DAB in Ireland: RTE multiplex closed

Any potential switch-off of analogue broadcast radio bands in a switch to digital can't be simply compared to that for television.

The shutting down of the RTÉ 405 line service (where it existed) were dictated partially by government economics, partly by RTÉ2 being set up and also partly that a significant proportion of TV sets were rented allowing for an ease to upgrade to a 625 line set.

The switching off of the 625 line service saw very few people left behind, in the cheapest scenario available to most people a set top box allows people to watch DVB-T services on a set with only an analogue tuner.

FM & AM radio is a lot different. The principle idea of a "set-top-box" for DAB similar to that for TV is not the same giving the generally portable nature of radio. For that to work where a DAB receiver can output to a low-powered FM signal (like the Pure Highway that was launched a few years ago in the UK), it is only practical for either in-home or in-car use.

Think about the amount of analogue only radios that are in your home or in your car. Alarm clocks, on mobile phones, small portable receivers, mini/midi systems etc. The inevitable outcome would be a mass dumping of millions of otherwise perfectly good radios in the Irish Republic alone, a big environmental problem and likely to be a costly one for many people.

Internet radio is a great platform to extend the reach of stations and allow for niche stations, but in its current form can never replace broadcast radio - internet radio requires an ISP subscription, and the mobile phone network infrastructure would need a massive amount of infrastructure to equalise the coverage provided by FM radio. It also can't have emergency broadcasts put in place - if a major storm or catastrophic event happens which for example knocks out nearly everyone's power supplies and mobile networks go down then internet radio is effectively useless. On a personal level I'm thinking of communication issues when the Omagh bombing took place in 1998. I had no mobile phone at the time but I do know that the landline telephone exchange in the town was overloaded (which also affected "sister" and sub-exchanges connected through it) and if something similar were to happen it's likely the mobile networks would also collapse under strain, probably directed so that the networks would prioritise emergency service calls only (as was the case in the London 7/7 bombings) in the vicinity. So mobile internet would likely be shot, ADSL & VDSL broadband would also be affected - the only fallback you have is broadcast mediums. Broadcast radio and internet radio both have their strengths and weakness', and complement each other very well, but can't do everything that the other can.

There's also the case of what to do with empty LW, MW & VHF Band II broadcast bands in an eventual switch-off. They're not suitable for mobile phone use and there is little scope for governments to sell off these frequencies for windfall bonanzas as with 800MHz auctions for 4G mobile in much of Europe.

I'm sort of with watty on this one. I don't think that digital radio in itself is a pointless exercise - at least the digitisation of its broadcast - but DAB and DAB+ in their current forms just don't give a good solution. Fine for European PSBs with radio networks that can be handily carried on one DAB ensemble, but awkward for commercial & community broadcasters in having to share space in an ensemble rather than develop their own networks. Digital radio needs to be a progressive evolution, not a solution looking for a problem.

Read the comments after the article!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/16/minister_kicks_dab_can_miles_down_the_road/

also

ANY digital radio is flawed compared to Analogue. It's not the same as Digital Vs Analogue for TV.

Even AM isn't past the Sell By date. DRM simply isn't a viable replacement on LW, MW and SW. I thought DRM was a good solution for SW, but it's a dead duck.

DAB+ and DRM+ are red herrings. Only ways to fit more in. Same user experience, same quality, same inherent problems.

Comparing Analogue to Digital TV and Digital Radio vs Analogue Radio, you see it that Digital Radio INHERENTLY doesn't really work no matter WHICH digital system it is! Digital TV DOES Work.


