DAB Radio - some stations off-air?

sidekick

Just recently noticed that All80s and Mocha appear to have stopped broadcasting on DAB. Anyone else experienced this also? Do you know if they will be back? Both are continuing to broadcast on the web. I miss them

L1011

Both coming in loud and clear here...

Probably a downed link earlier or something.

sidekick

Thanks! Both are back now, must just have been a glitch somewhere.
Cheers.

DMC

I wonder what are Dusty Rhodes' plans come December 1... ?

More Music

Keep going on the web and hope the commercial stations cop on a bit and stump up a few euro. The commercials can't expect RTE to pay for the continuation of MUX2.

MUX2 and Dusty need the commercials.

Solair

It's HIGHLY unlikely the commercial stations will be all that keen on DAB in the current market. Ad revenues are dropping and they will simply see DAB as canabolising the market.

Also, I've heard concern expressed by smaller rural local stations that they will be swamped by DAB simulcasts of large urban stations, particularly the bigger players in Dublin and Cork.

Most of the commercials see DAB as at best expensive and at worst a major threat to revenue.

L1011

Two of the commercials will need to change all their liners should they go off DAB (not that thats that complicated/expensive, obviously). Both Spin and Q102 specifically mention DAB now.

I'm not expecting Mux 2 to just go blank/off, theres bound to be some transitionary arrangement agreed on.

sudzs

sidekick wrote: »

Just recently noticed that All80s and Mocha appear to have stopped broadcasting on DAB. Anyone else experienced this also? Do you know if they will be back? Both are continuing to broadcast on the web. I miss them

I have those two but am missing Newstalk for the last few days...

Anyone else??

DMC

98, Spin and Newstalk all silent from Three Rock at present. Its Communicorp sibling Today FM is on the air though.

Trick of the Tail

Silent on FM or DAB?

DMC

Its a DAB thread, so DAB.

sudzs

DMC wrote: »

98, Spin and Newstalk all silent from Three Rock at present. Its Communicorp sibling Today FM is on the air though.

Same here! And thats from the Claremont Carn transmitter in Louth.

More Music

98, Spin and Newstalk are all on the same IP codec and therefore the same IP connection into Donnybrook. Problem isn't on Three Rock or Claremont Carn.

_Kaiser_

2 quick questions...

1. What's the reception like in the Cavan area?

2. Can someone receommend a decent NON-retro looking DAB compatible radio/hi-fi for around the €100 (or less) mark - I don't mind going to NI for the right one either if that helps

Ta!

L1011

Pure Evoke line aren't retro looking and are very good quality.

No idea about the signal but I suspect you'd need an external antenna in Cavan if you can get it at all - the coverage map* isn't promising. You may get BBC National and Score NI though.

*http://digitalradio.ie/images/DAB@3Rock20kW+(CC+Woodcock+SpurHill)5kW.jpg

DMC

I was able to get DAB from NI in car at the highest point of the Cavan town bypass. You have a clear view north from there.

I have in the past posted up locations of where I received DAB from NI, they are still pretty current as DAB coverage hasn't improved greatly from NI.

sidekick

Those stations are still off air me also. Is there no loop back so they know all broadcasts are operating correctly? Or do they care? :mad:

I have emailed Newstalk to report this issue. Let's see how long it takes to get it resolved.

longfordjames

Can you get Yorkshire Radio in Ireland?

L1011

longfordjames wrote: »

Can you get Yorkshire Radio in Ireland?

Only by satellite or internet. Why anyone would want to listen to a station owned by a morally bankrupt, charity robbing football club I dunno, but its there on Sky 0209 and tuneable on any FTA system.

sidekick

Just received the following response from Newstalk...

Thank you for you email. We have finished our trial on Digital platform at present and we will be reassessing the merits of recommencing this service in the new year.

Can I please redirect you to our live broadcast on 106-108 fm?


Regards

Newstalk 106–108 fm
Marconi House, Digges Lane, Dublin 2.
Tel: + 353 1 644 5100
Fax: + 353 1 644 5101
www.newstalk.ie


Is this news to everyone, that they have stopped their DAB broadcasting?

real rocker

sidekick wrote: »

Just received the following response from Newstalk...

