digital radios

On Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:21:12 +0000 someone who may be Jonathan Campbell wrote this:-

shows a map with green in a few expected areas. As I understand it they are still using DAB.

Ah freeview now means you get about 15 for free. Decentish ones that is.

Always

Ah. Dave Absalom and the 'Ballad of Constable McLeggan and 'Peaches' Melba'..

"Now backwoodsmen like the back and frontiersman like the front But since you are a Constable I guess you want.. a little down payment?"

Only the license fee ;-)

That must be where I picked up on the fact that our DAB radios will become redundant soon.

Dave

I am replying to my own post, because I would like to thank all the posters that have contributed to my question. It becomes slightly clearer, but with treacle painted over my eyes :-)

Many thanks

Dave

Not 'soon'. There are no dates for the introduction of DAB+ - nor even any firm proposals.

On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:02:00 +0000 someone who may be Dave wrote this:-

Only radios which cannot now pick up DAB+, or cannot be upgraded to pick up DAB+, will become obsolete. Some of the former are already on sale, check with the manufacturer about the latter.

As has been said, der Tag is not soon, but the UK will have to do it eventually.

Maybe......in fifty years time.

In article , Mike scribeth thus

I can see a time when some local commercial stations will come off Dab as it simply isn't cost effective for them to transmit on that format!.

The few people I know that have DAB receivers bought them to receive BBC Radio 5 Live better;!....

Perhaps it's time the rentals were adjusted to the real world. Can't see DAB being intrinsically more expensive to transmit than any other.

In my case I went DAB years ago because of diabolical FM reception in this part of London - which has since been at least partially cured by a new fill in tranmitter. But do still use it for R7 - which is guaranteed to brighten up the dullest day.

One (less power) doesn't neccessarily follow from the other (less chips). It depends on the nature of the chips, supply voltage, operating frequency and I/O characteristics.

MBQ

I'm glad I don't have to pay that any more :-) It got to be a real pain doing so, spending half the year overseas, and then forever being told "this content isn't available in your region" from various BBC sources ;)

More Dennis.

Except for DAB and its additional codec, which has a long track-record of being power-hungry to a point that made battery operation impractical.

Only very recently, such that "old stock" radios are still on the shelves, have low-power DAB chipsets appeared.

Some say it's probably the best technology item they've ever bought (or being given) - the older the user the happier they are with it. (cue "DAB Sounds Worse Than FM" butting in and saying that's because they are deaf!)

But the main advantages are ease of use, with an always accurate clock and no fiddly tuning. It's so easy my mum loves it and she still can't use a video recorder.

Maybe consistent time, but accurate, I have to question. It is currently showing 31 seconds behind our 'Rugby' based clocks. They are within a couple of seconds of my PC (with its auto-correction seemingly working fine).

My biggest gripe is that the radio seems excessively bassy and lacks high frequencies. Perhaps it is my ears but I do not have that impression from TV sound or even internet sources, CDs, etc. Don't know if it the the radio itself (i.e. make/model) or the DAB technology/bitrates/etc.

Likely the radio as the frequency response of the system is fine. Some equate the too low bitrate as making things sound too bright.

I thought that was the 'wear the fox hat' joke?