Feature: Digital TV vs Analogue [ALL Digital Radio vs AM/FM]

• Waveband: Unchanged [x2 frequency, more dead spots]
• Mobility: Not important [Vital]
• Digital Dividend: Yes [none]
• Ease of use: Preset channels, Similar [ONLY preset channels (terrible for Radio)]
• Features: Enhanced faster "text" [Less than RDS on FM!]
• Other on set: Selection of National "Radio" added to TV [Often DAB only, or perhaps with FM no RDS, AM? SW? Non-local Radio? Travel?, less]
• Sound: Option Multich for movies [different sets in different rooms out of sync]
• Power Consumption: Similar, Dominated by Screen size [Typically x25 higher]
• User Interface: Enhanced [Very very poor]
• Coverage: Similar, better or Satellite [UK: 6% worse than FM, only AM is 100%, Satellite isn't portable, Ireland will be much worse]
• Fringe Reception: Better, or fit new aerial [More dramatic drop outs when mobile / portable]
• Channel Change: Slower, tolerable [Much slower, intolerable when mobile, esp if new mux. SFN limited in size]
• Quality: WS & HD option, wide range models [Virtually no quality models, no Audio quality increase, all poorer than 1965 radios]

Cost and amount of coverage is too high for single town FM Radio Stations. Favours State broadcaster and multichannel National Broadcasters to the eventual destruction of local Radio.

The Real Agenda in UK is BBC Dominance and here is RTE Dominance.

Digital TV makes sense. Digital Radio doesn't which is why most countries have no plans at all!

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

I regularly travel through the more mountainous parts of Wicklow where FM is fairly dodgy in parts. There is absolutely no way, to my knowledge, that DAB or internet could improve on that. Satellite is the only other possibility I can think of for cars.

Or AM. Not Satellite. Sat coverage is terrible with Sirius XM and to be enhanced with terrestrial fill in!

You need AM for the National Stations. At least there is still LW RTE1, but it was purely a financial decision to close the MW.

Even the BBC has admitted they need R4 LW coverage as FM and DAB isn't "good enough" for important stuff (like cricket!).

In 1930s Ireland had THREE regions / channels: Cork, Athlone & Dublin. Ireland should have 4 or 5 MW channels (12 or 15 transmitters, each channel a SFN of 3 to have 1/6th transmitter power). RTE LW shoud be a SFN of 2 TX sites at 1/4 power.

FM coverage of national stations should be improved.

Ditch all the extra RTE Radio on DAB and overpaid "presenter"/"Personalities" (€70,000 cap, instead of up to €500,000 for less than a days work). Have better content on RTE1 & 2FM Radio. No music on RTE1 and no mainstream / Commercial pop on 2FM . They are a PSB!

If RTE keeps going in current direction DAB vs FM will be irrelevant. No-one will be listening to RTE, or much to Radio.

watty wrote: »

At least there is still LW RTE1

Though there has been a huge trend by car manufacturers to leave out coverage of LW on their recent car radios. This seems to have been going hand in hand with the trend to using a radio aerial printed with the demister on the rear window, rather than any type of whip.
LW is potentially more of use for mobile rather than in homes but what use is it if your new car radio does not have it ?
As old cars and radios get scrapped and the percentage of cars which actually have it diminishes it is going to be more difficult to justify keeping 252kHz going - unless there is a reversal of the above trend?

My LW is only affected by heater fan, and only if signal is weak and fan turned up past 2.

RTE doesn't do 252 for anyone in Cars or In Ireland. It's their "external service".

I get SIX LW stations here in Limerick during daylight in Car and on most of my radios in house.

During Daytime on MW BBC Wales is marginally better than Spirit Radio from Cavan. The only other daytime MW is Five Live. Many of my MW sets get nothing on MW during daylight.

Limerick City is bad for R4 LW and I lose it between Galway and Castlebar. DX LW fades around dawn and dusk for about 15min, but R4 still usable.

Only Europe & North Africa uses LW. Radio sets for North American market never have LW.

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

I regularly travel through the more mountainous parts of Wicklow where FM is fairly dodgy in parts. There is absolutely no way, to my knowledge, that DAB or internet could improve on that. Satellite is the only other possibility I can think of for cars.

One of the reasons both Norway and Switzerland have been making pushes themselves for DAB(+) is ironically that one of the few advantages it has over FM is in places like hilly/mountainous terrain. DAB signals can bounce off hillsides to receivers which most FM audio would be badly degraded by, coupling that with using low-powered SFN networks means it isn't too hard to fill in coverage blackspots without using additional local spectrum and getting listeners without RDS AF in use from having to constantly retune.