Thank you for you email. We have finished our trial on Digital platform at present and we will be reassessing the merits of recommencing this service in the new year.

Can I please redirect you to our live broadcast on 106-108 fm?


Regards

Newstalk 106–108 fm
Marconi House, Digges Lane, Dublin 2.
Tel: + 353 1 644 5100
Fax: + 353 1 644 5101
www.newstalk.ie


Is this news to everyone, that they have stopped their DAB broadcasting?

It is my understanding that only RTE will be on DAB from 1st.December and even they have a reduced number of channels.

More Music

The commercial DAB trial (MUX2) is due to close at the end of November. Nobody is too sure what is going to happen.

The Dublin stations don't have much interest in DAB right now as you can receive all of them on FM in Dublin. People will lose out with the non Dublin stations (All 80's, Mocha and Radio Kerry).

Sidekick, can I ask who in Newstalk you sent the email to or who replied to you?

sidekick

@More Music

I emailed webcast@newstalk.ie which I found on their website. The email reply came from the same address but without any name.

LordSutch

I have just sent an email to kate@newstalk.ie who (according to reception) is their technical support Girl.

Its a real pain in the arse really - just getting used to DAB when one of my Presets goes Dead . . . .

I have replaced Newstalk with Q102 :rolleyes:

Enda Caldwell

The general word I am getting from Ireland is that stations do NOT wish to continue with DAB as it is expensive and far-off as far as they are concerned. Sorry to burst the aul bubbles of people who forked out hard-earned cash on DAB radios - hope they have an FM tuner too for you. I think my friend Paul Milne made a wiser investment in buying an internet radio (Wi-fi) - he can get over 8,000 stations from all over the world on it.

Real FM

^ Is that the sound of a broken record I hear?

Enda Caldwell

Sure! Say what you want! Like I care?

Just stating facts. It is becoming clearer as you can see with the email Newstalk sent back to the poster above. Prepare to see more of this.

L1011

They're ceasing solely due to there being no regulatory framework to allow them to continue - Mux 2 has not got a licence past next week. For them to continue would be illegal.

Enda - explain to me how I can get an internet radio to work in my car at 120km/h on the M4, thanks. At 160kbits equivalent quality.

Enda Caldwell

MYOB wrote: »

They're ceasing solely due to there being no regulatory framework to allow them to continue - Mux 2 has not got a licence past next week. For them to continue would be illegal.

Enda - explain to me how I can get an internet radio to work in my car at 120km/h on the M4, thanks. At 160kbits equivalent quality.

Well go satellite radio then! I see Sirius in the states doing well now merged with XM and here we go LETS NAMEDROP AGAIN!! WAAAAAAAAAAYYY HEEEEEEEEEYYYYY!! My good friend Spyder Harrison does evenings on SiriusXM Totally 70s with something like 8million listeners.
To listen in a car you get a little FM Kit that allows you to listen.
Wifi or internet radio IS being developed for cars by manufacturers. By the way SiriusXM are also available online. People don't do km/h in the UK they do mph! and furthermore, you'd be lucky to get any kind of speed up on the M4 with the kind of congestion around London these days!! Or maybe you mean some sort of dual carraigeway in Ireland they have decided to call the M4? lol

It is NOT solely due to no legal framework. I have spoken to TX chiefs and engineers in Ireland about this and that is the "line" being fed out re: legislation but in reality, the fact is nobody wants to go DAB yet - yeah cool IT WORKS MYOB!! Yaayy, they know that I know that you know that we ALL know it! DAB IS GREAT! The fact is there is a credit crunch and they are tightening in their belts. It would be nice to get all the UK stations too in Ireland but that aint gonna happen either because they want to protect their little nest egg. Time was you could hear stations from all over Europe on MW - that is all being looked down upon now as RTE and the independents would prefer that their listeners were not distracted from listening to Irish radio - and meaning they don't lose revenue.

tSubh Dearg

Seriously, dragging arguments from other threads over into this one is not on. Next person to continue this will, at the very least, be getting an infraction.

L1011

Satellite radio doesn't work in cars with tree cover, bridges, heavy rain - not without a ground repeater network... Back to where we started from. Sirius XM are also losing money like its going out of fashion, the merger was to keep both companies alive (for a bit).

