All posts by D. Underwood
Below are all of D. Underwood's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Since january 2013 i have noticed the amplitude of radio 5 on the towyn am transmitted has started varying low then high causing users to have to adjust the volume control correspondingly to sound level at a pitch it can set for comfortable listening it is not due to atmospheric conditions as i constantly monitor the site output i still wonder if this is deliberate as the bbc monitor the output and it would be obvious to the engineering dept that amplitude was varying but the official bbc site shows towyn AM transmitter as no problems but it is a great idea to annoy listeners and drive them onto digital ready for 2015 declaration of over 55% of wales now on digital as i stated before we have had digital radio for many years via our freeview boxes DAB on the west of wales is US on portable radios due to multipath of our surrounding hills.
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Since my last blog relating to TWYN( AM) Radio 5 transmitter around february. I note the depth of modulation has again been reduced which now requires the volume control to be turned up almost full to get an acceptable listening level i note that radio wales as a comparison is consistent in its amplitude considering it is further away from my newquay location and the volume level is exactly the same as it as always been,i read with interest today that back in the 1980s during transmitter changes from AM to FM the BBC admit that the AM broadcast powers are reduced etc to (ENCOURAGE) the population to move onto the (new) broadcast medium of (FM) i can see this now being repeated moving us from (AM) to (DAB) with its 64kbps bit rate (poor quality sound) when compared to (FM) on a happier note all the (AM FM) radios handed in against the purchase of a shiny new (DAB) radio are going to be exported to poorer parts of the world ,why cant we be given the choice of (AM FM DAB) as we have now .
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When will booster DAB transmitters be covering Newquay area of Wales as reception even at 600 feet above sea
is very hit and miss and radio will only work next to a window and breaks into bubbling mud sound due to low signal strength, if you use the DAB checker for this area of West Wales it states DAB not yet available do you know when there will be plans for a high power signal for DAB covering this area.
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Saturday 15 September 2012 2:23PM
Can you confirm if the ERP of the TOWYN Radio 5 AM transmitter power has been reduced i note it states 400watts ERP but on other official sites quotes 5kw ERP is output from the site,the reason i ask is that i live at newquay in Dyfed and used to get superb signal but it seems now much degraded and near impossible to get at night i did wonder if degrading AM signals was a good way to move us to the proposed B2 Plus digital system when it reaches 50% of the population. we get excellent digital radio from the freeview box when we need it but portable DAB is useless due to weak signal strength we can only hope the government see sense and give us high power local DAB to supplement analogue, at least it does work here in my part of wales even at slight reduction in quality due to the many hills shading transmissions but if we only had DAB we would get mainly silence as its either on or off as regards reception.Thankyou.