No DAB reception in cars near BBC Television Centre!

"Silk" wrote in message ...
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
You're wasting your time with them. I've had a decent DAB setup with a
proper aerial in the car for 3 years now and the reception is very good
indeed. I've certainly never lost reception in a built up area, which is
more than can be said of FM where multipath can make R4 virtually
unlistenable in comparison.

I've given an honest account of its performance over this time, but I'm
practically called a liar.

I have a Sony car radio that receives DAB. Obviously I don't know how the
two tuners compare, but both work well compared to previous DAB and FM car
radios. The FM aerial is a quarter wave tuned empirically by me to 100MHz.
The DAB aerial is a quarter wave tuned empirically by me to 220MHz. Both
aerials are on a large flat van roof. In areas where there is supposed to be
DAB coverage I find the DAB and FM coverage to be about the same, although
im marginal areas I do sometimes switch from one to other to find the best,
and sometimes it's one and sometimes it's the other. In areas where there is
no DAB and no claim that there is I listen to FM and forget DAB.

I wish I could get another radio the same as the one I have, but Sony don't
do them any more. I guess they got fed up of all the moaning about DAB.

The fact is, unless you are using a proper DAB aerial mounted on the roof
then you have no right to say owt about DAB coverage.

Bill

In article , Bill Wright wrote:
The fact is, unless you are using a proper DAB aerial mounted on the roof
then you have no right to say owt about DAB coverage.

Hmm... On the other hand, anyone using the same sort of setup for DAB that
they have been accustomed to using with FM is bound to atribute any
difference (e.g. reliability of reception, quality of sound, battery life)
to the only thing they've changed.

Whether they carry a portable with a telescopic aerial around the house, or
buy a separate tuner for their hi-fi system, if all other things remain the
same but the new system gobbles batteries and sounds awful, then I expect
most people will do what I did and go back to what they've been using
reliably for years.

Rod.
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In article , Silk wrote:
I never go to Scotland, but I'm guessing DAB would be just fine in the
major population centres.

Oh well, that's all right then, as long as you live in one of those
places. Pity about the highlands and islands, the very places that could
benefit most from electronic contact with the outside world.

Rod.
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Roderick Stewart wrote:
In article , Silk wrote:
You lot are so anti-DAB it's bordering on a kind of religious
fundamentalism. The reality is it has strengths as well as weaknesses.

I don't see what's religious or fundamental about simply listening and
making up one's mind

Neither do I.

On Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:21:10 +0100, Silk wrote:

I never go to Scotland, but I'm guessing DAB would be just fine in the
major population centres.

In other words, you don't know, so you're earlier assertion, quoted below, is a
nonsense,

quote

DAB reception is flawless in all but the most remote of locations with a
decent in-car setup. This is a simple fact, whether you like it or not.

/quote
--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.gt-britain.co.uk/weather

In article , Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
You lot are so anti-DAB it's bordering on a kind of religious
fundamentalism. The reality is it has strengths as well as weaknesses.

I don't see what's religious or fundamental about simply listening and
making up one's mind, which is what I've done. I wouldn't describe
myself as "anti" - just "indifferent", or "disappointed", because I had
hoped DAB was going to sound good, but it doesn't, not to my ears.

Are you discussing DAB sound quality or its reception versus FM in cars?

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.
--
Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/

Roderick Stewart wrote:
In article , Silk wrote:
You lot are so anti-DAB it's bordering on a kind of religious
fundamentalism. The reality is it has strengths as well as weaknesses.

I don't see what's religious or fundamental about simply listening and
making up one's mind, which is what I've done. I wouldn't describe
myself as "anti" - just "indifferent", or "disappointed", because I had
hoped DAB was going to sound good, but it doesn't, not to my ears.

Rod.
I think he words I would use would be Huge disappointment.
I was interested in digital radio ever since I heard about it on
Tomorrows World, many years ago. When I heard that DAB had been
launched, I waited for years until receiver prices fall to the point
where I could afford one.

I'd heard that the bit rates were too low, due to commercial reasons. I
still hoped it would sound OK, and hoped that the bit rates would be
increased once more people were listening to it.

I went ahead and bought a DAB car stereo, despite hearing that bit rates
were too low, so yes perhaps I was a bit fanatical. I was fanatical in
favour of DAB, but after about 18 months of regular listening the sound
quality was really getting on my nerves, and I was starting to realise
that this was never going to change. In the end I just gave up on it,
and changed from a DAB fanatic, to an extremely disappointed ex DAB
listener.

Richard E.

Silk wrote:
Richard Evans wrote:

The headphone lead usually works perfectly antiquately for FM personal
stereos.

They are complete crap in all but the best reception areas. FM isn't
magic you know.

Well your experience must be extremely different from mine.
I found that FM personal stereo would tend to suffer from some fade
outs, and in very poor reception areas, this could become too much.

However in the same areas a my DAB personal stereo was frequently
deteriorating to bubbling mud, in areas where FM worked quite well, and
in areas where FM was poor, DAB was very difficult to receive at all.

Basically FM was not perfect, but was acceptable, while DAB was very
poor anywhere other than strong signal areas.


Presumably they must have considered the less then perfect
receivers when they designed the FM transmissions. So what is wrong
with having DAB that works on less then perfect receivers.

It does. It's completely immune to audible multipath distortion, which
is a major bonus, especially on speech radio.
Well I don't listen to much speech radio, but I never actually noticed
the multipath distortion listening to music on an FM personal stereo.

And anyway, I don't see much point in having immunity from multipath
distortion, only to replace it with digital audio that is permanently
compromised by low bit rates.


You lot are so anti-DAB it's bordering on a kind of religious
fundamentalism. The reality is it has strengths as well as weaknesses.

As I said in another reply. Yes used to be fanatical in favour of DAB,
but after 18 months of putting up with the poor audio, and realising
that this was never going to be improved, I turned from a DAB fanatic
into just an extremely disappointed ex DAB fanatic.

Richard E.

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. 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.

Richard E.

Andy Champ wrote:

So my 1999 car with its trendy-at-the time rear wing aerial hasn't a
hope with DAB? That's a pain, because there's so little content on VHF
I was thinking about switching. After all the engine noise means I
won't get a hi-fi experience anyway...

Andy

But you don't need hi-fi to realise that DAB sounds horrible. A hi-fi
does make the problems more obvious, but it's not exactly unnoticeable
on a lesser system either.