The future of radio may well be digital, but it won't survive on DAB

@Mage Re: Lucky to get 192 on DAB

RTÉ Lyric FM is transmitted at 160 kbit joint-stereo on DAB: Only BBC Radio 3's bitrate is higher at 192k, and other UK stereo services are 128k joint-stereo or worse.

But even at 160k it's still not good enough in MP2, especially in comparison to the superb audio quality of the analogue FM signal. Lyric is proof that a lot of lousy radio quality is something the stations themselves do before broadcast: Lyric's FM signal always has superb dynamic range, with none of the "all loud, all the time" Optimod compression that makes other services tiring to listen to.

There's also a DAB+ version of Lyric at 48 kbit, and it's actually pretty close in audio quality to the 160 kbit MP2 version, but still not as good as the FM.

Re: Lucky to get 192 on DAB

Honestly wasn't aware Ireland had DAB, any time I drive across the border I lose DAB around the Dundalk North turnoff, flick it onto whatever is strong on FM, usually TodayFM or 2FM.

Back when car radios were crap the likes of Atlantic 252 used to do a great job on long journeys with no retuning. I think RTE now uses this frequency for their Radio 1 (which is like a mixture of BBC Radios 2-5)

In car

I have to turn mine up quite a bit over the

Tyre, engine, transmission, wind, suspension, hydraulics, noises

But I can still tell how good the source is like over companded and different CDs

Re: Those RAJAR figures

The RAJAR release for the 2018 listening figures [1] actually says things like

"‘Live Radio’ listening hours are dominated by traditional AM/FM and DAB Radio sets (AM/FM Share = 44% DAB = 39%). Can't remember what the car numbers are (link below if you want the RAJAR report).

Listening to radio via a Smartphone, TV and Desktop/Laptop have a share of 4%.

Wifi Radios have a 2% share. Listening to radio via a Tablet or Voice activated speakers have a smaller share (1%). "

And so on.

IE what RAJAR actually says is that 83% of total listening hours for live radio are via traditional broadcast-reception devices using the traditonal broadcast transmission network.

Meanwhile, the oriiginal concept of "independent local radio" needing lots of FM channels has largely vanished without trace, as today's commercial stations are mostly not independent, mostly not local, and mostly just global records and adverts (some ads global, some ads local). The commercial output frequently barely resembles their original commercial licence proposals.

And yet for some reason BBC 6Music still isn't on FM; the best way to listen to 6Music and find out what's on still requires internet access, a personally identifiable BBC logon and an Android device, preferably with something decent for the sound output. What's that all about?

If one of the BBC's most popular channels is not going to get a listen-anywhere-in-UK FM slot, why isn't the iPlayer Radio or similar capability (TuneIn Radio etc don't really count) more widely available on TVs, media gadgets (Roku, etc)?

Confused? Absolutely.

[1] RAJAR release for the 2018 'MIDAS' listening figures: find via

http://www.rajar.co.uk/

Re: Cars are priority

"Although many people do listen in cars, according to the latest Rajar data, 60% of listening is in the home, 24% in car, and 16% in the office."

Those figures don't add up. Or rather they do but leave nothing for all the vocal diarrhoea DJs that seem inescapable in shops etc.

Re: Cars are priority, but what about DAB?

Does DAB in the UK have a widely available (in DAB terms) equivalent of RDS yet? IE something which the receiver can use to auto switch to 'local' traffic news when it is broadcast, like UK BBC FM stations have been doing for decades? Or is 'public service broadcasting' just a hip name for a band these days?

Yes it has all the same stuff plus more, mine does that, it switches to "local" stations that might be 2 counties away as well as dsiplaying the current radio station, programme details and currently playing song and artist. It also receives TMS data for the satnav and does auto route suggestions.

Re: Cars are priority, but what about DAB?

RDS is a total pain. I always disable it.

1: Information is usually way out of date

2: It's usually not "local" at all

and

3: Idiot broadcasters who press the "RDS announcement" button and then forget to turn it off. So suddenly, the debate I'm listening to is interrupted by a short traffic announcement and then a stream of DJ wibble that can only be turned off by - disabling the RDS on my receiver.

Re: Radio as a gateway drug

Maybe, I'm not sure it's the same hands-on electronics learning experience though. Ferrite coil, piezo earpiece, diode, tuning capacitor, quite a cheap kit, and each component can be taken apart, it's fairly easily understood how they connect and operate together. Vs, have a raspberry pi, connect it to some pre-wired radio module that somebody has built, install a library or two that do something then try to get it to work. It's still teaching something, but not the same lesson.

Re: Radio as a gateway drug

I think there's a huge difference between making something out of a tiny number of active components (in the limit, one diode) which you can understand the physics of and playing with a machine containing the best part of a billion transistors, with multiple layers of caching, virtual memory &c, and millions of lines of OS between you and the hardware.

The Pi is a great thing, but using one is nothing like the experience of using, say the BBC micro, and using that was nothing like the experience of building a radio out of bits.

(Note I am not implying that one of these things is better than the others, just that they are not in any way the same thing.)

Re: Radio as a gateway drug

My first radio had a red knob connected to a sprung brass pin which you used to select the best 'point' on the crystal. My father taught me that this process was, in the days of his own youth, called: 'tickling the cat's whisker'.