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DAB in Ireland: RTE multiplex closed

rlogue

WestBriton informs me that he obtained good DAB reception on a portable DAB radio in the foothills of the Dublin mountains.

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galtee boy

The Cush wrote: »

As alinton said above the SE has had a DAB trial for the last 2 years with no RTÉ DAB mux in the area so I assume DB Digital Broadcasting will install their own somewhere in the area.

Thanks Cush. I'm in North Cork and get can get DAB spillover from Woodcock Hill no problem, but I have to use a loft aerial connected to a DAB hifi. Can get Spur Hill also, but not as strong as Woodcock. It would be nice to be able to get DAB on the "kitchen tranny" for a change, but it will depend if and where they install a DAB transmitter in Cork county. Only the Cork city transmitter, Spur Hill has DAB on it, no other site in Cork county currently has DAB transmitting, unfortunately.

galtee boy

Hopes of picking up the new trial on the "kitchen tranny" dashed already. Their website has been updated, including maps of the transmission areas for the trial and as I suspected, its Dublin, Cork and Limerick CITIES and immmediate surrounding areas only ( Three Rock, Spur Hill and Woodcock Hill ). Galway seems to have been abandoned, no mention of it on their website and no transmission map for Galway either.

http://www.dbdb.ie/trial-broadcasts/

watty

It would be of more benefit if someone hit "bypass" on all the processing boxes that Radio Stations use.

The Cush

galtee boy wrote: »

Hopes of picking up the new trial on the "kitchen tranny" dashed already. Their website has been updated, including maps of the transmission areas for the trial and as I suspected, its Dublin, Cork and Limerick CITIES and immmediate surrounding areas only ( Three Rock, Spur Hill and Woodcock Hill ). Galway seems to have been abandoned, no mention of it on their website and no transmission map for Galway either.

http://www.dbdb.ie/trial-broadcasts/

Thanks for the update, Galway may have been an error in the article or else it was dropped.

I'm within the Woodcock Hill coverage area but will have to invest in a DAB+ receiver to get the full benefit. My car radio and bedside clock radio are DAB only.

STB

watty wrote: »

It would be of more benefit if someone hit "bypass" on all the processing boxes that Radio Stations use.

It would be all over the shop if you did that!

watty

What do the Sound Engineers do then, check the Optimod is well fed?

I'm old enough to remember proper Radio stations.

Trick of the Tail

Oh Watty, you naive man! Sound engineers? In a radio station?

Many stations don't have fulltime engineers any more, and those that are are often little more than IT technicians.

And even if they do, the days of a sound op looking after the levels comig from the studio are long gone. Its all self-op now. And most presenters labour under the misapprehension that thay don't ave to watch levels, as 'the Optimod will do that'.

I spend much of my training time rying to dispel that myth.

However I do agree with good audio processing. Not to make it 'louder', ut to make it consistent. Some stations who have their processing set up well still sound nice quality but the levels are consistent between audio sources, programmes and even between songs.

I'm afraid audio processing is not only necessary, it is essential.

But must be done well. And often is not.

A.

watty

I disagree. If they are so lazy as to have no-one that can set levels, the "processor" should just be used for gentle ALC not aggressively processed.

A lot of the time even RTE1 is harsh and distorted.

I might as well be listening to a transmission from a Military rig with extremely aggressive RF P.A. ALC on SSB.

Most stations have "Audio compression/processing" so aggressive they are wasting money on Optimods etc, a simple €1 Voltage controlled amp and fast time constant Peak Detector feedback would almost give the same "punchy" effect with hardly any difference in distortion. Maybe the BAI should mandate only independent Engineers should setup the processor and then it should be locked up. Like having to use an Approved transmitter rather than a kit from pira.cz or someplace.

Name me 5 stations that use a "Processor" simply to avoid having a human mind the levels and not to make it sound louder?

What's the point of Radio if it's only suitable for noisy cars?

None of the Kids or young adults I know will listen to Radio anymore unless I'm feeding some bizarrely nearly unprocessed Satellite Station via the local "itrip". Because compared to their phone's MP3 player it sounds rubbish.

Radio is killing Radio. Not the video star. There is also no point to extremely Niche DAB stations as you can make an equivalent playlist of better quality if you are a fan of the Niche.

