LW ,MW, SW Radio and The Future Of DRM

The Tullamore site , isn't that where the 252 Khz transmitter is ?

Where was the old MW one ?

I can imagine when RTE closes 252 they will dismantle it and it's a shame because at night it gets good coverage through Europe. I would hope someone has interest in it. It would be a shame to see it go.

If I had the funds I would love to set up a MW LW and SW station.

Tullamore is the old 567 site. Summerhill (or Clarkstown) is the 252 site.

Glad they haven't destroyed the Tullamore site yet. There should be preservation orders on these sites.

You know, as mental as this sounds I feel every house should be equipped with a radio that has LW, MW and SW, if there was ever a major War or natural disaster and the internet and mobile comms went down then this would be the only means of receiving emergency communications.

With Putin acting the Divil who knows what will happen, in the event of a high altitude Nuclear detonation all modern electronics will be fried due to EMP so old transistor radios, or even better, old valve radios should be in every house.

Anyway, I feel that destroying LW, MW and SW transmitters would be a major mistake.

Mickey Mike

I'm afraid we have to forget about AM radio going forward, we will be lucky to hold on to FM. These large AM transmitters are expensive to run and for them to work property they need to be on full power, unlike half power as of 252

Analogue FM isn't going anywhere for a very long time. There is no real advantage to digital radio for short distance transmissions, digital would make much better sense on MW and SW bands.

Digital FM or DAB and DAB+ usually mean a much inferior sound quality than analogue FM due to outrageous compression being used. You'll hardly find a DAb or internet radio transmission in Ireland above 56 Kbps. Absolutely shocking.

My point still stands and I think it's very valid that in the event of a major natural disaster or war , we should keep MW, LW and SW transmissions alive and make sure every home is equipped with a decent quality radio.

SRM on SW is supposed to be really good and India is pushing DRM big time and is quiet successful there I believe. I would live to not have to depend on the internet to listen to radio. Not to mention the battery sucking demands such devices require. I like to be free of the internet sometimes.

L1011

Deleted User wrote: »

You'll hardly find a DAb or internet radio transmission in Ireland above 56 Kbps. Absolutely shocking.
=.

You won't find a DAB(v1) transmission that low in Ireland at all - 80k mono is the lowest. 48k DAB+ is perfectly acceptable.

The claim that standard 128k MPEG1 Layer II DAB sounds worse than FM is based off the encoding technology available when launched about 20 years ago. The 96k stereo transmissions in the UK are worse, though - but we don't go that low here.

Lyric is 160k which is almost unheard of in the UK.

Sam Russell

L1011 wrote: »

Lyric is 160k which is almost unheard of in the UK.

Lyric is unheard in Galway as well - whatever the bit rate. If DAB is to catch on it needs to go nationwide.

Sam Russell

Sam Russell wrote: »

Lyric is unheard in Galway as well - whatever the bit rate. If DAB is to catch on it needs to go nationwide.

There's no advantage to DAB. I see no point, I see a point to some digital transmissions on Am and Shortwave , some of the transmissions are quiet amazing over such distances, the signal needs to be quiet good though .

L1011

L1011 wrote: »

You won't find a DAB(v1) transmission that low in Ireland at all - 80k mono is the lowest. 48k DAB+ is perfectly acceptable.

The claim that standard 128k MPEG1 Layer II DAB sounds worse than FM is based off the encoding technology available when launched about 20 years ago. The 96k stereo transmissions in the UK are worse, though - but we don't go that low here.

Lyric is 160k which is almost unheard of in the UK.

Last I heard DAB it was woeful , think it was on the days of tests from Mount leinster.

I certainly wouldn't call 48 Kbps acceptable , anything but.

Mickey Mike

Can anybody predict what we'll have as a broadcasting standard in 20 years time in Ireland? Will we have FM or DAB+? I know AM will be well gone 'surely'

Hard to imagine what the situation will be in 20 years, I expect FM will still be on the go, I mean why force people to buy new radios for something that's of no benefit ? DAB, = pointless.