IMHO, the main problem with the digitalisation of broadcast radio has been that at best it's been looking to solve problems in one areas while ignoring others. As already mentioned DAB ensembles are fine for national PSB broadcasters where they can combine all their national stations on to one frequency for equal platform coverage, but this is problematic for large-scale (national/regional) stations who would have to share transmission infrastructure likely through a third-party, and for smaller commercial & community stations it is unlikely that they would want to share transmission infrastructure (especially if they already do it themselves), nor would they want the more extensive coverage area that would almost certainly be provided and the expense that comes with it. DRM sort-of got around this by being inherently restricted in terms of available bit rates corresponding to audio quality along with a maximum of four stations being permitted, but it never got beyond the testing phase into public conscious.

For a digital terrestrial radio platform to work, the thinking has to take a step back especially concerning how the listener receives the stations. Technologies like DAB & DRM allow for transmission configurations to tailor coverage, but ideally there should be a hierarchy element to reception similar to that in FM radio where for example car radios will automatically switch between stereo and mono depending on reception conditions without most listeners immediately noticing as opposed to the "bubbling" that affects DAB. In TV both DVB-T and ISDB-T can run hierarchy modes although there aren't any in-service public transmissions that I know of. Such a radio equivalent could scale down so that the lower audio frequencies at around an AM equivalent (a sampling rate of around 10kHz) would be in the most rugged part of the transmission, then scaling up to 21kHz SR for a slightly less rugged mode, then 32kHz SR (FM quality) and then finally up into CD & Surround Sound quality levels, meaning the highest quality will be offered to those in the core coverage areas while those struggling on the fringes can still get the station albeit with reduced sound quality.

Another idea - any new terrestrial radio platform (or even an existing FM one) should be either be in-band with FM or on a sub-100MHz frequency band. From personal experience listening to a DAB station in a portable, moving manner is very difficult. OK if you're using a portable on a bench with its whip extended, but listening using the headphone cord as the aerial is too troublesome. DAB radios really need an effective ground plane to get steady reception unless you're in a really strong reception area, fine on a properly installed aerial on a car roof or a pair of rabbit ears in an attic but not so otherwise. One option would be to try and extend the current VHF Band II broadcast band downwards from 87.6MHz - many of the users just below these frequencies have now moved on to other transmissions and bands like TETRA, GSM or PMR while the few that remain could be moved over time into the Band I frequencies now being vacated all over Europe with DSO. Some AM broadcasters in the USA have been sounding out the idea of converting TV channels 5 & 6 (76 to 88MHz) to an extended FM radio band. It isn't the worst of suggestions - very few TV stations over there now use these frequencies for digital TV and radios that can cover both the Japan & CCIR FM bands would have straight access.

The UK government's announcement earlier this week is disappointing mainly because it's quite clearly creating a fudge to keep the main broadcasters there happy (by artificially restricting new competition) by pushing a future radio solution that was already dated over a decade ago. The transmission costs for stations are too much and this is easily visible on the Digital 1 ensemble with the amount of 64kbps mono stations on it (a flaw in the Register article - the D1 ensemble is technically full, there's no real spare capacity). No one seems to have the balls to say "all right, it's not working. Set a date for switch off of DAB in its current form and get all interested parties involved to decide what to do next to increase choice, quality and availability to listeners". Unfortunately Ofcom has never really sought to ensure that listeners and viewers are high up in the chain on their decision making. I don't believe the old IBA and even Radio Authority would allow the current technical standards to be as low as they currently are.

watty wrote: »

Only Europe & North Africa uses LW. Radio sets for North American market never have LW.

Strictly speaking Mongolia and the Asian part of Russia also use LW though even the Russians are closing down some of their LW facilities. There's also LW allocations for several Middle East countries but there are none currently active.

I wonder if DVB-H/DVB-NGH/whatever is a runner ...... surely seems not due to lack of progress since trials ..... or maybe I missed updates?

Irish trial in 2007?

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?id=2298

DVB-H is dead Johnboy. Current proposals replacing DVB-h are variations of DVB-T2.

Sam, even the BBC & UK refuse to count real DAB only listeners, preferring to count only DAB sets sold (but there is a high failure rate and short life compared to older analogue radios) and total listening to ALL Digital services including Internet!