Also content.
There is too much Junk of RTE 1 Radio for a PSB.
What excuse have RTE as a PSB for 2FM? It should be more like a Mix of BBC R2, R6, five Live and 7. Get rid of all the Music, phone ins and Sport off R1. Put the some of the R1 Music and phone ins on 2FM and ditch the rest.
Get rid of all the fake "Celeb" over paid presenters. Some Student and Hospital station presenters are better! Presenters are not content, they are enablers for content. Lets have real PSB Radio from our PSB. Ditch adverts completely or at least within News. You can't mute Adverts on Radio like TV. It's objectionable in extreme the Adverts on RTE1 Morning and Evening News Shows. Pure greed given cost of Radio vs TV. Especially if you ditch the extra layers of Managers and over paid "Presenters".

Sam Russell

watty wrote: »

What do the Sound Engineers do then, check the Optimod is well fed?

I'm old enough to remember proper Radio stations.

I thought Sound Engineers were those who could run a marathon in under 3 hours.:)

Markdub2000

Also content.
There is too much Junk of RTE 1 Radio for a PSB.
What excuse have RTE as a PSB for 2FM? It should be more like a Mix of BBC R2, R6, five Live and 7. Get rid of all the Music, phone ins and Sport off R1. Put the some of the R1 Music and phone ins on 2FM and ditch the rest.
Get rid of all the fake "Celeb" over paid presenters. Some Student and Hospital station presenters are better! Presenters are not content, they are enablers for content. Lets have real PSB Radio from our PSB. Ditch adverts completely or at least within News. You can't mute Adverts on Radio like TV. It's objectionable in extreme the Adverts on RTE1 Morning and Evening News Shows. Pure greed given cost of Radio vs TV. Especially if you ditch the extra layers of Managers and over paid "Presenters".[/QUOTE]

Agree with you 100% Watty

Markdub2000

Who's up for starting a DAB deflector....

Markdub2000

I think the problem with DAB radio is the lack of a small reciever.

You can get a hifi seperate or a "ghetto-blaster" type box with loudspeakers - there are very few adapters for cars.

I bought a sony stereo for the old celica back in 2003, it had the option of adding a DAB adaptor at a whopping 149bucks!! - no point at the time considering there were no transmissions at the time...

Current car, although 4 years its senior has no such option, and sadly, the boot-lid antenna no longer picks up radio 2 as I drive south down the N11

- unlike the lovely 6ft whip antenna the celica had on the roof with which I could get bbc from NI as I drove accross N5/M4, loosing reception only due to the height of the verge on the M4 motorway... and crystal clear coverage from wales from Wicklow right down the M11.

Is it just me or do car radios have much better signal gain

watty

There are no High quality Table model DAB sets either. The speaker too small in a Plasticy case.

You can get household radios better than car Radios. But you pay. Car radio is best with a 75cm whip, esp. on VHF. Also it's outdoors (better VHF & LW/MW signal) and for LW& MW less interference in the countryside or Motorway.

I've also used a 100kHz to 30MHz military set (with built in Aerial match unit) in the car with a triple mag mount and large whip. Generally better reception than indoors at home.

Trick of the Tail

Thats rubbish. I've got a Pure Avanti Flow which is a nice quality table radio. I also have a Pure Evoke Flow which is a smaller table radio, and a Pure ONE which is a little handheld radio, plus I have a walkman-style DAB radio.

They are equivalent or better in quality to other FM radios of similar stature.

A.

watty

You can't buy a decent FM Table Radio either.
Those all have rubbish acoustics below 300Hz

Pure don't make ANY good quality audio Table models. I doubt anyone does any more.

None of those are any better than most sets with same size speaker.

I have Table and portable Radio sets from very small (VR500) to 10" speakers.

Trick of the Tail

I beg to differ. Those Pure radios I mentioned are nice quality. The Avanti particularly has good bass response.

There are very few outstanding quality table radios around at all these days, but those are above average in quality.

Not as nice as my Bush DAC90 or a few other old valve radios I have, but that's the way it is.

I also take exception to your opinion on DAB quality. I'm listening to Nova here right now - its a 160k stream and sounds very nice.

