DAB in the Waterford area

smalltalk

I got a nice new radio a couple of weeks ago which has DAB,the radio auto tuned and gave me 4 or 5 DAB stations which were very good.After a week or so the stations disappeared and subsequent auto tunes give me zero stations,does any one know if this is a broadcasting issue or is it a hardware issue.

thanks in advance

The Cush

Total Broadcast have/had a trial DAB licence for the south-east but not sure what the current situation is.

http://www.totalbroadcast.net/DAB.html

lertsnim

No sign of RTÉ bothering to launch their stations in the south east yet?

h7nlrp2v0g5u48

lertsnim wrote: »

No sign of RTÉ bothering to launch their stations in the south east yet?

RTE said they have a five year plan last year and one of the things in that plan is to extend DAB coverage to tbe rest of the country. Again this all depends on how much spare money is floating around. I wouln'd be holding my breath waiting for this to happen.

watty

Pointless.
RTE would do better shutter existing and spend the money on improved content.

DAB is tech that is:

• Bad User Interface
• Bad User Experience if portable or Mobile
• x20 higher power consumption
• Lower quality than FM because no-one will pay for enough spectrum
• Anti-competitive to smaller area stations.
• Impossible in a Shop to know if a set is DAB+ compatible.
• Almost none have AM (LW Needed for Travelling or R4 / French in Ireland)
• Most not enough station presets for VHF-FM
• Most No easy manual tuning on FM and may even be awkward to setup on DAB without a manual.

Waste of money for Listeners and Broadcasters.

Almost any portable DAB set other than Car Radio has far to small / poor quality speaker, but with such low bit rates maybe it doesn't matter.

Digital is fine for TV because it's not meant to be Mobile / Portable in Ireland and gives real improvements (WS and HD). Also from earliest days TV is only "preset" stations. The User Interface on Digital TV vs Analogue is similar or better, no worse. Unlike DAB experience vs VHF-FM even on a 1964 radio or even a 1956 Portable AM/FM set.

galtee boy

I know I will probably get crucified by some for posting this, but I think internet radio has made the whole DAB radio thing irrelevant/obsolete in this day and age. With broadband coverage improving all the time and indeed 4G coverage becoming widely available also, internet radio is the way to go. I travelled from Cork this evening on the motorway for 35 odd miles, put BBC Radio 5 Live on my phone via the Tunein Radio app, switched on Bluetooth and had crystal clear reception on my car stereo, no wires, no cables etc required, and not once did the internet connection drop out. Obviously at home, you can dock your phone to a docking station or indeed use an internet radio, thousands of stations from all over the world and if you are into sport , as I am, a free VPN app or a paid for one, which I find more reliable, will give football commentaries on 5 Live or Talksport which are otherwise geoblocked via internet radio.

watty

Broadcast is needed for "main" stations (But AM /FM not DAB). Internet does work for Niche stations.

The biggest argument (only valid one) for DAB was "choice". But the extra stations have very very low listening figures.

Also if there was a "will" there could be more than x3 as many FM stations and also 3 national AM stations (we have the allocations, unused).

Internet can't replace RTE1, RTE 2FM, Limerick 95, Lyric etc as it's not scalable. But certainly absolutely viable for specialist / niche stations, at higher quality and lower cost.

Antenna

watty wrote: »

• Bad User Interface
• Most No easy manual tuning on FM

these are issues with FM/AM radios with digital tuning in general (not just FM on DAB radios)

I have come across FM/AM car radios where it was a complete mystery to 'ordinary people' how to do manual tuning (if a desired station was below the Seek tuning threshold) . - they would have wanted to hear a distant local station or a (nearby but weak) community station on FM or BBC 5Live etc on MW, yet couldn't because they couldn't find how to do a manual tune.

Sam Russell

To me radio has been a poor relation for very many years. When a video recorder (remember them) could be set to record multiple programmes over the next week or month, radio could not be recorded because the equipment did not exist.

I have a DAB/FM radio with 5 presets. Now the presets are 5 for FM and 5 for DAB, and 5 for internet radio, etc. What I would like is button 1 for RTE 1 on DAB, with button 2 to be BBC R4 on internet, 3 to be Newstalk on FM, etc.

Not possible. Why not? It could be done, but it isn't. Also, switching from one format to another requires cycling through them all. Daft.

SimonMaher

Sam Russell wrote: »

To me radio has been a poor relation for very many years. When a video recorder (remember them) could be set to record multiple programmes over the next week or month, radio could not be recorded because the equipment did not exist.

I have a DAB/FM radio with 5 presets. Now the presets are 5 for FM and 5 for DAB, and 5 for internet radio, etc. What I would like is button 1 for RTE 1 on DAB, with button 2 to be BBC R4 on internet, 3 to be Newstalk on FM, etc.

Not possible. Why not? It could be done, but it isn't. Also, switching from one format to another requires cycling through them all. Daft.

