DAB antenna problem

[Simon Mason]

Bloke is going to fit my SONY DAB car radio into my 159 and fit the antenna to the windscreen, but he says that he cannot use the same antenna to feed my Nuvicam's DAB traffic 3.5mm socket.

Why not?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you want your car DAB unit to perform well ignore the screen aerial and get a proper DAB one. These are commonly roof mounted and active. Wideband ones that also do FM and AM are available.

You can then use the screen one for your Nuvicam. Whatever that is.

[Simon Mason]

[Brian Gaff]

Since I have no idea what one of the latter is, I'd imagine you need to ask him. One thing I will say though is that through glass capacitive coupled aerials are crap. Brian

[Jeff Layman]

Do these ever do anything useful? I've got a new Gamin Satnav which shows traffic conditions and I would say it's accurate less than 10% of the time. I drove onto the M27 yesterday morning with the satnav showing it clear. At the top of the sliproad was a mile long queue with the speed limit indicators showing 60 and then 40.

Coming back through Chichester in the late evening rush hour the satnav kept beeping at me warning me of queuing traffic at each of the five roundabouts on the A27. Three were clear, the other two had a couple of cars waiting ahead! Queue? What queue?

If it really has a 1 minute refresh rate it doesn't seem to b paying much attention.

[Simon Mason]

It is so accurate that it warns me of traffic that vanished 10 minutes previously, so you have to use your loaf. If I get such a report, I avoid the area anyway as a matter of course.

[Martin Brown]

The Google maps free realtime traffic app on a smartphone seems to be more accurate than the dedicated Garmin - at least on the roads I drive.

It is sometimes wrong but the evidence of sweeping up bits of cars is usually still present even if the traffic is moving again. What is noticeable is the extent to which rubbernecking screws traffic flow on both carriageways when there is an incident on only one.

It underestimates distance to phantom shockwaves running along dense traffic too since it is always a couple of minutes behind but overall it can save a lot of time if you know some route is impassable or horrendously slow soon enough to avoid it.

[Jeff Layman]

According to the settings on the Garmin it downloads info from TrafficMaster: (redirects to)

Trouble is, as so many drivers use modern satnavs with alternative routing you usually end up in another traffic jam on minor roads with all those trying to avoid the original jam!

Too many cars, not enough road. :-(

[Bill Wright]

Never use the diversion the satnav suggests. Find one further out.

I have a new Tom Tom and the warnings of hold-ups are 90% accurate. It's very good.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

een, but he says that he cannot use the same antenna to feed my Nuvicam's DAB traffic 3.5mm socket.

He could if he wanted to, but the results would be poor. The signal from a windscreen aerial are terrible anyway compared to a proper roof aerial, so add splitter loss to that and you might as well use a bit of wet string. Worse than useless. Then they blame the DAB coverage. Pillocks.

Bill

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes. I've had DAB for ages in one car - but with the correct aerial. And round London and the SE, reception is miles superior to FM. As regards the ultimate audio quality, I'm not sure anyone would notice any difference in a car. Except that DAB doesn't distort like FM with multipath.

[Martin Brown]

It just drops out completely when you drive up the A1 away from London (even with a decent external DAB aerial). Sometimes it goes into Stingray mode with the R4 presenters apparently gargling on air :(

The only thing DAB does better is the silent gaps inbetween programs!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

How far up the A1? But mine will swop to FM automatically if it looses the DAB signal. Must admit I don't use the A1 much.

Far better than FM when driving between tall buildings, etc. No multipath effects.

But no radio reception can ever be perfect at all times. Just look at mobile phones - despite the billions spent on that infrastructure.

[Simon Mason]

0430 UTC: BBC Worldservice on local DAB - burbling. On local FM 95.9 kHz -keeps cutting out. On 6005 kHz from Ascension Island - 100% copy.

[bert]

In article , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

I have a screen mounted DAB aerial on my radio It's powered and works well.

[tony sayer]

In article , Brian Gaff scribeth thus

Indeed they are a proper body mounted aerial way out performs a window one. Seen this in two way radio applications over many years..

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Never did understand the fashion for window aerials - even factory ones. Was obvious from the start they didn't work as well as a roof one. Had a BMW with two of them and diversity reception. Not as good as a single roof one - despite the clever electronics.

[Simon Mason]

My Nuvicam is designed to work in any car, hence the fly lead.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes. It has to be suitable for any idiot to fit it.

[Simon Mason]

Even this guy can't fit one and he's an expert.