Obviously its not as good as a linear stream would be, but that's not possible on this medium. I like FM quality, but it's not as perfect as you say. Max 15kHz high frequency response, and pre-emphasised. I like the non-pre-emphasised sound of a good DAB stream.

I further disagree with your proclamations regarding audio processing. There are many reasons why its preferable to none, but one of the most obvious is that even if a station had none, the source material on modern recordings is often compressed and multiband limited - therefore with a low peak to average ratio and sounding 'loud'. In order for a station to have some source to source consistency, audio processing is essential.

A man watching a PPM and adjusting the fader wouldn't have the same effect.

I clearly recall when RTE radio had no audio processing. The inconsistent levels made it very difficult to listen to.

Please don't get me wrong - I'm a huge proponent of good audio quality in broadcasting. I expend a lot of energy in my professional life trying to make stations sound as nice as possible, and attempting to educate operators about the evils of unnecessary use of non-linear audio, clipping and limiting during production, and excessively driving their broadcast processor to garner what they perceive as valuable 'loudness'.

However you also have to be a realist. Modern broadcast audio processors are very clever things, designed to produce good quality sound without introducing untoward levels of fatiguing artifacts. Its down to the skill of the engineer who sets it up whether is sounds good or not - ultimately sounding nice, clean, undistorted and consistent will gain listenership, and the opposite will have the opposite effect.

A.

watty

The DAC90 was a budget radio. So none of the Modern tech is as good as 1950s budget AM only set?

No, Modern Broadcast Processors are used to make the station loud and Punchy, esp for Car radios. Car Radios should Process the dynamic range (adds about 1 Euro cost). The Broadcasts are rubbish because of the misuse of of Processing.

Real Bass is practically impossible on less than a 4" x 6" or 6" speaker in a decent box unless it's horribly horribly inefficient, probably with servo feedback or something. The Pure are not doing anything different audio wise to a cheap FM set with same size speaker.

The 15KHz response is not a major issue on FM. The processing is. 44kHz & 48KHz is chosen for sampling not to get the maximum possible 22kHz and 24KHz frequency but to have practical Antialiasing filters.

The People that design "Modern broadcast audio processors" are clever. The boxes themselves are not, nor are most users.

A Pure may be better than a €35 Tesco DAB set, but none are HiFi. We had better Transistor table Radios 30 years ago. The speaker and case volume for it are too small on my Sony ICF2001D, otherwise it's not bad.

Antenna

alinton wrote: »

I like FM quality, but it's not as perfect as you say. Max 15kHz high frequency response

Very few adult humans can hear above 15kHz.

I have had people bewildered that i could tell if a CRT TV out of sight and with the volume down was switched on or not. I can hear the 15.625kHz horizontal line scan whistle - its actually very hard to find others who can hear it too. Maybe hearing damage is rampant.

Trick of the Tail

Watty said: "No, Modern Broadcast Processors are used to make the station loud and Punchy, esp for Car radios. Car Radios should Process the dynamic range (adds about 1 Euro cost). The Broadcasts are rubbish because of the misuse of of Processing."

Not the case. One of the functions of an audio processor is to make the station sound loud, but that is only one and certainly not the foremost function. Moreso they make the audio consistent - which a person could not do - and ensure it is peak limited well enough so peaks don't over-deviate. With respect, I am a broadcast engineer working with modern audio processors every day and have made their setup a speciality. I don't believe you still work in the industry, and therefore don't have hands-on experience of modern units.

I agree that the richness of an old valve radio sounds nicer than a lot of modern radios, that is because of the harmonic content and manufacturers taking the easy and cheap way out in a lot of modern designs.

This makes t more important to have good audio processing, not less.

A.

watty

But how many stations are using good Audio processing? Most are misusing it.

A modern IC radio sounds far better than an old valve one if it's got a decent box and a 6" speaker. This is easily verified by connecting an external speaker cabinet in place of the 3" speaker.

I am a broadcast engineer working with modern audio processors every day and have made their setup a speciality

You should set them up for other people and put it in a locked box. However have you ever worked for a Station where they did the levels properly and only used a soft limiter for "accidents"?
For 50 years the BBC managed to do decent radio without a modern Processor. RTE doesn't count and even with processing they still are pathetic on Levels on RTE1 Radio. Or perhaps they only care about the adverts in the News programs.

