No DAB reception in cars near BBC Television Centre!

Paul Ratcliffe wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:35:47 +0100, Silk wrote:

You are spouting ******** and you admit to it. I think we all know what
to do with your so called 'simple facts'.
You're a very rude little man.

No I'm not. You claim 'facts' which you then admit are supposition and
extrapolation and then you don't like it when you are exposed as such.

It's perfectly acceptable to use extrapolation in this particular
instance. Based on my experience in the rest of the UK, I can make an
educated guess that DAB coverage in the more built up areas of Scotland
would be on a par with England and Wales.

To be honest, if people want all the advantages of living in an urban
area, it may be a good idea not to live in the Highlands and Islands of
Scotland, rural mid Wales and the more remote areas of England.

You are an ignorant and patronising little man.

Yes dear.

Silk wrote:


It's perfectly acceptable to use extrapolation in this particular
instance. Based on my experience in the rest of the UK, I can make an
educated guess that DAB coverage in the more built up areas of Scotland
would be on a par with England and Wales.

I don't think that is a reasonable assumption. Judging by the coverage
maps, it looks as though coverage is far less extensive in Scotland.

Also Scotland tends to have smaller towns, and it is usually more
expensive per person to provide coverage in small town. Obviously a
transmitter to cover a small town would serve fewer people than one
covering a larger town. That is bound to make broadcasters less willing
to pay to provide coverage in Scotland.

I strongly suspect that the whole situation is substantially different
in Scotland.

Richard E.

Richard Evans wrote:

I strongly suspect that the whole situation is substantially different
in Scotland.

No different for FM.

In alt.radio.digital Silk wrote:
Richard Evans wrote:
Roderick Stewart wrote:


I'm answering a point that someone has made, that he thinks people
object to DAB on grounds that are akin to religious fundamentalism,
i.e. unthinking allegiance rather than objective observation. I'm
illustrating this by offering my own reasons for my own decision,
because they are contrary to what he thinks.

Rod.

We have these two things on either side of our head called ears, and
when we use them to listen to DAB, they tell us that it sounds sh*t.

Have you never heard of psychoacoustics?

I
don't see anything religious or fundamentalist about that, we just hear
it, and it sounds like sh*t, and we are highly disappointed, and think
that radio should not sound as bad as that.

Can you, hand on heart, honestly say that you are not influences by the
fact that you are told DAB must sound ****e, so it kind of does?

I wasn't. I had decided to get a DAB receiver, and borrowed what was
supposed to be a good one to find out if reception was ok in my
area. I was looking forward to the "digital sound quality" the
advertising promised, which I assumed would be at least as good as the
best CDs in the same way that FM radio had been at least as good as
the best vinyl gramophone records. I was startled and disgusted by
the mediocre audio quality, which in many cases was actually lower
than "listen now" over the internet, and that's not too hot. The only
kind of FM radio it could be said to be an improvement on would be FM
radio in a car with a running engine.

So instead of spending the money on a DAB radio I bought a roof top FM
aerial. I now see no point in switching to digital radio until the BBC
makes a fundamental revision in its attitude to digital quality. Since
BBC apologists seem to think that the quality must be fine if most
people don't complain about it, and are completely ignorant about both
digital audio technology and the very high FM sound quality the BBC
was once world famous for, I see no prospect of that happening anytime
soon.

--
Chris Malcolm

In alt.radio.digital Richard Evans wrote:
Silk wrote:


Can you, hand on heart, honestly say that you are not influences by the
fact that you are told DAB must sound ****e, so it kind of does?

Yes absolutely. In fact it was hearing how bad it sounded that brought
me to alt.radio.digital, where I learned about why it sounds so bad.

Exactly what happened to me. I expected it to be of high quality. When
I heard with my own ears what it sounded like I came here to find out
what on earth had gone wrong. I was hoping to find it was some kind of
early days technical malfunction which they were working on solving. I
discovered instead that not only was it deliberate, but they seem to
be spending a lot of money on pretending they haven't very seriously
compromised the quality.

