You and Yours

"Paul D.Smith" wrote in message
...
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...rs_14_08_2009/

I'm surprised that you hounds haven't leapt upon this and devoured it. Go
to the 47 minute point and marvel at the sheer bloody cheek of the bloke,
telling the most outrageous lies about DAB and FM. A total morass of
misinformation. What the chuff is a '£25 adaptor'?

Bill

Others have responded to your questions but I would also point out the
extra power required for DAB. Now we're not talking Megawatts per
receiver but compare any DAB receiver to a PP3 powered tranny - you won't
find any DAB receivers even close to this.
The fact is that all politicians pay lip service to greenyism because it's a
fad at the moment. But they know which side their bread's buttered when it
comes to votes. The GBP will support greenyism as long as it has no impact
on their quality of life (which is only right and proper). So the
politicians play a strange game, in which they spout on about the
'environment' but carefully avoid any real action.


As an active LibDem
What does that involve? Having a feeling of being ready for government?

(pause for laughter)
Thank you.

I've exchanged e-mails with one of our MPs and his offices has forwarded
my questions to the "powers that be" and the answers are every but as
clear, precise and accurate as those on "You-and-yours".
It's a total waste of time. The only way you'll get the truth out of any of
the buggers is to get them ****ed and have a late night chat.

Bill

"seani" wrote in message
...
On Aug 17, 10:50 am, "Bill Wright"
wrote:
"seani" wrote in message

...
On Aug 17, 2:29 am, "Bill Wright"
wrote:You have a long history of helpful and generally friendly posting

combined with a healthy measure if self deprecation, so I'm a but
surprised you seem to have been stung by such an innocuous remark and
a *very* mild dig.

I wasn't stung by it. I just thought it was daft.

Fair enough.

Anyway.

What was the conclusion in the end, if it was possible to come to one?
It didn't look like any of the possibilities (car based, DAB-FM
retransmitter, headless-DAB-receiver-with-line-out) was anything that
anyone would want to live with. The £25 adaptor I spotted that
appeared to fit the bill turned out to be second had, so not
representative. Nothing else fitting that description seems to come
close in terms of price.

I don't think there's a truly satisfactory product on the market, because
the number of people with radios good enough to warrant a converter rather
than a replacement radio is quite small. I suppose if the powers that be
ever actually do start to switch off the BBC national FM stations enough
people would then want a converter so it might become commecially viable. It
would obviously need a stereo FM modulator. It would have to be mains
powered.

In my own case it isn't an issue really because much of my listening is via
a low powered FM modulator anyway.

Not really relevant, but some years ago I was indirectly involved with a
block of flats that was very close to an RSL FM Tx. So close, in fact, that
many of the residents' (cheap and nasty?) FM portables suffered
breakthrough. The management agency asked if the Tx aerial could be lifted
up, because it was level with the upstairs windows of the flats building,
but apparently OFCOM wouldn't allow it (or maybe the station was lieing
because they didn't want the expense). Anyway, in the end all the affected
residents got DAB portables, and these worked fine, except that they
couldn't get the BBC local station on them.

Bill

The fact is that all politicians pay lip service to greenyism because
it's a fad at the moment. But they know which side their bread's
buttered when it comes to votes. The GBP will support greenyism as
long as it has no impact on their quality of life (which is only
right and proper). So the politicians play a strange game, in which
they spout on about the 'environment' but carefully avoid any real
action.

Ummm, aren't the massive subsidies for "green" energy generation real,
with an impact on electricity prices?

It's a total waste of time. The only way you'll get the truth out of
any of the buggers is to get them ****ed and have a late night chat.

Might work with some of today's but to work with the old school you'd
have needed the liver of an ox. (One task in my youth was to keep
Chancellor Healey's glass topped up at a Christmas party. T'was damn
near a full time job for 2 hours.)
--
R

"Paul D.Smith" wrote in message
...
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...rs_14_08_2009/

I'm surprised that you hounds haven't leapt upon this and devoured it. Go
to the 47 minute point and marvel at the sheer bloody cheek of the bloke,
telling the most outrageous lies about DAB and FM. A total morass of
misinformation. What the chuff is a '£25 adaptor'?
Bill

Others have responded to your questions but I would also point out the
extra power required for DAB. Now we're not talking Megawatts per
receiver but compare any DAB receiver to a PP3 powered tranny - you won't
find any DAB receivers even close to this.

As an active LibDem (pause for laughter) I've exchanged e-mails with one
of our MPs and his offices has forwarded my questions to the "powers that
be" and the answers are every but as clear, precise and accurate as those
on "You-and-yours".

My favourite was that they likened a DAB receiver to a Windows PC and
requiring upgrades periodically. Now I don't know about you but I
certainly don't replace my radio every 10 years but at a conservative rate
of 4.7m radios per year (there are currently 47m+ in the UK) that's quite
a nice little revenue stream. Wonder how many new radios are currently
sold per year.
Paul DS

What a dreadful analogy, if DAB were like PCs then you'd be able to upgrade
the codec's to newer better ones, as DAB+ is

DAB is a dead end, rather than the open platform PC are

Steve Terry

Steve Terry wrote:


What a dreadful analogy, if DAB were like PCs then you'd be able to upgrade
the codec's to newer better ones, as DAB+ is

Perhaps more like a PC that only has ROM and RAM, but no disk drives.

Richard E.

"Richard Evans" wrote in message
...
Steve Terry wrote:

What a dreadful analogy, if DAB were like PCs then you'd be able to
upgrade
the codec's to newer better ones, as DAB+ is

Perhaps more like a PC that only has ROM and RAM, but no disk drives.
Richard E.


Un-upgradeable soldered in Rom and Ram and tiny HD, so unable
to accept a firmware upgrade.

