Metropol

I've been going through some of the old birdsong threads and am wondering what people think about the current state of DAB. Certainly I've seen bugger all news about any potential upgrades to DAB+

I do like the suggestion earlier in this thread of running DAB and DAB+ together ala AM/FM and frankly it seems the most sensible way to do things.

What gets me however is that the commercial DAB stations seem to be dying. Aside from Absolute and a few Bauer based ones there is bugger all choice in the dab spectrum compared to what there was when I first got my digital radio. I wish they'd use this to up the bandwidth of the current stations but no, it seems they're quite happy to instead sit on it and hope the stations decide to pour money into a pit of fail

DAB is a ridiculously outdated technology and in my opinion becomes entirely obsolete with the introduction of 4G.

Someone brave needs to make a decision to switch it off. That's going to be particularly difficult for the BBC, given it has encouraged people to buy DAB radios, and spent fortunes on DAB transmitters.

The idea that FM will be switched off in the forseeable future is laughable. OFCOM is still offering FM licences. DAB can't work for community/local radio.

Removing Radio 4 from FM would be (as I suspect Sir Humphrey Appleby might say) the most courageous thing a government has ever done.

If I want dependable, good quality radio on the go, there's FM. If I want digital sound, there's internet streaming. Yorkshire Coast Radio cottoned onto that fact.

I don't know anyone who uses DAB.

EDIT: I think DAB is especially useless at home, as all the TVs can tune into the radio channels. I couldn't plug an optical cable into a DAB radio, but I can with pretty much any LCD TV.

I've listened EXCLUSIVELY to DAB at home for the past five years when I use a radio. As for 4G replacing radio think about the detail and then forget it.

FM will be redistributed probably starting in around 5 years time, the BBC for one will be looking at saving distriburion costs and that'd be a major chunk of savings in one sweep. R4 probably being the first of the BBC services, then R3 and finally R1 and R2 together over a 3 month period in any one area, in a rolling national programme once the DAB buld completes region by region, I'd expect the whole National FM network to have closed by mid 2019.

DVB Cornwall wrote:I've listened EXCLUSIVELY to DAB at home for the past five years when I use a radio.

What about outside the home?

I have a portable DAB radio. Lovely little thing. Perfect reception, great quality, improves listening to the football and rugby tenfold rather than tuning in to a distant whiny AM signal.

Get rid of the Christian stations and it'd be perfect.

Almost three and a half years after I made this topic, and it looks as though DAB+ is becoming a reality.

http://radiotoday.co.uk/2014/09/folder- ... io-on-dab/

Yup. Noticed dual DAB/DAB+ sets on sale in Argos t'other day.

DVB Cornwall wrote: I'd expect the whole National FM network to have closed by mid 2019.

Not. Gonna. Happen. There is no way we are going to have a switch off like we did with TV in the UK. Not a chance.

Almost five years since I started this thread and now DAB+ is soon to be a reality nationally. Well, three stations, but it's a start.

It's interesting looking back on this thread, with people calling for DAB to be shut down, which seems like a bit of a silly idea now.

robschneider wrote:Not. Gonna. Happen. There is no way we are going to have a switch off like we did with TV in the UK. Not a chance.

Will. Happen. Someday.