The tone of that post is about the most unprofessional I've ever seen from someone (purporting to be) a respected broadcaster; and your attempt to slag our motorway network rather falls flat assuming that the UK's M4 is solely in London - it runs to Wales.

edit: had written this post before the above appeared...

Enda Caldwell

MYOB wrote: »

Satellite radio doesn't work in cars with tree cover, bridges, heavy rain - not without a ground repeater network... Back to where we started from. Sirius XM are also losing money like its going out of fashion, the merger was to keep both companies alive (for a bit).

The tone of that post is about the most unprofessional I've ever seen from someone (purporting to be) a respected broadcaster; and your attempt to slag our motorway network rather falls flat assuming that the UK's M4 is solely in London - it runs to Wales.

edit: had written this post before the above appeared...

Satellite radio works in the states, I have been in a car with it working.

Let's cut the BS here MYOB with your HUYA!
I am not effing purporting myself to be anything - I am just a person some random guy off the street ok - never mind my identity. I don't care what you say. I've been slandered before had the most horrible things said about me that were untrue on boards like this over the years by people much like yourself with no real knowledge of me and maybe some axe to grind. That is not my concern.

All I see is over-opinionated rhetoric and almost a sense of naiveity in these discussions re:DAB in Ireland when I have heard different, very different realities from people IN the industry.

SiriusXM will hopefully stay alive and another great reason will be to perhaps just to prove YOU wrong that satellite radio DOES work!

And I am WELL aware of the M4's route as I have driven all of it many times. As a matter of fact to be on air on a station in Wales that is on SKY,DAB and FM owned by The Guardian Newspaper.

And YES, I am slagging the Irish motorway network and the Staaaate of it! - get outta that garden MYOB. Where did you land in from? Mars? Jupiter? FFS

Go.please, please ask the people running the stations in Ireland the truth why they are backing down from DAB. It's all down to things called Euro notes and cents.

L1011

The US has a ground terrestrial repeater network for satellite radio. Without this, it would not work in cities at all.

Enda Caldwell

MYOB wrote: »

The US has a ground terrestrial repeater network for satellite radio. Without this, it would not work in cities at all.

Nevertheless, it works. As will in-car internet radio if you take those rose-coloured blinkers off MYOB!

L1011

Enda Caldwell wrote: »

Nevertheless, it works. As will in-car internet radio if you take those rose-coloured blinkers off MYOB!

The only hopelessly optomistic viewpoint is one that a low latency continous IP connection can be provided to in excess of 2,000 vehicles in a small area - which is what in car internet radio would need.

I'm a network engineer by qualification - not by profession (at the moment, and by choice). I can tell you this isn't possible using current generation technology and will not be possible using what is currently "next generation". We're looking at ten years plus. Possibly by then there'll be enough backbone connectivity and peering costs will have reduced so that say, TodayFM could afford the 14Gb/sec that Matt Cooper's show would require at 64k AAC.

tSubh Dearg

Enda Caldwell and MYOB both banned for a week for ignoring my warning.

garrincha62

Newstalk and some other RTE stations come and go in Drogheda since the weekend..

Fuzzy Clam

tSubh Dearg wrote: »

Enda Caldwell and MYOB both banned for a week for ignoring my warning.

Ahhhhhhhhhh come on tSubh....
Finally some entertainment around here and you ban it.....:mad:

More Music

Who's going to name drop now?

tSubh Dearg

Moderation decisions can be discussed by PM if you like but not on thread.

LarWright

Enda Caldwell wrote: »

stations do NOT wish to continue with DAB as it is expensive and far-off as far as they are concerned.

Rumour has it that RTE offered the second multiplex to the ILR's for less than 10 grand per station and they refused as they don't want to be forced off FM if they go digital, so 10,000 isn't expensive and not a valid argument as far as I'm concerned. A few of the stations are Identing as "Online, on FM and On Digital" (in no particular order) but if they're pulling out of Digital (DAB anyway) why still advertise it? How many people do you know that go home and switch on there NTL Digital to listen to 104 or 98 etc through their TV's??

D'Peoples Voice

sidekick wrote: »

Just received the following response from Newstalk...

