OT (a little) DAB radios and battery life

[Chris B]

Listening to Radio 4 this morning they did an item on (I think) Norway and their switch to Digital radio - it appears that by the end of 2017 FM radio switch off in that country will be complete.

Anyway the bloke said that approximately 48% of UK radio listening was now digital and when this reaches 50% a date will be set for UK FM switch off.

When DAB first came out it was reported that all sets consumed batteries like it was going out of fashion and as they all used basically the same chip they were all as bad as one another.

I have an FM radio that sits in the bathroom and gets used for about 30 mins a day. 4 rechargeable C cells last about 3 months or thereabouts. Direct connection to the mains is not an option.

Has the design of DAB radios moved on such that it is now possible to get acceptable performance from disposable or rechargeable C/D batteries. I'm not keen on bespoke rechargeable as the replacement cost (even if available in 5/10/15 years time) will doubtless be astronomic.

[Theo]

There's bespoke rechargeable, as in a wierd battery pack that fits in the C/D slot, and bespoke as in a lithium battery that fits inside. Those can be a bog standard 3-wire lithium pouch cell - find one about the right size and you're done.

That kind of radio can charge from a phone charger, so it makes charging less of a hassle. I'm thinking of things like this:

(15-20 hours battery life) which have a battery pack that looks like this:

A lot of the DAB radios are stuck in 1960s as regards their battery arrangements, not just their styling.

Theo

[Michael Chare]

Yes it was Norway. DAB has various problems, it takes a lot of processing power to decode hence short battery life, it is expensive to transmit and generally of low quality because better quality uses more bandwidth and therefore costs more. Two dab radios tuned to the same station will not be in sync unlike two FM radios

There are some good quality stations on the Internet.

[Chris J Dixon]

I have had one of these for a few years:

It comes with a couple of rechargeable AA batteries, though I have since replaced them with higher capacity cells I had in stock.

It sits on a south facing windowsill, with the top angled towards the sun.

During the summer months it manages about an hour a day without problems, unless there is a prolonged dull spell.

It performs less well in the winter, and as I can get a charging feed, it tends to stay connected.

Chris

[charles]

can't get those in my car

[RJH]

On 11/01/2017 16:19, Chris B wrote: snip

I have 2 table top DAB radios that run on batteries:

(Bought them both from Sainsburys. They seem to be quite regularly discounted to £40ish. I prefer the sound/build/use of the Sony)

I think they both advise against rechargeable batteries in the instructions, but they both run fine. About 2 months I'd guess, used maybe 20 minutes each day, using Aldi rechargeable C batteries.

[Thomas Prufer]

No, not really.

I have a DAB radio that takes 6 AA cells, and draws 120-200 mA, both in FM and DAB modes. (120 mA with the volume at min, 200 at max. volume). This means roughly 10 hours of listening, using eneloop rechargeables. This is not acceptable for shed use, far from mains for recharging.

This compares poorly to an old 80's Walkman with an FM-only radio, that does about 6-10 hours on two used AA cells, used as in "too weak for the GPS to use". (Its reception is poor, requiring fiddling with the speaker wire and careful positioning, and also has a fiddly tuning knob.)

A post asking about a less power-hungry DAB+ radio in appropriate German newsgroups came up with exactly nothing.

Thomas Prufer

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The internet - and anything digital - will also be out of sync with analogue.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Dave Plowman (News) was thinking very hard :

Analogue is also often sent over digital links, to the transmitters.

[charles]

and has been since the 1970s

[newshound]

IME they still use more power than LW or FM. I have a couple of John Lewis "own brand" which run off micro USB chargers, or batteries: one takes AA and the other Cs, the AA one runs fine on Eneloops.

[Max Demian]

transmitters.

I thought they used NICAM.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Max Demian was thinking very hard :

NICAM is digital!

[charles]

correct - that's a digital system

[Brian Gaff]

Not that much. I see still some sets use rechargeable and this has to be for this reason. Besides, from one manufacturer, recently I heard that usage of digital has to be over 75 percent before fm will be turned off. Many of the commercial stations cannot afford the current rates to broadcast on dab in stereo, and test are still under way with dab plus and many radios cannot get that at all, including most of the older Pure range and some of the german fitted car radios. Also nobody has come up yet with a version of the s tuning knob so blind and elderly folk can use the current radios without help as there is no actual knob just buttons. I think though that when they do switch of, if ever they do it will be a pirates bonanza. Here in London its already chock full of pirate fm stations with islamic spoutings, bible bashers, drug funded rave stations etc, all concreted into the tops of tower blocks fed from band 1 low power t transmitters beamed to them from other parts of the city.

Brian

[Martin Brown]

Yes you can. Smart phone and bluetooth to the in car system - it might cost you if you don't have all you can eat data but for audio streaming it gives a fair amount of listening time.

My DAB tuners at home spend all their time on internet radio these days since they are hopeless as decoding DAB codecs lock up too often.

[Martin Brown]

Yes but at least it decodes correctly and has a Hifi bitrate.

[Chris B]

Yes I think the figures were when usage reaches 50% a "date for switch off" will be set - hoping that loads will go out and buy new sets to get them rapidly up to 75%

There are some advantages to living in the country - I can get BBC R1,2,3,4 & 1 BBC local about 3 commercial stations and apart from that the airwaves are very quiet. Another reason I am apprehensive about DAB because at the moment the signal is minimal.

[Bill]

In message , RJH writes

Probably a stupid question, but I see that the Panasonic one's description says "Whip aerial (FM)". Does this mean that it/they have some sort of internal aerial for DAB?

SHMBO has an awful Pure DAB radio in the kitchen and has to extend and adjust the telescopic aerial constantly to hear any music amongst the squawking choppiness of the output.

[Tim Streater]

Unlikely to be any other stations worth listening to anyway.