Dab radios and the new Oxford ensemble......

After much googling and digging around various DAB related websites, I
do not need to junk any of my DAB radios after all if I want to receive
the Oxford DAB mux on 10B.

Apparently on older DAB radios, if you hold the scan button down for
more than 3 seconds, it forces the DAB radio to perform a full scan from
5A to 13F.

Anything less than 3 seconds makes the radio do a local scan from 11B to
12D as that apparently is/was the original UK DAB allocation.

This method of doing a full scan is not mentioned in any of the
instruction books I have filed away for all my DAB radios.

The one radio that does a full scan by default is the most recent DAB
enabled Hi Fi I have, the Sony CMT MX750 NI.

Roll on the Northampton and Beds/Bucks/Hearts muxes on 10C and 10D..... :-)

Hope this helps someone....

Now for DAB+... I'm certain my older DAB radios won't support that! :-(

Reminds me of that palaver over old OnDigital boxes being unable to
support 8K mode, negative offsets or split NIT tables..... which forced
their scrapping.

Stephen.


On 08/01/2013 21:20, Paul Cummins wrote:
We were about to embark at Dover, when (Woody)
came up to me and whispered:

I did not say
DAB only goes to 192K,

No you said...

Don't forget that UK DAB is heavily *******ised, i.e. it is
designed not to use data rathes higher than 192K

Which is wrong. It is designed to go to 384K. But, as you say, in the UK
it peaks at 192 for BBC Radio 3, and 160 for Classic FM.

I only have DAB because Classic on FM at home is lousy and hissy, and it
saves retuning and gives consistently average signal when travelling. I
would rather have consistency than occasional perfection in an otherwise
hissy jittery signal.

On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 23:20:08 +0000, Stephen H
wrote:


After much googling and digging around various DAB related websites, I
do not need to junk any of my DAB radios after all if I want to receive
the Oxford DAB mux on 10B.

Apparently on older DAB radios, if you hold the scan button down for
more than 3 seconds, it forces the DAB radio to perform a full scan from
5A to 13F.

Anything less than 3 seconds makes the radio do a local scan from 11B to
12D as that apparently is/was the original UK DAB allocation.

This method of doing a full scan is not mentioned in any of the
instruction books I have filed away for all my DAB radios.

The one radio that does a full scan by default is the most recent DAB
enabled Hi Fi I have, the Sony CMT MX750 NI.

Roll on the Northampton and Beds/Bucks/Hearts muxes on 10C and 10D..... :-)

Hope this helps someone....

Now for DAB+... I'm certain my older DAB radios won't support that! :-(

Reminds me of that palaver over old OnDigital boxes being unable to
support 8K mode, negative offsets or split NIT tables..... which forced
their scrapping.

Stephen.


On 08/01/2013 21:20, Paul Cummins wrote:
We were about to embark at Dover, when (Woody)
came up to me and whispered:

I did not say
DAB only goes to 192K,

No you said...

Don't forget that UK DAB is heavily *******ised, i.e. it is
designed not to use data rathes higher than 192K

Which is wrong. It is designed to go to 384K. But, as you say, in the UK
it peaks at 192 for BBC Radio 3, and 160 for Classic FM.

I only have DAB because Classic on FM at home is lousy and hissy, and it
saves retuning and gives consistently average signal when travelling. I
would rather have consistency than occasional perfection in an otherwise
hissy jittery signal.


My Mediamaster 9850T was fine about the split NIT.
Not sure about -ve offset as that only became a problem on Winter Hill
with DSO and 8K FFT

The -ve offset stopped my two Vestel boxes, but only for a few hours
while I found the firmware update on the net, I wonder how many of
those ended up in landfill?

--
Graham.
%Profound_observation%

Stephen H wrote:

Now for DAB+... I'm certain my older DAB radios won't support that! :-(

Pretty sure mine won't either, equally sure I won't be rushing out to
replace them for ones that do.

"Woody" wrote in message
...
"Paul Cummins" wrote in message
main...
We were about to embark at Dover, when (tony sayer)
came up to me and whispered:

Was Paul .. superseded quite some time ago now by AAC which is
far better at the low bitrates they run DAB at

I agree. But the point is DAB is good to 384Kbps, not the 192k claimed by
the OP.


I think you maybe misunderstood or misread it Paul. I did not say DAB only
goes to 192K, but that is the highest rate used in the UK. 256 and 320
was (is?) used in Europe except that they are going to DAB+ with lower
data rates.