I doubt you can get any sensible figures for RTE DAB. For a start the coverage is terrible compared to VHF-FM.

The UK has had DAB for over 10 years and actual DAB penetration has fallen to 21% and FM risen to 61% (but as to what these figures measure is unclear).

Blimey, I find myself agreeing with Watty!

It is also a shame that they have effectively ruled out ever using the Athlone site for MF broadcasting again. That's a very historic site - the world's first national tx site I believe, and they've effectively abandoned it.

With the three generations of MF transmitters in situ there, it should be a museum.

Onthe3rdDay wrote: »

That of course is the main problem with DAB, They would be someone that would be very interested if, (1) They could get a signal (2) and get a receiver that was half decent under 50 euro. (3) BBC Radio 4 was available on it.
Right now they listen to BBC Radio 4 and the world service on Sat or on Longwave.

There will NEVER be a decent Portable DAB or any other Digital Radio Receiver.

1) Ergonomics of Digital radio a disaster. This is complex to explain. But I will publish an article on it.
2) Unless some unbelievable breakthrough the power consumption will remain massively higher. Currently x6 worse than a 1950s VALVE battery portable!
3) No graceful degradation of coverage. All or nothing is useless for portable/Mobile.

For DAB specifically there are two other problems:
1) Coverage is best suited for Regional and National Stations.
2) Quality is rubbish. DAB+ won't solve it as it would be used to double number of stations. To give better than FM quality 256K MP2 or 192K AAC is needed*. Typical DAB is 128K MP2 or DAB+ 64K AAC.

More stations and better Quality on an LW/MW/VHF-FM Radio than DAB would ever have in Ireland. RTE should stop wasting money on it.

(*AAC can only give same quality as MP2 at lower bit rates such as 128K and 64K, which for Stereo is already far poorer than FM and can have more distortion than AM! People with hearing aid or damaged hearing need less compression. The MP2 / MP3 / AAC lossy compression model suits average hearing.)

StreetLight wrote: »

When I switched on my DAB receivers, all stations on the RTE Multiplex were showing as 'Off Air' or 'Not Available'. I performed a re-scan and all stations re-appeared, but with a new addition.

Only one example of the stupidity of the User Interface side of Digital Radio.

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

It's the first Roberts UK model with DAB+ (as far as I'm aware) which makes it future proof and usable abroad (and in the ROI).

The ecologic15 clock radio is also DAB+, purchased one last autumn, I think its been on the market since early 2013. There are other DAB+ from around that time too.

Most stations on Digital One are in mono and either 64kbps or 80kbps
Absolute Radio is 112kbps Joint Stereo
Classic FM is 128kbps in Joint Stereo
On BBC Mux
BBC Radio 1, 2 & 4 is 128kbps and Joint Stereo
BBC Radio 3 is 192kbps and Stereo
BBC Radio 5 Live, 5 Sport and World Service is 80kbps and mono

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

The problem there is that unless you're on unlimited internet on your mobile phone tariff the data will use up very quickly if you listen to internet radio a lot. Only T mobile (EE) and 3 mobile do unlimited internet packages up here, and they cost £20-£25 a month, so although it's a solution it's not really a cheap one.

Fair point, personally I have a 3GB monthly allowance and I find it allows me to do normal browsing along with listening to internet radio in the car. To be honest , I could use it for two hours some days in the car, but then it could be a few days before I would use it again. I do admit, if someone was steaming for four or five hours a day, every day, you would need an unlimited package. But I will say, if I was a sales rep or such, that was on the road everyday, I would definitely pay for an unlimited package.

I've just done some research from another forum, it is calculated that at a good bit rate of 160 Kbps , you should get 29 hours of listening from a 2GB allowance and at one hour a day, five days a week, you would get approx 6 weeks listening for your 2GB !

The DB Digital Broadcast DAB/DAB+ trial is now on air in Cork city from Churchfield (North side of the city).
Service include All 80s+, RiRa, UCB, Sunshine, Amazing Radio and Zenith - both DAB and DAB+

It only started last week Natashob6

DF

I think Limerick is the next stage of the DAB trail, but there's no date for that at the moment.