All posts by Mark
Below are all of Mark's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
@ trevorjharris
"Of course only a small proportion of people have DAB radios and everyone has at least one FM radio."
From RAJAR Q2 2013: 24 million people now have access to a DAB radio (45.7% of the population).
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Hi Stuart
Capital, Heart, Smooth & Panjab will move across.
LBC, Choice, Real XS and the UCB stations are closing on DAB in WM (as they have in the other areas).
Kerrang! is on Birmingham, it's not clear if Wolves & Coventry will also have it.
XL - unknown as yet.
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@ watlingfen:
"The UK has had digital since 1995 and the take-up has been a failure with barely 29.5% listening 'on all digital platforms' only 18% listening on DAB sets after 18 years ! however its explained away it ain't success. "
Those figures are way out of date. From RAJAR June 2013:
Digital listening (all platforms): 36.8%
DAB: 23.9%
Analogue listening in home is now less than 50% (it's 48.7%).
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@Bruce Fraser
The listening figures for LBC on DAB outside London were very poor, that's why they have removed it.
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Stuart
It hasn't been announced yet, but it would be logical for Manchester to take over the MXR NW frequency of 12C when MXR closes in September, and the MXR transmitters serving the Manchester area.
That would improve reception on both the Manchester & Sheffield multiplexes, as they are currently both using 11C.
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@ Jamie
"not a fan of the removal of DAB Regional such as Severn Estuary (South Wales & W of England) Mux in favor of such as extra local Muxs so likes of Heart and Capital can clog the airwaves with only about 5 hours of local content for Breakfast and Afternoon Rush Hour."
The closure of the Severn Estuary regional mux has resulted in improved coverage for Radio Wales & Radio Cymru. These are vital Welsh radio services which would not have reached the whole of SE Wales if the regional mux had not been switched off, as the local mux was previously sharing a frequency with Swindon & South Devon.
The frequency reallocation was essential to allow the local mux (including BBC Wales/Cymru) to reach the Vale of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. It's nothing to do with Heart & Capital.
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Stuart
The map assumes that MXR NW stays on-air and that Derbyshire mux will use 5A, but that's now not the case.
The Derbyshire mux will use its originally allocated frequency of 10B, so that will not be available for Manchester.
As switch to 12C would be much cheaper for Manchester than a switch to 10B, because the 12C transmitters are already in place (being the MXR ones).
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Brian
If you can receive BBC Radio WM on DAB you should also receive Heart & Smooth.
The Sedgley Beacon transmitter will launch shortly and this will cover Walsall (& Wolverhampton).
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Monday 5 August 2013 6:55PM
@ trevorjharris
"The expansion issue I refered to was that the DAB system has a limit on the spacial density of transmitters. As I understand it this limit has been reached in many areas."
This is a completely wrong statement I'm afraid. The BBC has plans to add another 175 transmitters to its national multiplex, and there will be around 500 transmitters added to local multiplexes over the next 4-5 years.
The closure of the MXR regional multiplexes will improve reception on many local multiplexes.