All posts by Michael Rogers
Below are all of Michael Rogers's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Maria, if you already have a dish and satellite receiver, it should work if pointed at Hotbird at 13°East. If you dont already have a dish and satellite receiver, you could have a 60-90cm dish and free-to-view box installed now and later replace the box with a Tivu one bought in Italy with the card registered to an Italian address with the codice. With a basic receiver, such as the Technomate TM-5200D USB, you would already get a good selection of Italian TV and radio, including RAI 1,2,3, News, Canale 5 and Rete 4, from Hotbird on 13°East. However some primetime programmes would be blanked out until you get the Tivu box! If you prefer to wait, when you have your Tivu box, get a reputable installer to install the dish, LNB and cabling and connect up your Tivu box.
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DAB/DAB+ receivers are designed to be compatible with the Continent - and facilitate manufacturing and chip standardisation. DAB-only will not decode DAB+. Government is struggling to get DAB accepted sufficiently to justify analog switch-off. It is very unlikely to switch to DAB+ and incur the wrath of those who have followed advice and purchased a landfill DAB-only receiver. Where it works, DAB delivers acceptable quality within its own terms of reference, better than AM, nearly as good as FM. One day DAB receivers will be affordable and with planet and wallet friendly low battery-drain; with nationwide DAB coverage all will be well.
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Extension of available spectrum and DAB+ would have made the Act more worthy. The push for indoor and in-vehicle coverage will help, but for public acceptance, cost of receivers, battery-efficiency and audio quality are also important. If they had the choice, some music broadcasters might prefer to stay with FM quality and relinquish DAB. Bitrate limitations may indirectly increase sales of higher-quality CDs and downloads - a thought that will not have occured to anyone...
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Like a good wine, your produce improves with age, Brian. Yet another very useful tool!
Quite a shock to see at a glance how many transmitters there are which will eventually be led to the guillotine by the DAB Revolutionary Council :-)
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Many of us wish to listen to stations further away on a portable or when travelling. Imposition of DAB modes only, and therby to local listening, would be restrictive - ideal in some countries, but not here! Broadcasters, reflecting listening preferences and budgetary exigences, should be free to choose DAB or FM, thereby retaining enough combined spectrum for sufficient choice of domestic stations, content and audio quality. As long as audience demands, some may choose to remain on MF. No need to change ever again? There will doubtless be further advances and innovation in future years and decades. Eventually even DAB+ will be superceded. It will not be acceptable to change norms too frequently. Let the free market decide!
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Government is already struggling to persuade listeners to switch to DAB. It is not likely to risk politically disaffecting those who followed advice to invest in DAB by now demanding replacement with DAB+. In order to offer comparable station choice, for the forseeable future using both DAB and FM would be a pragmatic compromise. (In the much longer term DRM might be introduced to maximise utilisation of the propagation advantages and available spectrum of MF. At that stage introduction of DAB+ or DRM+ might also become publicly acceptable. For many years to come, DXers will keep or build their AM receivers, with DSP, synchrodyne enhancement!).
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PS : Neither DAB+ nor DAB allows reception of distant stations, UK or foreign, on a portable
or in-vehicle receiver. So one will definitely not "have it all".
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Dawn P: On 5°W (Atlantic Bird) and 19°E (Astra)
you will find a number of free-to-view French channels - certainly enough for you to improve your French. However, in order to receive all the main free-to-view French channels, for 5°W you would need a FRANSAT box or for 19°E a TNTSAT box. Either can be bought in France or via a recommended intermediary. A local French teacher or school technician could probably help further.
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Brian, even with my edge-of-planet download speed, loading has noticeably improved. Great! Thanks.
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Wednesday 27 July 2011 9:35AM
Unless the cranes are very close either to your receive aerial or the transmitter mast, they are unlikely to be a problem. If you have friendly neighbours, maybe they would let you plug your DAB radio into their outlet. You would then know if the problem is in your flat or in the distribution system. Either way, it may be difficult to persuade the landlord to arrange investigation and to locate the source. As it worked previously, I assume the system is designed to feed FM and DAB radio as well as DTT television to each flat. It might be that only FM radio and DTT television are designed in, but that DAB worked in the FM feed-through, which might render it borderline if, say, rainwater got into cabling or degradation from another cause arose. I assume you would not be allowed a DAB aerial outside a window? You could try inside the window, but this is all hit-and-miss. Could become frustrating :-(