Digital Radio Shutdown

[Labarum]

The arguments continue:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...radio-switchover-Listen-to-the-listeners.html

My view is that we should leave the FM, MW and LW transmissions alone for the next 20 or 30 years.

I am not one of those wedded to my FM tuner because I believe it's "analogue" sound is better than any digital transmission. My Squeezebox Classic playing into a cheap Beresford DAC beats my Quad Tuner; and I know the feeds to the FM transmitters are digital, and have been for years.

No, I support the continuance of FM and AM analogue radio because it will work in areas and circumstances where DAB will not. In a car FM reception will degrade and remain intelligible - I may not want to listen to music through the noise, but I may be able to hear the news. That could be important.

We have all these perfectly useable radios, some capable of very high quality reception. Why scrap them?

And an argument I have not heard elsewhere - national security. If all the modern technology gets knocked out by a massive electromagnetic pulse (natural or man made) it might be rather useful to have an old wireless that still works - maybe one full of thermionic valves! The BBC Radio 4 Long Wave transmitter will cover most of the UK and half of Europe, but you have to have enough wireless sets in every community for that transmission to be heard. I have a valve wireless set in the attic!

Leave analogue radio alone!

 

[Tenson]

Will analogue radio work after nuke or similar? What about a zombie attack?

I still use FM in my car every time I drive. I don't have a DAB radio at all, but I have 3 FM ones! I couldn't care less about AM or MW

 

[Labarum]

Solid state electronics may be destroyed by an electromagnetic pulse from a nuke or astronomical event. Military electronics is designed with protective screening, but domestic kit is not. I don't know how much of the national civilian infrastructure is protected - I would hope the power grid and some of the comms networks are.

Modern domestic radios are at risk - valve electronics is not. If the government can continue to transmit the public may have to make do with the valve radio that continue in service - none of them receive DAB!

 

[hardworking]

In a car FM reception will degrade and remain intelligible - I may not want to listen to music through the noise, but I may be able to hear the news.

Absolutely.

I don't have any DAB kit, but I heard someone on the radio (ha!) saying (I think) that in a car DAB just goes silent if the signal is too weak. Or then switches to FM !

Seriously though, isn't that almost dangerous with the sound switching on and off, potentially distracting the driver?

 

[Tenson]

No worse than someone talking next to you, I suppose.

Will DAB transmission not be strengthened (turned up) when FM is switched off, because they will have more bandwidth space?

 

[felix]

No Simon - it's a different frequency allocation, up around 200-220Mhz.

Other reasons that dab is daft, apart from being a lousy codec these days:

1 - Closing-down FM for re-use of the spectrum makes no sense - the FM bandwidth allocation is not useful or attractive for really high datarates (i.e where the new -investor money is)

2. DAB transmission is a lot less energy efficient than FM - requires a minimum 2x the transmitter power for comparable coverage, and more in practice. That's extra 100 MW + ballpark, in the Uk... complete waste.

 

[Tenson]

I think I'm recalling what they said about digital TV, which I guess must be on the same bandwidth to use the same aerial?