Fuzzy Clam

watty wrote: »

For 50 years the BBC managed to do decent radio without a modern Processor. RTE doesn't count and even with processing they still are pathetic on Levels on RTE1 Radio. Or perhaps they only care about the adverts in the News programs.

Modern processors have come into use because stations, inc. the BBC, want them. Decent radio is decent radio with or without processing;)
Audio compressors have been in use in radio for decades. Certainly Gates were producing broadcast compressors in the 1950's. The only difference is now they are better at what they do.

You've mentioned the levels on RTE radio 1 before. You are under the illusion that the processing is making the adverts louder than speech. This is simply not true. The audio you hear is after processing. The difference in levels would be considerably worse if no processing was involved at all. Logic alone, if you know anything about processing, will tell you that!
Radio 1 is not, as far as I can tell, heavily compressed though, which i presume is what you want.
Yet you complain!

So what if they were to increase the processing in order to keep the levels more consistent?
You would be complaining again. :rolleyes:

Fuzzy Clam

watty wrote: »

None of the Kids or young adults I know will listen to Radio anymore unless I'm feeding some bizarrely nearly unprocessed Satellite Station via the local "itrip". Because compared to their phone's MP3 player it sounds rubbish.

So no kids you know will listen to the radio unless you're feeding it to them?:rolleyes:
You talk some crap.

Fuzzy Clam

watty wrote: »

What do the Sound Engineers do then, check the Optimod is well fed?

I'm old enough to remember proper Radio stations.

What's a proper radio station?
Radio Nova in Dublin dragged radio in this country into the 20th centuary, yes using Optimods, as that's what the public wanted. RTE followed them.

Get rid of your rose tinted specs.

Fuzzy Clam

watty wrote: »

But how many stations are using good Audio processing? Most are misusing it.

No they're not. What do you mean by "misusing it" ?
There's only a couple of stations I know who are really pushing the limits to sound louder.
I

Fuzzy Clam

watty wrote: »

a simple €1 Voltage controlled amp and fast time constant Peak Detector feedback would almost give the same "punchy" effect with hardly any difference in distortion.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or not!:eek:

Charles Slane

Three stations have appeared as part of the DB Digital Broadcasting trial in Dublin - All 80's, Radio Ri Ra and UCB.

Elmo

Charles Slane wrote: »

Three stations have appeared as part of the DB Digital Broadcasting trial in Dublin - All 80's, Radio Ri Ra and UCB.

Radio RíRá was given a Digital Licence during the week. Spirit FM got a FM (MW?) licence (though unconnected with UCB afaik). All 80's I assume are still technically Radio Mocha?

bkehoe

Elmo wrote: »

Radio RíRá was given a Digital Licence during the week. Spirit FM got a FM (MW?) licence (though unconnected with UCB afaik). All 80's I assume are still technically Radio Mocha?

Spirit and UCB are totally separate and both competed for the licence that Spirit now holds.

UCB have held a BAI content licence for several years permitting their broadcasts on UPC/Sky and they have been carried on the South-East regional DAB trial since 2010.

holidaysong

Good to see some commercial DAB stations in Dublin. How new is this trial?

The Cush

holidaysong wrote: »

Good to see some commercial DAB stations in Dublin. How new is this trial?

Announced last March - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=77539631#post77539631

According to an article in the Sunday Business Post (attached) it started broadcasting in Dublin last Sunday week, as Charles Slane posted above. Not available in Cork, Limerick and Galway yet.

Ten spaces are available on the mux, three further DAB exclusive services may be on air by year end. According to the report below the 3 current services are transmitting in both DAB and DAB+.

Rollout schedule
- Phase 1 Dublin July 1st 2012
- Phase 2 Cork & Limerick Q1 2013 (Subj to site upgrade works)
- Phase 3 Galway TBC

DB Digital Broadcasting’s DAB trial is now on-air in Dublin with Cork and Limerick to follow. It broadcasts on Channel 12A (223.936Mhz). To tune in simply re-scan your radio to hear the stations.

