Do cars have digital radios?
I see from the frnot page of today's Telegraph that the Coalition is to press ahead with the bonkers idea of banishing FM.
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How is the state broadcaster going to brainwash all those that don't bother with digital, unless the GPS transponder in the road pricing unit is set up to receive.
Let me think, can i manage without jeremy whine?
Same as always it's not broke so meddlersRus have to fix it.
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>> So we go back to MW/LW.
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Nooooooooo, the 5Live reception on MW 693 and 909 has got worse lately, I have been thinking of getting one of those DAB receivers that broadcasts FM so as to get DAB through the car radio.
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Just from a finger in the air kind of guess i can't imagine DAB being anything more than a passing interest for people.
Radio as we know it will go away, there's too much incentive for it to be able to survive that.
Will folks choose DAB, a marginal technology at best? Or will the skip to internet streaming over their broadband connected cars (or mobile phones for the folks who dont tick the internet connectivity option when buying a new car)?
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DAB is a factory fitted option in my Vectra, I can see that the only benefit really is the choice of stations
Not that it matters to me as I only listen to our State Broadcaster. I think that the only marginal benifit is that if you go out of reception there is no fizz or crackle like noises, its either on or nothing, and then you can just revert to FM (unless its a DAB only station) i would say that 95% of where I go DAB Coverage is not a problem.
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I bought a digital radio and found I had to keep switching it back to analogue because the signal kept disapppearing or breaking up - and I live in the middle of Birmingham!
Are the people who want analogue radio abolished actually radio listeners? Digital radio is only better under optimal conditions.
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Anyone remember Digital Audio Cassettes, 8-tracks, Betamax, Video 2000?
With luck, It'll go the same way.
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What is really daft about this obsession to go digital is that DAB technology is old and already being superseded in other countries. I borrowed this quote from a review site:
The radio industry’s second problem is that most of our DAB radios are already obsolescent. They can only use MP2 audio coding, which predates MP3. They can’t be upgraded to work with more efficient codecs such as AAC+, which is used in the newer world standard, DAB+.
If the UK moved to DAB+, broadcasters could use lower bit-rates to offer higher quality audio and more stations at a much lower cost per station. Everybody wins. But we can’t move to DAB+, because then the industry would have to tell all those people who bought “advanced” DAB radios that they are not advanced enough.
Makes you think.
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Nothing is ever advanced enough now.
The best you can do is to try and keep on the optimum portion of the bandwagon wave.
That means don't buy anything until 50% of the population are using it, and be ready to ditch it when 75% have one.
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>> Nothing is ever advanced enough now.
I dunno, i'm a bigger gadget freak than the next guy (normally) and everytime someone trots out a PDA or a tablet PC etc. it's just one area where technology can't improve over the pen / pencil for me.
2 mins, my pen's crashed and i'm just rebooting my A4 pad of paper till it gets the latest update.
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I'm annoyed by the whole thing. I have radios in 3 tractors, a combine, a Landrover and 2 cars. So that's 7 new digital made in China radios that I will have to buy. (I won't get anyone to drive a tractor with no radio)
I bought a digital radio for the house, the battery lasted for about a week, the old one seemed to last for ever.
I was hoping the new government would put off this digi changeover. We must protest.
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I have a separates hi-fi system in the house, and it includes a Denon DAB tuner, which fortunately receives FM as well. Reception in digital is very clear, but lacks the warmth of FM, hence I usually have it on FM for a more natural sound quality. I like digital for telling me on the display what the tunes are, many DJ's won't tell you what they've just played, ooh, that winds me up.
It's a bit like the swap from analogue to digital synthesisers. The digitals don't have that lovely warm, full bodied sound that analogue synths in the 80's used to have.
I guess that the reception in digital car tuners is superior, although I don't own one yet, no doubt I'll find out, or someone will tell me!
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I thought the received wisdom was that this wasn't going to happen for many, many years due to the number of radios that would need replacing, and that many small radio stations would lose great chunks of their audience.
What's happened to push those concerns aside?
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A4 is also hi res, full colour, portable and with amazing battery life. :-)
What happened to foolscap though?
JH
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> that DAB technology is old and already being superseded
And the network was designed for outdoor usage, making it pretty difficult inside.
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NFM2r
Are you really Mark?
If so welcome (back).
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Digital radios - -