Good post Sam! I was at a conference a couple of years ago and one of the guys behind the RadioPlayer in the UK was there with a mock up of a "Radio". Basically it looked like a standard old radio with 6 preset buttons on the front. The idea was that the listener would search for and store their favourite stations (exactly as you suggest). Could be pulling those stations from Wi-Fi, FM, DAB or wherever.

His thesis (in my view a correct one) is that the majority of normal punters couldn't care less about the technology that lets them hear the football or their favourite tunes in good quality. They just want to press "1" and get BBC1 or Newstalk (or 8Radio.com obviously). On it's way in real life in the next 2-3 years.

Simon

Sam Russell

It could of course be done now with a firmware update. Not going to happen then.

watty

Sam Russell wrote: »

I have a DAB/FM radio with 5 presets. Now the presets are 5 for FM and 5 for DAB, and 5 for internet radio, etc. What I would like is button 1 for RTE 1 on DAB, with button 2 to be BBC R4 on internet, 3 to be Newstalk on FM, etc.

Not possible. Why not? It could be done, but it isn't. Also, switching from one format to another requires cycling through them all. Daft.

Generally Radios appear to be now designed by "box designers" and then cheapest "gubbins" stuck in and User Interface (knobs/buttons/display and software) designed & implemented by someone clueless.

L1011

That there's maybe three, if even, chipsets for DAB radios in existence really limits features. The vast majority run on Imagination Technologies chipsets meaning they usually have identical interfaces to Pure radios - Imagination owning Pure.

watty

I think only two actually in production.

But you can be very inventive with the User Interface (physical controls, type of screen(s) and software). That isn't limited by the chipset at all.

They are built down to a price with poor cabinet, poor speaker(s) and totally minimal software, similar to what would be on an evaluation board with a small text LCD.

But the very concept of Digital Radio, never mind DAB for other than fixed Home use piggy backed on TV infrasctucture of Cable, DTT or Satellite is pointless.

Actually a DTT tuner in a box with suitable software and without HD TV can outperform DAB in power consumption and every other aspect, only not suitable for "portable" due to TV network not supporting portable TV to save on Transmitter site numbers! Except on Irish DTT RTE has only 128K MP2 (even though ALL Saorview boxes/TVs MUST do AAC, 64K AAC is similar to 128 MP2 and 128K AAC is similar to 192k MP2. At 256K MP2 there is little difference in MP3 or AAC at same bit rate, and some material at 256K will sound better on MP2 than AAC. AAC is optimised for lower bit rates than the 256K approx similar to FM quality. On DAB+, the AAC will not be used to increase quality but to double number of stations at much less than FM quality, hence most DAB+ testing is of 64K, which is rubbish unless you only listen to over compressed over processed Pop on a 2" to 3" speaker.)

DAB is a pointless duplication of DTT or AM/FM using inferior technology.

Onthe3rdDay

I'm actually confused by the business logic of anyone trying to launch DAB or DAB+ at this time. It appears these tests have been going on for years. I don't know anyone that actually uses DAB in Ireland (and I have a few radio anorak friends, they have the equipment but they don't use it.) I myself have a DAB radio and I'm in range of Northern Irish Signals regularly. However I stick to FM as it's a better signal. So the DAB gathers dust. I only have a DAB radio as it was on offer in Tesco for 10 or 12 euro a while back. (Philips)

So if almost no one has the radios so how could anyone make any money from the enterprise? I'm not being funny here, it would be nice to have an answer.

Banjoxed

Sam Russell wrote: »

To me radio has been a poor relation for very many years. When a video recorder (remember them) could be set to record multiple programmes over the next week or month, radio could not be recorded because the equipment did not exist.

I have a DAB/FM radio with 5 presets. Now the presets are 5 for FM and 5 for DAB, and 5 for internet radio, etc. What I would like is button 1 for RTE 1 on DAB, with button 2 to be BBC R4 on internet, 3 to be Newstalk on FM, etc.

Not possible. Why not? It could be done, but it isn't. Also, switching from one format to another requires cycling through them all. Daft.

Huh. My DAB radio does 1 for RTE R1 on FM and have the BBCs etc on the other presets. Thankfully being close to the border up here there won't be any attempts by anyone to nobble my DAB reception any time soon.

watty

Onthe3rdDay wrote: »

I'm actually confused by the business logic of anyone trying to launch DAB or DAB+ at this time. It appears these tests have been going on for years. ...
So if almost no one has the radios so how could anyone make any money from the enterprise? I'm not being funny here, it would be nice to have an answer.

Someone that wants about 20 stations Nationally. DAB+ allows twice as many channels at nearly same quality as DAB. Or who wants to sell DAB Radios. DAB+ is NEVER about having better quality but more channels for same cost.

DAB or DAB+ isn't suitable for local stations for a number of reasons.

Though for decent portable and Mobile coverage without drop outs you'd need about x6 as many TX sites as FM uses today though not as high power. Thus mostly SFN (no use for Local) is needed too.