Jason warrior: It is most unlikely that sound digital will ever be extended to cover Orkney and Shetland. Even D1 which is basically required to serve the (intentional) coverage area of Classic FM's analogue service does not extend North beyond the Inverness service area, as it currently stands. A proposed North Scotland local multiplex which involved extending the Inverness local area to cover the whole of the North of Scotland, specifically excluded Orkney and Shetland, with a proviso that if BBC and commercial interests required the islands to be included there would have to be a revised plan drawn up to extend the editorial area of the multiplex. Realistically the options for Orkney and Shetland are either retention of existing FM services, the provision of a small scale DAB multiplex to include the existing commercial radio station, Radio Nan Gaidheal and BBC Scotland or maybe a reconfigured BBC national multiplex to include all services required to offer DAB coverage in the area. This option has been suggested by Ofcom to serve remote parts of Wales, but could require the use of a different frequency if signals are also present from transmitters carrying the normal configurations, as the arrangement would no longer work as an SFN. It really depends on how determined the government are to remove FM transmissions in the event of an FM switch off and what technical and financial limitations affect the eventual decision.
Monday 1 August 2016 12:04PM
Jason warrior: It is most unlikely that sound digital will ever be extended to cover Orkney and Shetland. Even D1 which is basically required to serve the (intentional) coverage area of Classic FM's analogue service does not extend North beyond the Inverness service area, as it currently stands. A proposed North Scotland local multiplex which involved extending the Inverness local area to cover the whole of the North of Scotland, specifically excluded Orkney and Shetland, with a proviso that if BBC and commercial interests required the islands to be included there would have to be a revised plan drawn up to extend the editorial area of the multiplex. Realistically the options for Orkney and Shetland are either retention of existing FM services, the provision of a small scale DAB multiplex to include the existing commercial radio station, Radio Nan Gaidheal and BBC Scotland or maybe a reconfigured BBC national multiplex to include all services required to offer DAB coverage in the area. This option has been suggested by Ofcom to serve remote parts of Wales, but could require the use of a different frequency if signals are also present from transmitters carrying the normal configurations, as the arrangement would no longer work as an SFN. It really depends on how determined the government are to remove FM transmissions in the event of an FM switch off and what technical and financial limitations affect the eventual decision.