As I said making AM, SW digital makes sense and this is what they're doing in India and other parts of the world.

Germany and France have 1 station that they are using DRM as a trial on SW but I don't think they're serious about it. There isn't a commercial DRM capable receiver available outside of India yet.

I do think it's a massive mistake to abandon Am, and SW, if there is a major war or natural disaster, even a massive solar flare large enough to knock out massive sections of our electrical grids then chances are most digital forms of communications will go down and AM, LW, SW and FM may be the only form of communications.

I feel every home in Ireland should keep an old AM, FM, LW, SW radio. Preferably the old transistor ones.

To find out how good DRM is you'll have to get an SDR receiver , some of the RTL dongles or I use the SDRplay from http://sdrplay.com/

One thing with SDR or any SW is that you need to eliminate sources of noice, any switch mode power supplies, such as monitors, some monitors are way noisier than others, led lights, compact fluorescent and power line adaptors for running internet over the house mains wiring is absolutely brutal etc.

You'll need to decode the DRM signal also, check out the below site.

http://www.rtl-sdr.com/tutorial-drm-radio-using-rtl-sdr/

Note that with a lot of the SDR dongles you need to use an up-converter to use frequencies below in some cases 30 mhz, with the SDRplay you don't and it's less hassle , you don't need an up-converter.

Anyway if you get it working, digital on SW is quiet amazing but does suffer the all or nothing problems with digital and the bitrate can be quiet low but it's an example of what can be done and it's amazing how clear stations can be from so far.

I don't think AM or SW will go anywhere this century. There's still quiet a huge interest in Ham radio also and getting more popular with the likes of SDR, there's more interest in listening also. Some day I hope to get my Ham license.

Mickey Mike

For DRM the short wave band is best, much better than LW and MW as the radio waves are shorter, I would like such a service, we have the mast in Tullamore Co, Offaly

L1011

Deleted User wrote: »

Last I heard DAB it was woeful , think it was on the days of tests from Mount leinster.

I certainly wouldn't call 48 Kbps acceptable , anything but.

You haven't heard it, then. 48kbps HE-AAC+ is not 48kbps mp3.

L1011

L1011 wrote: »

You haven't heard it, then. 48kbps HE-AAC+ is not 48kbps mp3.

I have not heart the DAB broadcast in this quality but I have heard 48 Kbps AAC, compression has got a lot better over the years but it hasn't got that much better.....

48 Kbps might be acceptable for small portable receivers but that's about it. It might be better than 48 kbps Mp3 but anyway they're both low quality streams, still I would prefer 48 Kbps over the on lime streams of 16-64 Kbps most Irish radio stations stream online.

The BBC now stream 320 Kbps AAC online, I don't know about their DAB+ streams, I presume they'd use 48 Kbps if they deemed it acceptable quality. At that rate it's leaps and bounds better than FM but it all depends on how it's encoded at the radio station end. By the way the BBC high bitrate streams are Geo blocked , unbelievable lol.

Mickie Mike

Mickie Mike wrote: »

For DRM the short wave band is best, much better than LW and MW as the radio waves are shorter, I would like such a service, we have the mast in Tullamore Co, Offaly

Was that the old MW station ?

Yeah to hear DRM on Shortwave is truly amazing. And it means I can listen to some stations with perfect clarity with none of that interference I am plagued with here in the housing estate, it's got a very bad RF problem and I would love to find the source but we're moving soon, however DRM means listening to SW stations is a pleasure even if most for now are low bitrate it beats the high RF problem I have to endure, when I go to my Aunts the difference to SW reception is just amazing.

The problem is signal fade out, DRM like any other digital transmission needs a strong signal where you can still hear something on analogue but with RF it actually might not be heard.

My problem for now is being tied to the laptop for DRM reception.

The SDRplay is truly great device, I highly recommend it, you need a good antenna, well grounded or use a magnetic loop on a rotator on the chimney either, magnetic loops are supposed to be absolutely terrific at reducing RF interference in urban areas.

