All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Peter Suthers: A quick google found a couple of sites with lots of links for AAC
UK Radio Stations webcasting in aacPlus (AAC+/HE-AAC) and AAC formats
Radio Paradise
If you could capture the stream directly, then its obviously much easier than downloading it via a tuner, etc. I wish the old Radio Downloader software was still working for Iplayer, because it made life much easier!
The other thing is that since you have an Iphone, you've got the Iplayer/Iplayer radio apps, plus Tune In, Stitcher, etc. For a wifi equiped area, thats great, but not so good for a commute, unless you have an 'all you can eat' package.
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JOHN WEBSTER: The easiest thing to do is to enter your postcode when you post using the sites prompt - which will bring up all the links with your data - such as SeeMoreDigital's post above. Ok - looking at your position, your 37km from Waltham, on a bearing of 9 degrees. Your TV says its on the East Midlands network, which is Waltham, so thats fine.
Since your closer than I am to Waltham, and on top of a hill (and bearing in mind what your aerial bloke said), I'd normally bet that your signal is abit too strong. However, 0% for the whole of that multiplex is a bit strange. Hopefully JB38 or Dave Lindsay can answer such a problem!
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Stan: I agree that its unlikely that lots of people are going to want to upgrade again to DAB+ (your right, that horse has long bolted), but looking the report that Brianist has posted :
http://stakeholders.ofcom….pdf
If you look at the numbers, the total of analogue sets sold is still much higher than DAB (page 3.54) , but figure 3.1 shows the trend of takeup. In 2007, 27% of homes had a digital radio. By 2012 that was 44%.
Figure 3.48 shows that the percentage of analogue listening has fallen from 72.7% in 2008 to 60.5% in 2013, and digital's gone from 17.8% to 32.5% in the same time period. Figure 3.49 shows that younger listeners are moving away from analogue the most, and all groups apart from 65+ are now using digital more than half the time.
Its also interesting to note that people actually seem to be OK with digital. Figure 3.12 shows why people are more likely to listen to radio than 5 years ago . 23% of people said 'Digital radio has improved the quality of radio listening', while 17% said 'There are more available stations now than in the past' (which is certainly a result of DAB/streaming, etc).
I actually dont care how people listen to radio, any more than how they watch TV. I suspect the if you've got an FM radio, you'll be using it for a while, but the thread is clear - digital is going to be the winner, whether its DAB, streaming or whatever.
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Steve P: Is anyone actually going to close down FM in the near future?
As Brianists pointed out last year, the key reason for fm radios having higher sales is that they tend to be much cheaper (you can buy one in Poundland) and people tend to buy what they are used to. However, once they have one digital radio, then they are likely to buy another one.
Also remember that all digital sets have FM anyway and they have rapidly dropped in price, so a little DAB radio can be had for £25 or less.
The other thing to look out for is streaming via tablets etc. it's a small part of the market at present, but the demographic is younger - it's a growing trend. Whichever way you slice it, at some point analogue will only be a small part of the market. However, that fm radio bought 30 years ago will still be fine for some years yet.
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Colin Campbell: My parents-in-law actually live Burnham Market, and they have been using Belmont for Freeview for many years, and as Brianist points out, that will be a full service, although you could have both local and belmont services by using the advice above.
However, because of the slightly strange nature of Norfolk's reception pattern (Talcneston is often masked by the small hills which run through the area, and the coastline is convex), a lot of people use a satellite system. My parents-in-law have a Panasonic TV with a Freesat tuner, and my father-in-law recently put up a dish. Freesat allows you to chose your local regional news, so they get Anglian news as well.
Your TV might have a Freesat tuner built in, or a generic tuner (have a look on the back), or you can buy a Manhatten reciever for less than £50. Satcure has a very good guide on how to put one up, and you can buy a kit from them. My personal suggestion is to install a quad LNB if you do - the extra cost is marginal, but if you ever want to add more equipment, all you need to do in run extra cables. If you want one put up, £79 for a single LNB dish is a decent average price.
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Ros: Look at R & T investigation link - there are no reported problems with the transmitters, so best check your system for starters.
