New Portable Radio for Digital Satellite

From www.digitalradiotech.co.uk (there's a picture of it on there)

Sky Gnome - New Portable Radio for Satellite

Sky have announced that they're launching a new portable radio in
October which will allow users to listen to the 80+ digital radio
stations available on digital satellite.

The Sky Gnome is compatible with all Sky digiboxes and has a range of 30
metres. It is not clear yet whether it will only be available for Sky
subscribers or whether anybody with a Sky digibox will be able to
purchase one.

Customers with Sky+ will also be able to listen to radio shows recorded
in their Sky+ planner.

As well as there being far more radio stations available on digital
satellite than on DAB the audio quality of the radio stations on
satellite is significantly higher than on DAB due to the bit rates used
by DAB stations being far too low.

A list of the radio stations available on digital satellite and the bit
rates they use can be found in the table at the bottom of this page.



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

Find the cheapest Freeview, DAB & MP3 Player Prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...tal_radios.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/mp...rs_1GB-5GB.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/mp...e_capacity.htm

I've looked at the above links, but sorry, you can't have a portable
digital satellite radio receiver (because it would require its own
satellite dish!).

If it's some sort of portable rf link back to a digibox ("battery
powered videosender"), then ok, that would work, but not enough info is
given to make this clear.

Not brilliant, because whatever DAB's drawbacks, it really is portable,
and also has local radio (Sky doesn't).

"spiney" wrote in message
ups.com...
I've looked at the above links, but sorry, you can't have a portable
digital satellite radio receiver (because it would require its own
satellite dish!).

If it's some sort of portable rf link back to a digibox ("battery
powered videosender"), then ok, that would work, but not enough info is
given to make this clear.

Not brilliant, because whatever DAB's drawbacks, it really is portable,
and also has local radio (Sky doesn't).


If it is an "audio sender/reciever" then it dosn't sound like you watch a
SKY TV channel whilst someone else is listening to a Sky radio channel in
another room.

spiney wrote:
I've looked at the above links, but sorry, you can't have a portable
digital satellite radio receiver (because it would require its own
satellite dish!).

If it's some sort of portable rf link back to a digibox ("battery
powered videosender"), then ok, that would work, but not enough info is
given to make this clear.

You can happily stuff a SPDIF digital audio signal through an 'analogue' video
sender, and therefore have a 'digital' transmission path, perhaps Sky are
thinking along these lines ?

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

spiney wrote:
I've looked at the above links, but sorry, you can't have a portable
digital satellite radio receiver (because it would require its own
satellite dish!).

What, you mean that XM Radio (http://www.xmradio.com/learn/) and in
particular the Delphi XM MyFi (http://www.xmradio.com/myfi/) can't
exist? Bit of a shame that.

--
Angus G Rae Science & Engineering Support Team
University of Edinburgh
The above opinions are mine, and Edinburgh University can't have them

Fair enough, and there's also Worldspace in Europe (not to mention
digital shortwave broadcasting), I was really thinking ot "the usual"
Ku band stuff!

You could have a genuine Ku band portable, by using a "dielectric" sat
antenna, but would still be very "klunky", not pocket size!

Anyone tried Lidl's "satellite tv in a suitcase"?

spiney wrote:
I've looked at the above links, but sorry, you can't have a portable
digital satellite radio receiver (because it would require its own
satellite dish!).


Read what the thread title says:

"New portable radio FOR digital satellite"

not

"New portable digital satellite radio receiver"


If it's some sort of portable rf link back to a digibox ("battery
powered videosender"), then ok, that would work,


I'd imagine it'll be Wi-Fi.


but not enough info
is given to make this clear.


Try and actually read what I wrote. I did say it has a range of 30m. How
many satellites are orbiting earth 30 m away?


Not brilliant, because whatever DAB's drawbacks, it really is
portable, and also has local radio (Sky doesn't).


Satellite:
Good audio quality on most stations
80+ radio stations

DAB:

Low audio quality
an average listener will receive 35 stations

Conclusion:

Satellite wipes the floor with DAB.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

Find the cheapest Freeview, DAB & MP3 Player Prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/da...tal_radios.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/mp...rs_1GB-5GB.htm
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/mp...e_capacity.htm

er, i personally think above thread a bit pedantic, Sky are "trying" to
claim a portable radio receiver!

Also, quite a few of the 8ish odd Sky radio channels are religious
ranting rubbish!

sorry, obvious typo, that should be "80ish Sky radio channels"!

In message .com
"spiney" wrote:

Anyone tried Lidl's "satellite tv in a suitcase"?

If you mean the plastic dish in the carry-case, it works very well and
will give you R2, R4 and World Service over most of Western Europe,
plus much else. On the other hand, the receiver which came with mine
failed after about 18 months because a great many of the little
electrolytic capacitors had popped. But I wasn't too disheartened
because the user interface was so user-unfriendly. There are other
DVB-s receivers capable of working on a 12V DC supply and at least one
of them is much smaller and lighter.

--
Richard L.