All posts by Michael Rogers
Below are all of Michael Rogers's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Ofcom coverage maps claim that DAB already equals FM coverage in this area. NOT TRUE. Unless there are as yet unpublished plans for further infill DAB relays, low-lying and sparsely-populated areas will be worse off after FM and AM switch-off. It will then be too late to voice concern. We will be informed that we need an external aerial on a long pole... Not the same as current FM/AM reception on a battery-friendly portable radio almost anywhere on the estate or in the wine cellar ... If DAB coverage genuinely matches FM (and in fringe areas AM) reception, the change will be acceptable. SFNs, text info, audio quality etc are subsidiary issues to the primordial one of reception equivalent to current FM / AM coverage. It is legitimate to scrutinise official claims, both on grounds of current empirical observation and of projections based on official publications.
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Mark, I would be delighted to see the Ofcom coverage maps for North Devon you refer to. Please provide a link to what you have found. What I have found promises zilch for low-lying and coastal areas, now or in future. I do hope you are right. A lot of not-so-young listeners - which one fine day will include little me - depend on local radio. The BBC and Ofcom seem to favour the young and affluent new-tec generation. "There is currently only one local DAB transmitter on-air in North Devon but the Ofcom map shows many more than this for the DSO position."
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Ventnor : Oh dear, oh dear - why do we not understand that our Great Leaders have determined that all this is great progress. They would appear to have forgotten that Ventnor Radar played a great defense role in the Battle of Britain... Other swathes of our green and pleasant land can make no such claim to national valor, so cannot expect decent reception... Why do we persist in thinking that a steam-age wireless set (sic!) with a few knobs and extreme reliability provided us with greater listening pleasure than a digi-wonder requiring frequent battery replacement and oftentimes a roof-top aerial so as to receive a greater choice of sound-alike stations in varying audio quality ??? Some claim that we will all eventually get awesome DAB reception. May it be so !
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We repeatedly re-iterate ourselves. Many areas receive a poor signal from FM and AM. DAB, even if ever implemented "as promised" assumes near-perfect conditions and the reliable operation of many thousand relays. Naively. Likewise, internet radio assumes a stable connection, which many do not have, nor can expect for many years - if ever. In the event of an emergency (watch the upcoming BBC docu-drama), only an AM network using a few key transmitters could hope to provide crucial information and advice nationwide. Many battery radios would survive and be able to receive AM. Notwithstanding, short-term commercial interests override. A reasoned compromise would retain a few critical AM and FM transmitters. This would go a long way to meet budgetary requrements and allow DAB and other digital services to provide a wide range of services in "fair weather" times. - and deliver rosy figures to the bean-counters.
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Listening via a mobile may well become more and more attractive where there is a strong and stable signal and when download costs are negligeable - or monthly downloads are unlimited. Currently advertised 1p for 1Mb is not as good as it might appear at first sight. Assuming a rounded 100kb/s download, = 0.1Mb/s, the pennies soon add up ! Wifi at home can work, but can be blighted by dropouts due to a wobbly internet connection or moody router or to domestic interference. The only convincing advantage of current digital radio options is the wider choice of stations, especially via webradio.
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Ursula, Ihre Schssel ist auf den falschen Satelliten ausgerichet. 28°E bringt die ganzen englischen Programme. Sie mu um 9 Grad nach Westen auf 19°E gedreht werden, wo die deutschen digitalen Programme zu finden sind.
Die Schssel dann geringfgig nach links, nach rechts, nach oben, nach unten verstellen bis das Signal optimal empfangen wird.
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"Blackout" is currently on Channel Four. A week-long nationalwide power-cut. The official advice : listen to your battery-powered or wind-up radio. Food for thought. Presumably the main (digital) transmitters have a standby generator for a few hours or days, but most relay transmitters would be down. A few AM transmitters with backup-power would cover most of the country - and more people would be likely to have a battery-powered portable AM radio.
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Brian, let us agree to disagree on this - and hope such a nationwide event such as portrayed in the C4 docu-drama never occurs. In the C4 scenario, the nationwide blackout lasts for a week and even emergency services and hospitals didn't have viable contingencies for such a long outage. Fictional drama, but not an unrealistic scenario. UPS and generators would be designed as backup for a short period. Over an extended period, I would trust systems and engineers to maintain a few strategic AM and FM transmitters rather than many thousand smaller DAB and 4G relays. A few DAB transmitters operating from helium balloons might work, if available at short notice. In the near future few would have a portable DAB receiver. Further in the future that might become less of an issue. It would be very interesting to know what contingency plans the government has for immediate implementation in a major emergency, but that may well be secret...
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Rob : if you are not moving about, that is a good alternative. Most understand radio as being essentially portable. It remains to be seen whether DAB will in fact allow portable reception equal to FM now. Once the FM plug has been pulled, our Great Benefactors will perhaps tells us that we either need a roof-top DAB aerial or that we should do what you trail-blazingly do. We will then be able to listen to the radio where there is an antenna wall-socket. Elsewhere in the house, we will be expected to resort to CDs, i-thingys or meditation. It will be a bit like our beautiful 78-rpm grammophone, which we have to enjoy listening to where it is. I do love progress...
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Thursday 29 August 2013 7:55PM
The current DAB commercial on BBC television may indicate that another announcement is in the offing. (Is the Napoleon-Lookalike a Waterloo prophecy?) We will eventually have to accept the diktat from on high. DAB will offer more stations and stable reception on fixed receivers, less so on battery-hungry portable radios. A roof aerial may be needed. Local BBC radio and some favourite commercial stations may no longer be received - except on a computer or webradio. Dropouts may be better - or worse - on the road, depending on the plethora of filler transmitters. Audio quality will vary. Brave New World ! Que sera, sera...