For the record BBCR3 uses 192K except when 5LSX is operating when it drops
to 160K (I think.) Classic runs at 160K all of the time. R1 and R2 run at
128K and R4 runs (most of the time) at 96K in mono.

OfCom have given permission or will soon give permission for the
broadcasters to drop to 112K which will make DAB unlistenable IMO - not
that it is now!


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com


And even at 192k Radio 3 is not as good as FM. I've gone back to my old
Technics FM tuner - it produces a stereo image which DAB doesn't seem able
to do. Radio 2 is distinctly muffled on DAB compared to FM and is not
really in stereo. ClassicFM wastes its 160k by having so much compression -
everything at the same volume.

....snip...
Reminds me of that palaver over old OnDigital boxes being unable to
support 8K mode, negative offsets or split NIT tables..... which forced
their scrapping.
-------------
If I had a quid for every TV/box I've seen which "sort of works but if you
do this..." and for which there is no firmware update available, then I'd be
a wealthy man. I've long thought that companies should be forced to "open
source" their firmware and build trees when they stop updating the models
themselves.

Most boxes are based on some variant of Linux or Busybox anyway these days,
and if the proprietary code for these TVs/boxes was worth so much, it
wouldn't be crap and need fixing, would it :-).

Paul DS.

Paul D Smith wrote:
...snip...
Reminds me of that palaver over old OnDigital boxes being unable to
support 8K mode, negative offsets or split NIT tables..... which forced
their scrapping.

Actually, to be totally fair, the OnDigital boxes coped perfectly with
split NIT tables, and I don't think there were any problems with -ve
offsets. Their downfall was they only had 2k COFDM chip sets fitted.
The UK rushed ahead and launched with 2k (we were the only country to do
so) Back in 1998 8k chip sets just about available, but too expensive
at the time to be considered, so the OnD boxes were only ever 2k compatible.

I've never seen reports of any working at 8k ?

My OnD box was still working perfectly right up until 00:34hrs on
February 22 2012, the last image I saw from it was Sky News, before
the old 2k Mux D was shut down forever at DSO.

In article , Mark Carver
wrote:
Clem Dye wrote:

I thought that all of us in Blighty were going to have to junk what
DAB kit we have anyway, because there were/are plans to move to DAB+,
which we don't currently use, but the rest of the planet apparently
does because it's a lot better. Sounds like DTTV all over again to me
.....

There are DAB+ tests being conducted in the Brighton area at present.

It's odd though, it *seems* more 'acceptable' for everyone to junk their
DTT receivers, for DVB-T2 etc, than to do the same for DAB receivers
with DAB+ ?

If the UK switches to DAB+ then, as night follows day, that will probably
be used to squeeze more stations onto each multplex rather than deliver
higher quality. The existing precedents are DAB and DTTV. In each case
'more stations' trumped 'better quality'. Given OfCom's record on many
issues, why would DAB+ be any different?

All that would happen would be a brief period of 'better quality' to get
early adopters to start the ball rolling. Then the squeeze would start...

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Mark Carver
wrote:
Clem Dye wrote:

I thought that all of us in Blighty were going to have to junk what
DAB kit we have anyway, because there were/are plans to move to DAB+,
which we don't currently use, but the rest of the planet apparently
does because it's a lot better. Sounds like DTTV all over again to me
.....

There are DAB+ tests being conducted in the Brighton area at present.

It's odd though, it *seems* more 'acceptable' for everyone to junk their
DTT receivers, for DVB-T2 etc, than to do the same for DAB receivers
with DAB+ ?

If the UK switches to DAB+ then, as night follows day, that will probably
be used to squeeze more stations onto each multplex rather than deliver
higher quality.

Doesn't night always follow day rather than there being an element of
probability surrounding it?
--
JohnT

In article ,
JohnT wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...


If the UK switches to DAB+ then, as night follows day, that will
probably be used to squeeze more stations onto each multplex rather
than deliver higher quality.

Doesn't night always follow day rather than there being an element of
probability surrounding it?

Think carefully about using terms like 'always' in such a context if
you are assuming it means an unlimited scope for a probability of unity.

As it is, I can't answer your question as I haven't (yet) spent eternity
observing the passage of days and nights to see if by some amazing
circumstance they continue forever.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On 2013-01-09, JohnT wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...

If the UK switches to DAB+ then, as night follows day, that will probably
be used to squeeze more stations onto each multplex rather than deliver
higher quality.

Doesn't night always follow day rather than there being an element of
probability surrounding it?

According to quantum mechanics, no.

--
David Taylor