Clock Radios

[Dave Plowman (News)]

There are bound to be some parts of the country where reception is poor. Hopefully addressed as time goes by. But then that's absolutely no different from any other transmission system.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not a service I listen to, so can't comment from experience. But if it is transmitting phone calls is quality that important? And that transmitted quality actually worse than the source material?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Wonder if he really does mean a traditional - ie wind up alarm?

[Andy Burns]

Of course, and I have noticed it getting better in several places.

But what I was pointing out is that it also gets worse in other places too. Presumably the COFDM guard interval is not long enough to see multi-reception as "helpful" in such cases?

[Andy Burns]

Yes mobile quality itself can be poor at times, BUT it beCOMES RATHER DISTRActing to LISTen to when it toggles BETWEEN DIFFERENT qualities several TIMES WITHin a sentence.

[Chris Green]

... which, coming to think of it, *doesn't* need setting each night does it? I.e. surely you just silence it 'now' when it has woken you up but that doesn't prevent it ringing again tomorrow.

The same issue applies to any alarm - you have to differentiate somehow between 'yes, I really have woken up and got out of bed today thank you' and 'I want the alarm not to ring again at all, even tomorrow'.

[Andy Burns]

The mechanical ones I remember, you had to pull the knob up to enable it to ring, and when it went off, pushed it down again to silence it, so that would prevent it ringing again tomorrow if you forgot to pull the knob back up later that day, and if you pulled it up too soon, it would go off 12 hours early.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

What I'm not clear about is why this only seems to happen with phone calls? Even the very worst broadcast rate is going to be better than a phone.

But given audio quality isn't something that important with phone ins - why not just use AM if its better than DAB?

[Andy Burns]

Maybe something that's been through a GSM codec, then A-Law companding (I presume the BBC will accept calls over an ISDN/30 circuit) then an MP2 codec can trigger some edge case?

It might be some other part of the broadcast chain, but it's not an effect I've ever heard on a mobile phone call myself and it happens very frequently on R5L.

Because of the other bad effects with AM in an car.

[hwh]

I would say DAB+ as well. Some stations in the UK started using it.

gr, hwh

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'm not really sure. Not something I've experienced. Perhaps uk.tech.broadcast might help - if there's anyone left on that who knows about such things.

I take it you don't hear the same on AM?

Quite.

I'll have a listen to R5L on DAB to see if I can hear what you report. The other possibility is something in your receiver? Have you also tried FreeView?

[Andy Burns]

I have been trying to switch to AM whenever I notice it in the car, but inevitably when I do so they drop the caller soon after, so I can't tell if it would continue or not ...

Not freeview, but iPlayer Radio, where I haven't noticed it.

[pamela]

A bigger concern than the option to set a repeat alarm is its actual volume.

Some are so feeble they wouldn't wake me up. I like a full volume alarm that would wake the dead.

If I need to get up then I need to get up and it's no use to me that the first time I hear the alarm is after it's been sounding for five feeble snoozes or gentle repeats or whatever inadequate niceties they have included for folks who are delicate sleepers.

[Scott]

I have noticed this too - where the bitrate is low there is a curious distortion of phone calls. In my non-technical way I just assumed these were mobile phones digitally encoded and one coding system was clashing with another.

Lots of radios don't have AM. Stations like LBC are not available on AM (outside London).

[Hankat]

AM never sounds like that.

[Hankat]

Yes, that doesn't sound anything like AM.

[Scott]

Sound is based on a person's perception of course.

I do perceive a similarity between DAB and AM in terms of absence of high frequencies, lack of mono and in general a sort of dull booming sound quite different from how FM sounded before they went crazy with Optimod or how a CD on a good audio system sounds now..

[Andrew]

like where I live, right in the middle of the well known not-spot between midhurst horsham, bognor and worthing. Otherwise known as the South Downs.

[Andrew]

Yes. Only the Humax box is left on standby.

[Vir Campestris]

SNR ratio is way better, but THD is worse. And perhaps because I'm more used to AM the errors on DAB annoy me more.

It's not our system. CDs sound fine, and so does FM (on the rare occasions I use it)

Andy