All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
J Martin: 'I agree technology moves on but mainly when big manufactures learned if they made something that last for a long time people stop buying and sales dry up.'
Most tech formats start to vanish when either something better but cheaper comes along, or when the market generally (and that means consumers) lose interest. You might still want to use that cassette player you bought in 1979, but your not going to be able to buy any new music on it. Consumers started to move over to CD's, and the music companies followed them - they might still have released music on vinyl, cassette and CD for a while, but if no one wants to buy that album on C90 any more, what is the company supposed to do? And lots of formats never quite take off - think of minidisc, etc.
steve P: 'Technologies do of course get made redundant when better technologies appear, but this should happen by natural economic forces not by government intervention. I have seen no convincing argument why DAB is BETTER than FM and can present many why it is not. NB I have no wish to ban DAB; I just object to my preferred transmission method being banned. If broadcasters choose not to provide transmissions so be it, but don't ban them. '
In the case of technology, its often not just through natural economics - pretty much all modern mass transport has been shaped by government in one way or another, be it rail, cars or aviation. And broadcasting is something thats always had to have regulation and government invovlement, and of course that includes the technology behind it - the sort of capital and planning needed pretty much requires it.
FM is not going anywhere yet, but the trend is clear. Thats no different to the way that FM gradually took over from AM, etc. It first began in 1955 in the UK on the BBC, but Radio 1 was still partially on MW until 1994. Commercial radio stations simulcasted on MW and FM from the start, but only stopped doing this when the IBA told them to stop in 1989-90 (again, offical advise, not just the market).
Techonologies often take a very long time to really get going, but once they are taken up by enough people, it can then often take a very long time for them to vanish. But once they start to slide or be supplemented, there reaches a point where you have to 'put them down', rather than than have them linger. The cost of running a broadcast system which just enough people use to mean you can't just ignore it, but not enough to make it worth doing is huge, and therefore government needs to step in.
I dont really care if FM is better or worse than DAB for an individual (although I barely notice any real difference in audio quality on the equipment I use, no one has ever asked me about bitrates when I sell radios, and I can get a much larger number of stations on DAB), but if enough individuals stop listening to analogue, the market will want to move on. FM wont be banned, it will just have fallen so out of favour that its no longer worth doing.
Its like when people complain that their favourite sweet is being discontinued, and complain that they have no choice in the matter. They might have loved it, but if they were the only dozen people whom actually bought it, it doesn't matter - the manufacturer is going to stop making it.
The fact is that although certain forums etc on the net complain bitterly about this sort of stuff, hardly anyone else cares. And its the market that ultimately decides, the government just looks at the trend and acts accordingly.
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Steve P:
By the time FM is down to 10%, all the commercial stations will be long gone, and it would only be the BBC that would be stuck with it, in exactly the same way they are stuck with LW, bleeding cash to please an audience which almost certainly doesn't pay all that much in licence fees anyway.
Whether the percentage of digital listening is 50% through all digital platforms, DAB, streaming or whatever (and I suspect DTV will decline overall, since sitting in front of a TV just listening to it isn't really very practical), it doesn't really matter. I remember some years ago much the same arguments being made about DAB, with certain people exultant about DAB's figures. They were missing the point - its not DAB vs FM, its digital vs analogue. And digital is gaining ground, and that will continue at an ever faster rate. When digital listening goes to about 60% overall (and I understand its over 50% in London already), they are going to have to make plans. Give it a year or two.
However, there is no need to panic yet, and a fair number of people will continue to buy (cheap) FM radios, rather than the only slightly more expensive DAB/FM version. Thats OK for the moment. Once the timescale is clearer, then they can put stickers on things, but to be honest, go in most showrooms and you've only got about 2-3 FM only radios (plus those multi-band travel ones). Everything else is DAB/FM.
No, your not going to get any compensation, any more than people who'd bought an analogue TV 10 years before got a new TV. They didn't need one, and shouldn't have expected to.
Frankly, as long your B & O system has an analogue input, you can carry on using it till kingdom come.
Everything from Sonos Connect, to Chrome Audio, to Apple Airport Express, to a simple bluetooth adapter, to just connecting a source via a 3.5mm-RCA's cable (Poundland) will do the job. For those with seperates (and remember that the bulk of people own, as an average, 1.9 radios, and they will probably be less than 5w in output), Richer Sounds will do a DAB tuner for 99 quid.
But the bulk of people dont have B & O or anything else, and they will cope fine.
As for DAB radio useablity, mine just tunes itself, and then I just select from whats available. You can buy ones with larger displays, but since customers seem to like a classic look, the displays tend to be in keeping with that.
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StevensOnln1: The problem with the BBC 4K service is simply bandwidth, and the lack of it on Freeview. If there is a switch to T2 tuners, then they might have a chance.
I'd love to know what broadcasters have in terms of numbers - 85% of TV's are now 4K, (which is similar to HD being standard well before HD was generally available), and at some point broadcasters have to deliver content. Of course its the net where the bulk of it is coming from now, and I'm not sure those figures are available.
