM is deverely degraded when the rear window heater is on (and even more by therear window wiper, but that is to be expected)