FáilteDAB: Coverage, Tests and Services

"Nowen Hill" is now on air, i just done a scan and got 28 stations.

?Onic Irish has a question mark at the start of its name, & it’s not playing

For curiosity, I tried tuning in the Internet streams of the Mux 2 stations on my parents Roberts 83i radio to see how many play preroll ads on it, as I initially was surprised how few random stations started with an ad, unlike listening through a smart speaker or website/radio app. The Roberts radio has been in daily use since they got it in 2012, mainly playing the German station "RTL Die Besten Hits Aller Zeiten", an Oldies station, ad-free apart from a short hourly news break and more recently Onic Gold, which they love.

Coincidentally, the power supply blew when I selected GHR! After replacing it with another 12V adapter, I continued testing the rest. As the radio displays codec and bitrate, I noted this along with the DAB bitrate from my own radio (the Roberts 83i doesn't support DAB+). For anyone that has a Roberts Internet radio, the companion airable.fm website has a station browser, which can stream on a web browser (requires the radio to access). I retested each stream on the Airable website to see whether it played a preroll ad. Some stations such as Freedom and Radio Nova play a preroll ad on the Airable website, but not on the Roberts radio.

At the time of testing, GOLOUD, Spirit and Sunshine would not stream. GOLOUD would play the preroll ad and just go silent, whereas both Spirit and Sunshine just failed and returned to the station browser.

Thanks for confirming this as I assumed Roberts never added DAB+ support, especially with them mentioning that their radios manufactured before 2014 highly unlikely support DAB+ and cannot be upgraded. My parents got theirs in 2012.

As Mom asked if I could reattach the handle (two screws came loose inside), I decided to try my Yagi VHF III aerial as it couldn't get a lock with its whip telescopic aerial. I really like that Roberts has an F-Plug on the aerial, accessible inside a small removable panel at its base:

With the Yagi attached with an F-Plug, sure enough it tuned the 27 stations.

I'm not sure if it fully supports HE-AAC with the codec shown as AAC, however, the audio sounds just as bright as my DAB+ radios.

I thought I'd check what Google would say and its AI is adamant on the radio not supporting DAB+. 😁

Honestly, out of spite I just run BreakawayOne here on one of the PCs in the shed streaming any station I like 24/7 and passing through metadata from other spots like Shazam or their API… I can't stand prerolls ;).

RTE GOLD has now been added to Mux 2. Making it 28 DAB+ radio stations on Mux 2.

Can confirm although a bit sparse looking at the moment on my car.

Is it on Mux 1 as well?

RTÉ Gold on Mux 1 now.

This is very good news for the trial service.

I'd nearly given up hope that RTE Gold would appear on Failte DAB, so much time had passed since the hints and rumours started.

I feel that having an RTE station on the service gives it a sense of legitimacy, if that makes sense. I know people who listen to RTE Gold on the TV (yes, really!) and who will be very happy to be able to tune it in easliy in their cars.

Great to see our rumours were true ! Now 28 stations and space for loads more… Wonder what else will come our way.

Note subchannel 32 for RTÉ Gold, minus the SPI channel and we have 31 subchannels for audio at the moment, so that means the mux could have a max of 31 stations. Wonder what else will fill the spots.

I haven't listened to RTE Gold since they switched off their own DAB

I listened for an hour and a half this morning on a drive and I think I prefer GHR.

It can only be good for Fáilte to have it on the network though