All posts by Mark
Below are all of Mark's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Roy Weblin: How is the output on the BBC's digital stations 6 Music, 5 Live Sports Extra, Asian Network, World Service & 1Xtra similar to what's available on FM?
Oneword might have survived if BBC7 (now Radio 4 Extra) hadn't launched. BBC7 had the benefit of the BBC's audio back catalogue to draw on, whereas Oneword had to make do with book readings.
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Willie Bone: Digital 2 is not being gifted to the BBC, it will go out to open tender later this year.
Digital 2 will not cover the whole country, so it isn't suitable for moving over any of the BBC services. Digital 2 may only cover 80% in the short to medium term.
The BBC national multiplex will cover almost 98% of the population by 2016, the universal coverage is a requirement for the BBC due to the licence fee funding.
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Roger M: On You and Yours the BBC spokesperson confirmed that they will not be switching to DAB+ because 10 million sets would not be able to receive their services.
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Lucinda:
The service on the local London DAB multiplex has been discontinued. LBC is now only on the national (Digital 1) multiplex.
Your radio may currently be showing it as Birdsong. If you select Birdsong the station label should change to LBC.
If you can receive other national commercial stations, such as Classic FM, Absolute, BFBS, Kiss, Planet Rock & TeamRock you will also receive LBC. If you don't see any of these in your station list you could try a rescan of your radio.
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Margaret: The new national version of LBC may be labelled Birdsong on your radio, as this was the name of the test transmission.
If you select Birdsong it should change to LBC on your radio's display.
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Interesting article, thanks for this.
I think there would have to be more duplications than those shown above, for example:
South Gloucestershire (Stroud, Lydney, Cirencester) is in the West region so BBC Gloucestershire would need to be on West PSB1
South Somerset (Chard & Crewkerne) & West Dorset (Weymouth, Bridport, Lyme Regis) are in the South West region so BBC Somerset & BBC Solent (for Dorset) would need to be on South West PSB1
The Salisbury area is in the South region so BBC Wiltshire would need to be on South PSB1
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@ Steve P
DAB is solving the problem of lack of choice for people who don't like the "range of stations" on FM. If you live outside London and scan the FM band there will be several versions of each of the BBC national networks and Classic FM and several versions of Heart. How many other countries are so inefficient in their use of the FM band?
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Stan:
Thre is no law in place to restrict FM/MW/LW to radio broadcasting, it's up to Ofcom what they do with spectrum.
Ofcom have suggested using FM spectrum for white space devices after the radio services are switched off. They published a paper on this on July 6 2011.
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trevorjharris:
"First Ofcom have got to sell the second multiplex and there may be no takers."
National DAB multiplexes are awarded on a "beauty contest" basis for a nominal application fee, only national FM/MW licences are awarded by auction. Arqiva, the owners of Digital 1, are almost certain to bid for it, as it would just be an extension of their current business and they could easily add it to their existing sites. The rule preventing one company owning both multiplexes was abolished 2-3 years ago.
"Then the owners will have to find a radio station willing to join the multiplex and use DAB+".
There is no requirement for any of the Digital 2 stations to use DAB+, Ofcom are making it available as an option but it isn't mandatory. The whole of the multiplex could be filled with DAB (mp2) stations under their proposals.
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Friday 10 January 2014 8:31PM
Apparently the Norwegians love it:
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