Just Sharing This Radio rebels fight against digital

[Lazarus]

Do you think they'll end up where all the Calculators go? Silicon Heaven?

 

[2cvbloke]

Do you think they'll end up where all the Calculators go? Silicon Heaven?

Most will, the rest will end up in collectors' hands, just like 405 line TVs, tube radios, rotary telephones and whatnot...

 

[Piltdownpaul]

Most will, the rest will end up in collectors' hands, just like 405 line TVs, tube radios, rotary telephones and whatnot...

2cvs etc.......

 

[Piltdownpaul]

Joking apart, if they really want people to ditch their analogue radios the DAB radios have to be the same price or less, There isnt any fantastic new circuitry in these radios to justify the price hike. There's almost certainly less components than in a radio of the same size but older. In old CB days they could get the price of a radio down by ditching masses of crystals and using phase lock loops and heterodyning. Most of this work is probably done on a few chips now. For twenty odd years you've been able to get a complete FM band 2 setup on one silicon chip.The huge amount of analogue radios wont get ditched for a long while, theyre just too reliable these days.

 

[2cvbloke]

2cvs etc.......

They've outlasted the Prius so far...

 

[Llew]

Ed Vaisey has now extended FM switchoff.

The DAB car radio in my new Polo is excellent. Reception with minimal dropout from Cambridge to Peterborough.

 

[Topper]

Ed Vaisey has now extended FM switchoff.

The DAB car radio in my new Polo is excellent. Reception with minimal dropout from Cambridge to Peterborough.

Yes and so he needed to, north of Birmingham, reception is non existent in many parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, I only know one person who owns a DAB radio, I do know another half dozen who bought them took them back because they could hardly listen to a program successfully.

This link just about sums up the experiences up here even though it is 3 years since they posted,
http://www.ephotozine.com/forums/topic/poor-dab-reception-85408

Although this guy is still not impressed with the current situation

http://www.ukfree.tv/showuserposts.php?n=224841008

 

[2cvbloke]

I won't be buying into DAB, we have a stereo with a DAB radio built in, and it does work well round here, mostly cos we're right next door to the Pontop pike and Burnhope transmitters, back in Lancashire though, it was a bit patchy, despite still being relatively close to the Pendle Forest transmitter, and any electrical interference (light switches usually) and it just wasn't useable...

Before that stereo appeared, the only way we got DAB was via a portable radio, and it was (well, still is, it's somewhere in the house) a complete pile of poo compared to even the cheapo FM tuner in my Nokia phones at the time, move about and it garbled up, popped and squeaked in the usual digital cliff fashion, ironically, the best way to use it was as a relay for the analogue stereo with a mini FM transmitter to tune the radio into (as the DAB toy had to be high up to receive something less garbled!!), so ultimately, FM was still needed to make the DABPOS work...

These days though with the advent of mobile broadband and infinite numbers of streaming radio stations on the internet, DAB is no longer a contender for listening to the radio in my book, heck, most mobile phones come with FM tuners, not DAB tuners, so for something modern like a smartphone to have something invented by Edwin Howard Armstrong in the 1930s fitted just shows how reliable it is...

Still, the last time I intentionally listened to the radio myself (as in not because someone else had it on) was last winter when the snow was getting a bit heavy to check on bus services and road closures on Radio Newcastle, using my mobile phone's FM tuner of course...

 

[Captain Jack]

I regularly listen to local BBC radio in the car, FM, of course. There will be a mass riot if this is switched off any time soon.

 

[timo_w2s]

I regularly listen to local BBC radio in the car, FM, of course. There will be a mass riot if this is switched off any time soon.

I find it hard to believe that the typical BBC local listener in Somerset would be capable of rioting... aren't they all over 80? (Present company excluded, of course, I think? ;))

 

[Captain Jack]

Har har... I am only 32!

 

[PaulR]

Are Devon years like dog years and you have to multiply by 7?

 

[timo_w2s]

Har har... I am only 32!

Heh, younger than me!

 

[smoggy07]

These days though with the advent of mobile broadband and infinite numbers of streaming radio stations on the internet, DAB is no longer a contender for listening to the radio in my book, heck, most mobile phones come with FM tuners, not DAB tuners, so for something modern like a smartphone to have something invented by Edwin Howard Armstrong in the 1930s fitted just shows how reliable it is...

I think the reason phones have FM not DAB is because there is only a hand full of countries using the DAB standard but most if not all use some sort of FM

And battery life is still to poor IMHO to run DAB, WIFI, Bluetooth, android/iOS and/or all the other junk they run (they only just last as it is)

I quite like the sound of what they have adopted out in America, I'm not sure how it works but from what I've read on another forum they broadcast analogue on the main centre freq and then broadcast HD digital radio on 2 sub carriers either side of the centre freq, each sub carrier can handle one or more extra stations or a HD simulcast of the analogue broadcast and an extra station

I'll have a look for a few linkies and report back

[EDIT]
This is the company behind the American system http://www.ibiquity.com/hd_radio and here is their PR waffle http://hdradio.com/what-is-hd-radio