OT (a little) DAB radios and battery life

[Max Demian]

Yebbut it is 'near instantaneous' (whatever that means), so the delays should be minimal.

[Martin Brown]

No it means the whip aerial is long enough for FM. DAB is at a somewhat higher VHF band III ~ 200MHz so about half the FM whip length is needed.

That is normal for DAB. You can make a dedicated aerial for it from some coax (simplest type) or a dipole loop which will improve things a bit but it still dissolves into boiling mud when it rains.

In the spirit of DIY. This describes the simplest method that works OK

Still only as good as the broadcast bitrate though :(

[john.west]

I'm a radio head and to the annoyance of others must always have the latest radio. although a bit expensive a Roberts Internet Radio Stream

93i consistantly gets the best reviews. its not portable though. But roberts now have a small portable stream 107. it does FM, DAB and internet stations (in excess of 20,000 stations world wide to choose from). we have 'swiss classique' playing all day. all good classical music and no talking. it runs off 6 AA batteries which you can conveniently charge in situ. no i dont have a connection with the company.

[Huge]

[20 lines snipped]

Except when it doesn't.

[Martin Brown]

If you have some signal then it should make an obvious improvement. But doubling "no signal" is still "no signal". Parts of the A1 for instance.

[RJH]

Not so far as I know - FM and DAB share the telescopic aerial.

I suppose it's luck of the drawer/postcode. Both work here (Sheffield) with a full signal without unfolding the aerial at all.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And a clue is in the 'Near Instantaneous' bit which was a requirement in analogue days.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You complain about poor DAB reception on the move - but think a phone is going to be better?

How do you get internet radio with a DAB tuner?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Describe the 'Hi-Fi' you are using to listen on? You seem to be jumping from in car to to bedroom to whatever.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Is that another of your guesses? ;-)

If someone happens to like the most obscure legal local service, isn't that up to them? Or is it the 'control' you BREXITEERS wanted back? Only radio stations you approve of?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Odd. Just been using DAB on R4 in my car in the pouring rain. Clean as a whistle. Sounds like you need to buy a decent aerial rather than a DIY one.

The one on my car is an active whip aerial roof mounted. Has a head amp for DAB built in with a dedicated DAB downlead. It has a second amp for FM and (perhaps) AM which share a downlead.

[Handsome Jack]

That would be irritating enough if it were just *one* radio, but it's not. Many, perhaps most, people have a radio in every, or nearly every, room. We have - let's see - nine in the house and one in the car. Moreover, I have no idea how to change the one in the car.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Something is definitely winding you up, Tim. Have you caught the Turnip bug?

[Lee]

Same here, the roof antenna is the DAB one, with an active amp, the FM antenna is built into the rear screen and has a separate amp.

Car manufacturers don't usually spend money where they don't need to, so there must be advantages to doing it this way.

[whisky-dave]

I would have thought I'd be the other way around having to ask the EU what we are allowed to liten to as we are part of the EU. Surely there are regulations in place for what gets transmitted and at what power and frequencies.

[charles]

There are - but nothing to do with the EU. It's a UN body that co-ordinates these things.

[Bob Eager]

Trying to blame the EU again?

Power/frequencies are agreed by the ITU which is (a) worldwide and (b) founded in 1932. Nothing to do with the EU at all, and the Brexit EU suicide won't change that.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Thanks for confirming once more you either don't read posts carefully, or understand them.

[grjw]

It is, because there are a lot more mobile bases than DAB transmitters.

Plenty of radios do all 3, DAB, FM, internet radio.

Same with TVs, plenty do broadcast TV and internet too.

[whisky-dave]

I'm not blaming them.

so as I said it;s nothing to do with teh EU and nothing to do with BREXIT either.