Petition to stop FM being switched off

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
In article , charles
scribeth thus
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:

Mate of mine has a factory fit DABble radio comparing FM from Madingley
near Cambridge 500 watts of FM out performs 4 kW of DAB!..

Been in the car and seen it myself!..

Sound as though the aerial system in the car doesn't work properly at
Band III.


Quarter wave around 12 inches long. Mounted to the rear of the roof....

and then what happens? (I did write 'aerial system')

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

In article , Dave Higton
scribeth thus
In message
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote:

Basically, if you understood the technologies that are used then FM
basically can't be worse than DAB.

I /do/ understand the technologies involved. FM is worse than DAB
because all the decoders we use are non-linear, therefore FM
broadcasts, once received, are subject to intermodulation and
harmonic distortions. DAB isn't. It is very much like the vinyl
versus CD and valves versus transistors arguments.

Dave

Yeabut do you actually listen to FM and Dab tho?..
--
Tony Sayer

In article , charles
scribeth thus
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
In article , charles
scribeth thus
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:

Mate of mine has a factory fit DABble radio comparing FM from Madingley
near Cambridge 500 watts of FM out performs 4 kW of DAB!..

Been in the car and seen it myself!..

Sound as though the aerial system in the car doesn't work properly at
Band III.


Quarter wave around 12 inches long. Mounted to the rear of the roof....

and then what happens? (I did write 'aerial system')


A lump of coax goes from that to the radio a Blaupunt wood stick thing
IIRC..

Reception on FM is very good ....
--
Tony Sayer

In message
tony sayer wrote:

In article , Dave Higton
scribeth thus
In message
"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote:

Basically, if you understood the technologies that are used then FM
basically can't be worse than DAB.

I /do/ understand the technologies involved. FM is worse than DAB
because all the decoders we use are non-linear, therefore FM
broadcasts, once received, are subject to intermodulation and
harmonic distortions. DAB isn't. It is very much like the vinyl
versus CD and valves versus transistors arguments.

Yeabut do you actually listen to FM and Dab tho?..

Not very much; but since I installed the DAB antenna in the loft
(yes, I installed the FM one some years ago), I haven't bothered
with FM any more. DAB sounds cleaner.

Dave

In message en.co.uk
Roderick Stewart wrote:

The main criticisam of DAB is that information *is* thrown away in such
a manner that it can never be completely recovered, not even
theoretically, and this is done by the broadcasters themselves before
the signal even gets to the transmitter.

Absolutely. What's removed is the stuff you can't hear anyway.

Dave

Radio 3 uses 192kbps. So there you go, much better and sensible use
of valuable bandwidth: 192kbps for R3, where high quality is
essential, 64kbps for R4 where it is mainly mono speech, and close
to that for modern music which is mainly speech and percussion. Ideal.


You are risking life and limb suggesting that The Archers be broadcast
in MP2 at such an execrable bitrate. It's not just the
tum-te-tum-te-tums. There are the bells, the cows lowing, the glugging
of the cider .......

Where would H2G2 have been in 64 kbps mono?

And then there's all the live events from Armistice Day through the
Festival of Carols (which I don't begrudge the G Squad) to the Reith
Lectures.

Bah! Humbug!

--
R

"Ian Smith" wrote in message
o.uk
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
"Paul Martin" wrote in message

In article ,
Kráftéé wrote:
jasee wrote:
Alan wrote:
In message , DAB sounds
worse
than FM wrote
There's a 10 Downing St petition to stop FM/AM being switched
off:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AM-FM-Radio/

Why would anyone want to sign something that may prevent us
getting
hundreds of radio stations on DAB?
Why would it do that?
How many more rubbish radio stations (at lower quality than FM)
do
you want anyway?
But with a greater bandwidth they wouldn't have to compress the
audio
so much & so you could have better quality sound, the way it
should
be!
What greater bandwidth? The trend has been to crank down the
bitrates,
from 128kbps, to 112kbps, and even 96kbps.


Or to switch from stereo to mono to save even more bandwidth...


Of the commercial stations,
only Classic FM has used a half-decent bitrate (160kbps).


Literally 98% of stereo stations on DAB in the UK use a bit rate of
112 or 128 kbps (counting multiple instances of the same station
when
they're on different multiplexes).

Radio 3 uses 192kbps.


The only station in the UK that uses 192 kbps. Yet Radio 3 still
sounds better on FM.


So there you go, much better and sensible use
of valuable bandwidth: 192kbps for R3, where high quality is
essential, 64kbps for R4 where it is mainly mono speech, and close
to that for modern music which is mainly speech and percussion.
Ideal.


In other words, you want good quality for the station you listen to
and sod EVERYBODY else.

Nice and selfless attitude.



--
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

On 26-Jun-2009, "DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote:

and sod EVERYBODY else.