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Becky Smith: If we have a postcode, then its possible to work out which transmitter you should be tuned into. Just put it into the website when you next post.
However, I'm guessing that your main transmitter (which has 5*, etc) is possibly difficult to get (perhaps worth checking out your aerial and system to make sure its working properly), and when you've retuned, you've found another transmitter, but one thats 'light' that only carries the PSB channels.
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Anthony: Can you think of a broadcasting medium that goes through hills or concrete easily? pretty much all radio suffers in those conditions. As for poor quality - try listening to the difference between FM, DAB and internet on the same set. I did, and frankly, there wasn't that much in it. FM and streaming was a little better, but overall I wasn't bothered enough to stay with FM.
Brianist: Its a very good point. I know that pretty much all Pure's have DAB+, and have done for the past couple of years. However, looking at Roberts (and speaking to Roberts...you could improve the way you show the spec on the website), there are some, such as the £100 Expression (which is actually a nice set), but there is no sign of DAB+ even on their flagship Revival range, and certainly not on their smaller models. If its a cheapy from Tesco's - unlikely. So its reasonable to assume that the majority of the around 8m DAB sets sold in the last 5 years dont have DAB+.
Stan: Is it really the case that 90,000 people in the UK (and that figure is from a couple of years ago, so it might be less now) are totally reliant on a LW signal? Much as I love the idea of preserving past artifacts, its slightly unfair to assume everyone else is going to pay for a broadcasting system that gets about 0.2% nationally of a listening audience of 48.4m.
Its wonderful that someone might wish to use the radio they bought in 1954, but since they can also listen on MW, FM, DAB, Freeview, Freesat and the internet, there comes a point where the service is no longer viable, even as a public service.
Steve P - people have poured scorn on the idea of the valves becoming extinct, but as this comment from a Guardian article in 2011 pointed out - 'Most new valves are made in Russia these days. Even if the Russian factory could start a production line, it may be very expensive to do so. And they would almost inevitably not work exactly the same as the original valves.' Yes, solid state systems could be used - but for 90,000 people and falling, why would you do that? I notice that many of the comments on that article were expats in France etc. Since there is now this thing called the interenet, perhaps they could listen to that instead.
Stan: Its true that the French Resistance did use LW to get messages from London, but thats was 70 years ago. They also used pigeons to communicate. I doubt that anyone is advocating that we get our daily news via a bird (al la Harry Potter). Having said that, my kids would love the the idea of a daily owl....
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Tuesday 15 April 2014 9:15PM
SeeMoreDigital: But remember that the equipment you have (apart from the surround system, at least to some extent) are all designed to be watched, rather than just listened to. Frankly, radio is something of an afterthought.
Obviously no manufacturer would bother with an extra display for a TV, but they did make PVR's with displays. My Sony HX 895 has one, and the old Humax Foxsat/Freeview 9300 recorders did, but its true that they have tended to disappear. That sort of makes sense - your watching the channel, so you dont need to know what it is twice....unless your using it for radio!
As for surround sound systems, much the same applies - they are designed to take video/audio to/from a TV (although one or two did have FM radios). In fact they have now really disappeared in favour of soundbars, which tend to have bluetooth built into them, so you can use them as speakers without the TV being on, streaming from a tablet, phone, etc.
If you do want a streaming system with a front display, then have a look at Richer Sounds Streaming Hi-Fi And Network Audio Players from Richer Sounds - its probably your best bet.
I hear what your saying, but with DVB-T now baked into TV's, manufacturers are unlikely to change, although a frontal display for PVR's would be useful.
If your surround sound has bluetooth/wifi, then streaming is pretty easy, and these capacities can be added. In the case of bluetooth, its not expensive, and wifi has a number of routes. Something like Apples Airport express/Apple TV (usies optical and HDMI. so very handy for splitting stream between TV and audio system), or perhaps the little box from Pure that you use via an app (actually, its not a very good app). Increasingly, Sonos and its ilk are becoming very popular, so you stream from whereever you like, and they have a 'Connect' unit to turn an older system into part of the Sonos network.