There are three aims to the trial;

Transmission;
Testing signal strength, aerial array systems, indoor/outdoor reception and comparisons between DAB and DAB+. Transmission Maps.

Data;
Testing text and picture data which can be displayed on receiver screens including DLS, DL+, EPG, Slideshow, RadioTAG and other new technologies.

Content;
In addition to simulcasting a number of existing stations we shall be gauging reaction to a number of new DAB exclusive radio formats.

http://www.dbdb.ie/trial-broadcasts/

Q2 2012 Report

Jul 2, 2012 // by dusty // DB Blog // 3 Comments

At the end of each quarter you can get an update with the latest developments and achievements of the dB Digital Broadcasting DAB trial. To automatically receive updates by email or RSS feed see our Join In page.

Q2 has been a very intense period of activity as we geared up to putting our trial on-air.

On the technical front we took delivery of all the required transmission equipment and the installation was carried out during June. Our inventory now includes transmitters from Rhode & Swartz and Harris. These are two of the leading manufacturers of DAB transmission equipment and we shall be testing the various transmitters as part of our trial.

We have a special thanks to say to our engineering team who took every problem in their stride, delivered a solution and had on us on-air on-schedule for July 1st.

This has also been a very active quarter working with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland on licencing new services for DAB. The first two of these are All 80s and Raidió Rí-Rá. The latter has been an internet only service up to now and their participation will provide some interesting insight regarding online v’s DAB radio. In the meantime we continue to work with the BAI on three further DAB exclusive services which we hope will be licenced by Q4.

The first three services launched on July 1st were;
All 80s
Raidió Rí-Rá
UCB

Each service broadcasts on traditional DAB and the new world standard DAB+.

Each stations DAB+ service includes Slideshow displaying images as well as the station audio. In particular All 80s are working with All-In-Media’s Rapid software. This delivers rich dynamically updated information from now playing to weather/traffic info plus listener requests all displayed on-screen.

Now the trial is on-air our first task is to slowly bring up the transmitter power and directly compare it with the local RTÉ service. Other tests include variations on actual transmitter, error correction, encoding rates and others.

Each month we intend to post a list of the specific items we are working on and your feedback would be greatly appreciated in the comments section below. Keep up-to-date automatically with these updates by email or RSS feed on our Join In page.

http://www.dbdb.ie/q2-2012-report/

Q1 2012 Report

May 1, 2012 // by dusty // DB Blog // No Comments

At the end of each quarter you can get an update with the latest developments and achievements of the dB Digital Broadcasting DAB trial. To automatically receive updates by email or RSS feed see our Join In page.

January 2012 started with confirmation from ComReg of our trial licence for DAB transmissions. The licence covers transmitters located at Irelands four main cities; Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway. The three key areas on which we shall be reporting back to Comreg and the BAI are; transmission, data and content. Find more details about our trial goals here.

With the licence confirmed we officially invited approximately forty broadcasters to provide radio stations to the trial. Despite the recession we had a higher than expected response, and surprisingly, some responses from outside of Ireland also.

For Irish broadcasters we have avoided general simulcasting of FM services. We believe that DAB needs to offer listeners something new or different. To make this a reality a number of new stations are going though a content licencing process with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland which should be complete by June.

Running in conjunction with this was sourcing suppliers for the actual multiplex and transmission equipment.

For the mux we sought a supplier who was equally keen to expand the data functionality of DAB and use our trial to experiment with brand new world leading features. Our supplier of choice is the Swedish based Factum Electronics. Their mux is capable of encoding sixteen different stations in DAB or DAB+ as well as supplying DLS, DL+, EPG, Slideshow, TPEG and more right out of the box. We are excited to be working with Factum and others over the coming months on other data features yet to be announced.

On the transmission side we have engaged German company Plish, who also supply RTÉ, for our transmitters. The supplier chain is rounded off with Delta Mechanics cavity filters and Aldena for custom antenna manufacture.

Now the base elements are decided we are working through Q2 on putting everything in place.

We shall be rolling out the trial in three phases;
Phase 1 Dublin July 1st 2012
Phase 2 Cork & Limerick Q1 2013 (Subj to site upgrade works)
Phase 3 Galway TBC

http://www.dbdb.ie/q1-report/