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MikeP: To be fair, both you and SteveP are untypical of the population as a whole. Most are not audiophiles, dont have a Bose, B & O, or any other system, dont have a clue about sample rates and whose audio system is probably no more than a cheap midi system bought years ago. The best audio in my house comes from a Sony SX5 which I bought stupidly cheap a year or two ago - its only 20w. Without that, it would be some rubbish 15w thing that was bought as an emergency.
If the population really cared about audio quality, then nobody would be buying Beats, people probably would not be buying those portable record players in Sainsburys, we would not use the cheap earbuds that come with phones and everyone would spend about 10 times as much on kitchen radios as they do. In reality, people dont care that much about audio quality, as long as its good enough for what they want, and it fits in with their other requirements.
'it's the clock radios in every bedroom, the FM radio in my smartphones and tablets which uses no digital signal outdoors (often there is none round our way) , the battery radios in bathrooms that currently last 9 months on a set. '
OK. The average number of radios in a UK household works out at 1.9. Which means a clock radio and one in the kitchen, and a lot who have just one radio or none at all. Your very unusual, and so you can't assume everyone else is in the same boat as you.
However, DAB clock radios can be had for 30 pounds each, and your smartphone is perfectly capable of streaming audio from 3/4G plus wifi (I'd be interested to know just how many people use the FM radio part - relatively few 16-24 year old, for a start). Same goes for tablets, which of course have no analogue radio anyway. And by the time you come to replace that bathroom radio, its likely that a DAB radio will have a much longer battery life anyway.
You say you need a dozen sets - so when an FM radio breaks down, will you be replacing it with an FM radio or a DAB one?
'Re DTV I have an insight for you. You don't have to "sit in front of it". There is no need to read the on screen message, and the sound from TV speakers works without line-of-sight. In one room we only have TV radio!'
I'm very aware that you can listen to a TV. But if you want to listen to the radio in a room other than the one the TV is in, wouldn't it be much easier to simply buy a cheap radio, stream from a phone, etc? And TV speakers are certainly not something known for their sound quality.
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StevensOnln1: Your right, they could squeeze one on now, but that would be the whole of the mux, and you can see some people complaining....
I'd love for the BBC to go for a 4K channel, but they are going to have it tough. Its going to cost money to set up, and your going to have to supply content. BT, Sky (and I assume Virgin) are going for sport and movies. The BBC really doesn't have the cash to do that much sport, and I'm not sure about the movies. Amazon/Netflix are much more about drama, and the BBC could do that, and perhaps nature documentaries, etc. Perhaps a 4K channel in much the same way that BBC HD was a showcase would work, but Sky/BT/Virgin, etc are all going to be unhappy. And at a time when their budget is stretched enough as it is, could they justify it? You know the papers would have a field day.
So hopefully yes, but I'm not holding my breath. Be interesting to see what ITV are thinking.
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Michael: Vintage might be on a mux with a relatively low strength, and if you have an old aerial, check signal strength across the range - the aerial might be on the way out, hence the fluctuation.
BTW - if you click on the digitaluk link you can see the compass bearing for Winter Hill from your house.
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William Chisholm: DigitalUK doesn't think you'll get much of anything, so 59 channels is great.
If the signal hasn't changed (unlikely, but you can check the status of the transmitter), and there is no evidence of temp inversion etc, then it has to be you.
Your describing the classic symptoms of a failing system, perhaps via a frayed cable, water in a connection, etc. You've lost a mux, at least, and possibly everything for a bit.
If the coax from the TV to the wall is fine (always worth swapping out, they are very cheap), then it has to be higher up the system. Could be a failing booster (if you've got one), but if you've just had a new aerial fitted, it might be worth asking someone to come out again to check it.
Your Sony has a nicely sensitive but robust tuner, and you can check signal strength easily. Find the Bilsdale page and note down the channel numbers for each mux. Then find a TV channel in each mux and note down signal strength. They are probably all low, and some have gone entirely, which points to cabling.
Check that you are tuned into the right transmitter as well - retunign just means you can lose what you already have.Let us know what happens.
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Syno: You say your in a bad area for reception - put your postcode into the site, and we can see from your location if this is actually the case or not.
MB is correct - if a mux has vanished, its most likely to be a problem with the system in a home, not the transmitter.
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Eileen: A quick google shows that BT ('partnered with TSG'!) does install aerials
About the Aerial installation service from Total Support Group (TSG) | Help | BT.com Help
and if they are going to do it for 60 pounds, thats actually a very good deal. If it all goes wrong, then you can at least complain to BT (OK, I've had dealings with BT, so dont get your hopes up), and at least there seems to be a years 'parts' warrenty.
Since it sounds like you've only got a dish at present (which you can carry on using with Freesat), a new aerial would give you a lot of flexibility, since all TV's now should have Freeview installed as standard. The BT box will work in much the same way as a Sky one does, and will allow you to get Iplayer, etc.
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Sunday 18 September 2016 3:36PM
According to the top of the page, its seems to have no problems, so unless the people in your street also have a problem and the info is wrong, its your system. Dont retune - you'll just lose the signal you've got stored. Best suggestion - you've tuned into the wrong transmitter, with a signal too weak for the TV to pick up.