Bit like early laptops

The next generation of DAB+ or DRM receivers should have at least
an accessible bus onto which hardware upgrades can be plugged

Like the old Amiga's

Steve Terry

Steve Terry wrote:


Un-upgradeable soldered in Rom and Ram and tiny HD, so unable
to accept a firmware upgrade.

Bit like early laptops

The next generation of DAB+ or DRM receivers should have at least
an accessible bus onto which hardware upgrades can be plugged

Like the old Amiga's

Yes, but then they wouldn't be able to sell you a new one in a few years
;-) That was my partially joking answer.

My serious answer is that making things upgradeable adds to the cost,
which makes quite a difference at the cheaper end of the market. Besides
making a digital radio upgradeable, wouldn't necessarily solve the
problem. A few years later, there might not be anybody building the
parts to upgrade it. Also as hardware prices come down, it would
probably become cheaper to buy a new radio than to upgrade an old one.

Richard E.

On Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:34:10 +0100, Max Demian wrote:

Adapter implies it turns an existing FM radio into a DAB radio,
presumably by transmitting an FM signal like the ones you can use to
play MP3s in a car. I don't know whether they make (or are contemplating
making) such a thing.

The Pure Highway is exactly that - it uses a stick-on J aerial that's
amplified, and re-transmits FM stereo with RDS (it just shows "Pure DAB"
on the radio display.

On Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:07:46 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article , DAB sounds worse than
FM wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article , DAB sounds worse
than
FM wrote:
Have you heard UK DAB+ transmissions to compare with DAB?

DAB+ uses the AAC/AAC+ audio codec, so all you need to do to hear
how DAB+ performs is to encode your own music to AAC/AAC+. There's
no need to actually be able to receive DAB+.

Right. So DAB+ will always sound better than DAB - regardless of the
data rates used on either?


I didn't actually say that at all, but the logical conclusion is that
DAB+ should sound far better than DAB because AAC/AAC+ is so much more
efficient than the MP2 codec used on DAB it's difficult to imagine any
broadcaster choosing to deliver lower audio quality on DAB+ than on
DAB.

They've already chosen to use less than ideal rates on DAB - so why are
you so sure they won't on DAB+?


After so many years of sticking up for DAB, you don't even appear to
have learnt the very, very basics of how the system works, Plowman.

And you don't have any idea of what may happen in the real world.


I've got a very good idea of what will happen in the real world on
DAB+, thanks.

Your famous crystal ball again.

You're wasting your time arguing with a "hi-fi" salesman. If he knew
anything about anything at all he'd work for the legitimate press, rather
than the bought-and-paid-for "advertorial" ******** that he proclaims is
gospel.

In the Real World, DAB almost invariably sounds much better than FM. DAB
doesn't suffer from the over-modulated crap that plagues Band II and the
hordes of less-then-able "pirate" radio operators.

DAB+ isn't a panacea for all that is wrong with DAB. The hi-fi salesman
will probably tell you that IBOC (that's used in the USA) is "much
better". This is also *total* ********. IBOC just causes interference.

"Christopher Hunter" wrote in
message

On Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:07:46 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article , DAB sounds worse
than
FM wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article , DAB sounds worse
than
FM wrote:
Have you heard UK DAB+ transmissions to compare with DAB?

DAB+ uses the AAC/AAC+ audio codec, so all you need to do to
hear
how DAB+ performs is to encode your own music to AAC/AAC+.
There's
no need to actually be able to receive DAB+.

Right. So DAB+ will always sound better than DAB - regardless of
the
data rates used on either?


I didn't actually say that at all, but the logical conclusion is
that
DAB+ should sound far better than DAB because AAC/AAC+ is so much
more
efficient than the MP2 codec used on DAB it's difficult to imagine
any
broadcaster choosing to deliver lower audio quality on DAB+ than
on
DAB.

They've already chosen to use less than ideal rates on DAB - so why
are
you so sure they won't on DAB+?


After so many years of sticking up for DAB, you don't even
appear to
have learnt the very, very basics of how the system works,
Plowman.

And you don't have any idea of what may happen in the real world.


I've got a very good idea of what will happen in the real world on
DAB+, thanks.

Your famous crystal ball again.

You're wasting your time arguing with a "hi-fi" salesman.


I'm not a hi-fi salesman.


If he knew
anything about anything at all he'd work for the legitimate press,
rather
than the bought-and-paid-for "advertorial" ******** that he
proclaims is
gospel.


I'm only a part time journalist.


In the Real World, DAB almost invariably sounds much better than FM.


I suggest you get your ears syringed.


DAB
doesn't suffer from the over-modulated crap that plagues Band II and
the
hordes of less-then-able "pirate" radio operators.


DAB suffers from MP2 audio artefacts, though, whcih FM doesn't suffer
from. If you can't hear the artefacts on DAB, your ears are non
funciona.


DAB+ isn't a panacea for all that is wrong with DAB.


It is a huge leap forwards from DAB. DVB-T2 wipes the floor with DAB+,
though, not that you'd understand why or how - and that's if you've
even heard of it, which I doubt.


The hi-fi salesman
will probably tell you that IBOC (that's used in the USA) is "much
better". This is also *total* ********. IBOC just causes
interference.


Can't remember me ever having a good word for IBOC, actually. Then
again you know nothing about nothing, and all the regulars on here
know that already, so you're wasting your breath.



--
Steve - www.savefm.org - stop the BBC bullies switching off FM

www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - digital radio news & info

"It is the sheer volume of online audio content available via
internet-connected devices which terrifies the UK radio industry. I
believe that broadband-delivered radio will explode in the years to
come, offering very local, unregulated content, as well as opening a
window to the radio stations of the world." - from the Myers Report