--
Chris Malcolm

Chris Malcolm wrote:

I wasn't. I had decided to get a DAB receiver, and borrowed what was
supposed to be a good one to find out if reception was ok in my
area. I was looking forward to the "digital sound quality" the
advertising promised, which I assumed would be at least as good as the
best CDs in the same way that FM radio had been at least as good as
the best vinyl gramophone records. I was startled and disgusted by
the mediocre audio quality, which in many cases was actually lower
than "listen now" over the internet, and that's not too hot. The only
kind of FM radio it could be said to be an improvement on would be FM
radio in a car with a running engine.

So instead of spending the money on a DAB radio I bought a roof top FM
aerial. I now see no point in switching to digital radio until the BBC
makes a fundamental revision in its attitude to digital quality. Since
BBC apologists seem to think that the quality must be fine if most
people don't complain about it, and are completely ignorant about both
digital audio technology and the very high FM sound quality the BBC
was once world famous for, I see no prospect of that happening anytime
soon.


Be fair. Don't blame the BBC for the quality. The entire broadcast
industry has made the decision to go with bitrates that I regard as
unacceptable. As most of the public seem to be happy, and aren't
turning away from the stations in droves, the situation is likely to
persist.

Or perhaps _that_ is why DAB isn't taking off?

Andy

Andy Champ wrote:


Be fair. Don't blame the BBC for the quality. The entire broadcast
industry has made the decision to go with bitrates that I regard as
unacceptable.

As I understand it, many of the commercial broadcasters dropped their
bit rates after the BBC dropped theirs. If the BBC were still using
192k, then the commercial broadcasters would have to provide reasonable
sound quality to avoid loosing listeners. However the BBC dropped down
to 128k, so after that why would the commercial broadcasters bother
providing anything better.

As most of the public seem to be happy, and aren't
turning away from the stations in droves, the situation is likely to
persist.
Or are they. As far as I can see he BBC and Ofcom try to just ignore all
the complaints.

Perhaps more than 3,000 having already signed this petition is some
indication of the feelings towards DAB
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AM-FM-Radio/

Perhaps the 100s of comment Ofcom got about DAB sound quality, every
time they had a consultation might be some indication. But do they take
any notice??


Or perhaps _that_ is why DAB isn't taking off?

DAB is taking off like a lead balloon, despite huge advertising
campaigns. People could argue that this is not entirely due to sound
quality, but I suspect that sound quality is a significant factor.

Richard E.

In article ,
Richard Evans wrote:
DAB is taking off like a lead balloon, despite huge advertising
campaigns. People could argue that this is not entirely due to sound
quality, but I suspect that sound quality is a significant factor.

IMHO, no. It's usually poor reception on portable radios. It was being
discussed at a barbecue this afternoon. Everyone there complained about
poor reception on a portable. I asked if they got perfect reception on FM
portables - and the general answer was no - but the artifacts on that were
less unpleasant than on DAB. I did some prompting about actual sound
quality but no one commented. And as regards using FreeView for radio
pretty everyone said they didn't want a TV on just for radio. So there you
go - a small straw poll.

--
*Did you ever notice when you blow in a dog's face he gets mad at you? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
Richard Evans wrote:
DAB is taking off like a lead balloon, despite huge advertising
campaigns. People could argue that this is not entirely due to sound
quality, but I suspect that sound quality is a significant factor.

IMHO, no. It's usually poor reception on portable radios. It was being
discussed at a barbecue this afternoon. Everyone there complained about
poor reception on a portable. I asked if they got perfect reception on FM
portables - and the general answer was no - but the artifacts on that were
less unpleasant than on DAB. I did some prompting about actual sound
quality but no one commented. And as regards using FreeView for radio
pretty everyone said they didn't want a TV on just for radio. So there you
go - a small straw poll.

I wonder if anyone will ever bring out a Freeview audio-only
tuner/radio? Obviously, without a TV 'helper' (if only for the initial
setup), this would need to have some form of visual display, but nothing
really more complicated than you have on a DAB radio. It might solve the
problems of the relative poor audio that DAB delivers.
--
Ian

Ian Jackson wrote:

I wonder if anyone will ever bring out a Freeview audio-only
tuner/radio?

With the decreasing bandwidth allocated per TV channel, how long before
someone decides it's worth buying out several radio station to close
them down for their bandwidth?

e.g MUXD has 7 x 128kbs radio channels and a minimum of 530 kbps of null
packets, that's just about enough for another legovision dirge+1 or
shopping channel.