Thank you for you email. We have finished our trial on Digital platform at present and we will be reassessing the merits of recommencing this service in the new year.

Can I please redirect you to our live broadcast on 106-108 fm?


Regards

Newstalk 106–108 fm
Marconi House, Digges Lane, Dublin 2.
Tel: + 353 1 644 5100
Fax: + 353 1 644 5101
www.newstalk.ie


Is this news to everyone, that they have stopped their DAB broadcasting?

any update on this?
I was thinking that it was a bit Irish that some of these radio stations would pull their service before almost every house in Ireland purchased a Saorview compliant TV set/set-top box.

LarWright

DTT (Saorview) and DAB are both very different things, meaning different legislation etc... Nobody can decide if DAB is worth adapting as it hasn't really been a huge success in the UK. We'll be waiting another 5 years before any standard of digital radio here!

RTE still have their multiplexes, and Total Broadcast have one in the Sunny South East carrying some of the Independent stations, but again, these are still trials!

Enda Murphy

Nobody is listening to those RTE dab stations, how many listeners does RTE Jr have ? I would guess 5 and RTE GOLD is just an ipod with 500 songs

Solair

There a quite a few problems with DAB:

1) It's obsolete technology.
1a) Relatively poor quality sound compared to even FM in many cases.
1b) No advantage over FM to end user in most cases, Irish spectrum not exactly overpacked.
1c) Very poor and limited choice of receivers. They are still big and power hungry and quite expensive vs FM receivers which are tiny, use almost no power and are available everywhere, built into most mobile phones etc etc.

2) Radio itself is competing with digital media players like the iPod which have vast capacities and much better quality.

3) The existing FM broadcasters won't touch it with a bargepole as it means more competition and big urban stations suddenly being available outside their local markets.

4) Community stations can't afford it and it provides them with no obvious advantage in terms of listenership

All in all, I can't really see the point of DAB.

DTT makes a whole lot of sense for TV, but not really for FM radio. To the end user, Digital TV makes perfect sense - better picture quality, better audio quality, HD and the main thing : many many more channels.

I just think DAB's a bit of a solution looking for a problem to be perfectly honest.

Digital's great, but lets not just get caught up in a 'digital dogma' where a digital technology that has a lot of disadvantages is used to replace an older analogue technology that works quite well.

If we're moving radio to digital, it will have to be a hell of a lot better than DAB or even DAB+

Fran1985

There could be some movement on DAB next year, but more in the direction of DAB+.

Certainly Dusty Rhodes seems to think so, on this podcast

http://techcentral.ie/article.aspx?id=17636

Enda Murphy

Fran1985 wrote: »

There could be some movement on DAB next year, but more in the direction of DAB+.

Certainly Dusty Rhodes seems to think so, on this podcast

http://techcentral.ie/article.aspx?id=17636

Dusty Rhoeds has a vested interest.

Fuzzy Clam

Solair wrote: »

If we're moving radio to digital, it will have to be a hell of a lot better than DAB or even DAB+

Are radio stations carried on DTT?
If so, all we need in this country are suitable radio receivers. Why roll out DAB when digital radio is already transmitted countrywide.

Fran1985

Enda Murphy wrote: »

Dusty Rhoeds has a vested interest.

which gives him more credibility when talking about it, i would think

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Are radio stations carried on DTT?
If so, all we need in this country are suitable radio receivers. Why roll out DAB when digital radio is already transmitted countrywide.

It's cheaper for stations to go on DAB

Trick of the Tail

Fran1985 wrote: »

It's cheaper for stations to go on DAB

Well it certainly would be, IF the BAI would licence commercial multiplex operators.

DAB+ is the only way we're going to get more diverse, niche programming in this country.

It should be licensed NOW, as an increment to FM, not a replacement.

DAB in the UK was handled badly - costs are far too much. Why would a station pay a mux operator over 100,000 a year? Here, it could be a fraction of that if handled sensibly by the regulator.

And it's NOT old technology, especially if DAB+ is used. Germany is rolling out DAB now, and if they're doing it it can't be long before it becomes an EU policy thing.


A.

byte

Would I be right in thinking DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale, not the mp3 crippler) will never be an option?