The Wellbrook loops got great reviews.

http://www.wellbrook.uk.com/Loop_Antennas

Mickey Mike

The old MW station was RTE Radio 1 567 khz

Mickie Mike

Mickie Mike wrote: »

The old MW station was RTE Radio 1 567 khz

Which was Tullamore ?

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Which was Tullamore ?

Correct.

Tullamore: RTE/Radio 1 1975-2008 (567 kHz)
Athlone: Radio Éireann/RTE: 1933-1975 (565, 566 kHz). Radio 2/2FM: 1979-2004 (612 kHz)
Clarkstown: Atlantic 252: 1989-2001, TeamTalk 252: 2002, Radio 1: 2004 onwards (252 kHz)

Thanks for that, Wow, was Atlantic 252 only on the Air 2 years ? seemed like a lot longer , I used to love that station !

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Thanks for that, Wow, was Atlantic 252 only on the Air 2 years ? seemed like a lot longer , I used to love that station !

12 years. 1989-2001.

Karsini

Karsini wrote: »

12 years. 1989-2001.

Fecking hell, what was I thinking.

Trying to watch telly and type ! :eek:

L1011

Deleted User wrote: »

I have not heart the DAB broadcast in this quality but I have heard 48 Kbps AAC, compression has got a lot better over the years but it hasn't got that much better.....

AAC is a decade and two full technology cycles than HE-AAC+.

The BBC use 320 to satisfy a few bandwidth snobs, not because there's any need to - at bitrates that high, it is better to use older, simpler compression.

Sam Russell

Deleted User wrote: »

There's no advantage to DAB. I see no point, I see a point to some digital transmissions on Am and Shortwave , some of the transmissions are quiet amazing over such distances, the signal needs to be quiet good though .

I was not praising DAB only pointing out it does not get as far as Galway or much of the country.

L1011

L1011 wrote: »

AAC is a decade and two full technology cycles than HE-AAC+.

The BBC use 320 to satisfy a few bandwidth snobs, not because there's any need to - at bitrates that high, it is better to use older, simpler compression.

High Efficiency AAC + @48 Kbps maybe suitable for portable use but it's not good quality, not in my book. Anyway we can argue this one for a long time I guess we have to agree to disagree.

Mickey Mike

Just looking at Saturday's Irish Daily Mail and its not pretty reading, RTE are about to sell off parts of Donnybrook as it try to balance the books. So where does that leave future development? We can forget about DAB expansion and totally forget about DRM only to manage what they have now. I could still see an end to LW Radio 252 next May, with that state their in.

I thought 252 was to go in January ?

I really hope the transmitter is kept and all transmitting equipment.

What's to go in RTE ?

The Cush

Deleted User wrote: »

I thought 252 was to go in January ?

Decision to be reviewed according to a recent press report - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=101224225#post101224225

Deleted User wrote: »

What's to go in RTE ?

About 10 acres - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=98589608#post98589608

Mickey Mike

Yes 10 acres, consists of a sports field and the entire Fair City set on that ground. The set will move closer to the main building. They are also considering other sites around the country.

I wish they'd dump fair city, it's complete and utter crap, as bad as Glenroe was it was miles better than that fair city , pure utter crap.

@96

The BBC streams at 96 kbps AAC 48 k sample rate . You can't get their HD streams as they call it outside the uk but This is quiet acceptable at least on my Roberts R100 @96 Kbps AAC. Way better than most Irish streams both on the internet and DAB.

Listening to BBC 2 now. I wish Irish stations had more music , there's no various genres in Ireland really, not in this part of Kildare , it's mostly talk and news every 30 mins is just horribly annoying along with pop crap, going back to BBC 2.

All my local stations are talk at this time and todayfm , radio 1 , 2Fm is just a crap station altogether , just listening to the crap they're playing at this time is just really annoying.

Anyway , I wish for stations to transmit in DRM , I don't like having to be tied to the internet to listen to radio. It would be nice to get long distance transmissions outside the house on SW in digital.