No that's the government policy.
The advantages of DAB
We send all our FM radios to landfill
We buy Chniese made DAB radios.
This helps the Chinese economy.
The Chinese start buying our waste cardboard
again to pack them in, reducing our scrap
mountain that nobody else wants.
The government gets money from flogging off
the FM spectrum.
The government gets the VAT from all the DAB
radio sales.
The government can say how well we have
embraced the cutting edge of digital technology.
Everybody wins, the Exchequer, the Chinese,
the retailers who are selling the DAB radios,
the wholesalers and shippers.
Everybody wins.
So it's
sod EVERYBODY else.
No point in a petition.
Just like elections, shread the votes that you
don't agree with.
Works in Zimbabwe, and many other countries,
nod, wink.

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
In article , charles
scribeth thus
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
In article , charles
scribeth thus
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:

Mate of mine has a factory fit DABble radio comparing FM from
Madingley near Cambridge 500 watts of FM out performs 4 kW of DAB!..

Been in the car and seen it myself!..

Sound as though the aerial system in the car doesn't work properly at
Band III.


Quarter wave around 12 inches long. Mounted to the rear of the roof....

and then what happens? (I did write 'aerial system')


A lump of coax goes from that to the radio a Blaupunt wood stick thing
IIRC..

Reception on FM is very good ....

then so should reception of DAB be. So - what's wrong with the aerial
system?

Since 12" isn't the correct length for Band II, I assume its been 'frigged'
for that band - perhaps to the severe detriment of Band III

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

"Ian Smith" wrote in message

DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:


Yeah, that's for YOU. But for anybody with good reception quality
on
both DAB and FM the quality on FM is better. Basically, if you
understood the technologies that are used then FM basically can't
be
worse than DAB.

I designed and built by first stereo FM tuner when I was still at
school, so I probably do understand it.


If you do understand FM then you'd know that the BBC uses NICAM to
distribute the audio to the transmitters around teh country, so that
anybody who receives an FM signal with a high signal to noise ratio is
effectively listening to NICAM-encoded audio. NICAM uses a bit rate of
728 kbps, whereas DAB typically uses a bit rate of 128 kbps. Hopefully
I don't need to spell out to you which one is going to sound better.
Hint: it ain't DAB.

And if you understand how digital audio coding works then you'd be
able to see from the plots on the following page why it's so obvious
that NICAM provides higher quality than MP2 even at 192 kbps (because
the plots for MP2 are for 192 kbps):

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/nicam_vs_mp2.htm

Basically, audio artefacts (i.e. degradation of quality in other
words) are caused by the level of quantisation noise being too high.
As you can see from those plots the quantisation noise is far, far
higher on MP2 than it is on NICAM.


I have lived in many locations and I have never ever had what I
consider to be an adequately listenable (HiFi) FM reception (for
classical and operatic music, where very quiet periods can be
common). Even with an FM feed over cable (where over modulation from
the head-end kit causes problems with high-peak-level content) the
overall listener experience is unacceptable. My experience is that
FM will always have hiss if listened to on good equipment in any
real-world situation.


I've been reviewing radio products for a hi-fi magazine for the last
3 - 4 years, so I've probably reviewed about 10 DAB/FM tuners and a
handful of FM/AM tuners. Radio 3 sounds dull and lacking in detail on
DAB, whereas it sounds very good on FM. The biggest difference is on
the other music stations though which use bit rates of 128 or 112
kbps, because they simply sound dire on DAB.


DAB doesn't. With a good aerial I have never
heard any drop-out, burbling or twanging to interrupt my listening
even with the most demanding programmes and the widest dynamic range
over DAB.


All I can say is that you clearly aren't aware what you're missing on
FM.

BTW, Radio 3's Internet radio stream is now using 192 kbps AAC, and
that's at far higher quality than DAB, so if you do like listening
digitally you're not even listening to the best digtial source!


Yes 'perfect' and 'idealised' FM is fairly good,


Utterly ridiculous. I've heard FM sound fantastic on a good tuner.
What you've just said proves that you can't ever have heard good let
alone perfect FM reception. Either that or you've simply got a bad
memory, or you're just making things up to try and prove a point.


but you just don't
get it very often.


Funny that, because I've lived in various parts of the country and
I've never had a problem receiving the BBC's stations.


Add to this that the trade-off between hiss and
over-modulation with classical and operatic content is impossible to
reconcile with FM. You can also frequently hear tearing of the high
audio frequencies where the demodulator is unable to follow the HF
audio content - even with good tuners. The average Pure Evoke DAB
portable will produce better audio performance on this sort of
programme content when plumbed through a good system.


Now you're just being ridiculous.


The majority of people rate DAB quality to be higher than FM. Fact.
This is also my experience.


The vast majority of DAB owners have a DAB portable radio where the
audio quality isn't so much of an issue.


Arguments about R4 speech radio in mono being compared to
FM are just futile and don't relate to any real user experience.


Radio 4 is in mono on DAB quite frequently in the evening whereas
it's
in stereo on FM. Not sure how anyone can deny that it's better to
have
stereo than mono.

You obviously didn't read what I wrote, did you? You responded with
the same futile point.


What, so it's "futile point" for people to want to hear programmes on
Radio 4 in stereo when they've been made in stereo, not in mono, which
Radio 4 is frequently in teh evenings when Radio 5 Sports Extra is
on-air.

Anywaym, you enjoy the low quality on DAB.




--
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