Manufacturers steer clear of digital radio

DAB

Ironically, Vauxhall (and Ford?) started fitting DAB radios last decade - the Vectra-C for one.

By RupertsTrooper on 2 November, 2011, 9:43am

Customers must lead demand

The manufacturers won't fit DAB if people don't ask for it. Although the manufacturers claiming that "We’ve had negative feedback from customers about poor digital radio coverage" is a bit disingenuous. Every car DAB system I've seen still offers FM, so there shouldn't be a problem. You don't lose anything by having DAB in your car, you can only gain extra stations.

But why would consumers want DAB? Most people are not interested in the extra stations (yet) and the extra sound quality (for what it's worth) is of zero importance to the average car radio listener.

By Oilburner on 2 November, 2011, 4:49pm

DAB - A flawed platform

There isn't any extra sound quality with DAB. The audio quality is inferior to FM (due to low bitrate), and the signal weak and patchy. It also uses more power. The DAB technology we are using in the UK is from the mid-1980s and hopelessly outdated. A lot of FM tuner technology is far more modern than this. The idea that there will be a switchover in 2017 is laughable. Those "in the know" are saying 2023-25 at the earliest, so probably not until 2028-30 in reality. But the powers that be aren't letting on to us, of course! Rest assured that FM will be with us for many years to come - and will probably outlive DAB!

By CrystalBall on 2 November, 2011, 6:16pm

DAB - a total waste of our money by the BBC

DAB is not and never was needed. A large proportion of those listening via digital are doing so via internet radio. DAB reception at my house is nil and in the rental BMW I had a few weeks ago in the midlands, rubbish all round Birmingham as well. This was foisted on us by the BBC, whose recent record of technical progress on radio has been poor. This is as a result of putting people who know little to nothing of the science of audio and radio in charge. The other motive is to sell off the spectrum., rather than to benefit the listening public.

How on earth are people supposed to convert the built in radios in their car. The majority of modern cars do not have DIN/Double DIN slots to fit in a replacement radio but, as encouraged by the government, a radio/CD player/iPod head unit built into the dashboard, as an anti-theft measure. If rebroadcasters work as well as the device I used to use with my iPod some years ago, I don't look forward to that.

Hopefully CrystalBall has got it right and it will be postponed for years. By the time it comes along, we will almost certainly have moved over to receiving radio via the Internet on our 5G phones, connecting via Blu-Tooth Gen 4, so DAB will still be a waste of time and money.

Wilson

By wilsonlaidlaw on 3 November, 2011, 7:48am

DAB is brilliant

I disagree with earlier comments. I find DAB works very well at home and in my car. In my experience, coverage is very similar to FM and there is a better choice of stations. Some manufacturers are dragging their feet and they charge too much for DAB. When I bought my wife's VW, we could not have both an iPod connection and a DAB radio, although some VWs now have DAB as standard. Why do car makers still provide crappy old medium and long wave instead of DAB? I think DAB should be standard on all new cars. While we're at it lets dump the CD player in favour of USB/Ipod connections.

By penncv3 on 3 November, 2011, 8:32am

Car makers should leave tech stuff alone.

OK so car makers are not up to date with DAB - In fact they are and have never been up to date with any, so called, info-tainment systems.

It seem the aftermarket products are for more superior and cheaper. There are lots of all-in-one units out there, by likes of kenwwod, that have Touch Screen, DAB, SAT NAV, with speed camera locations, TV, DVD that plays with or without the car running, iPod, USB, Bluetooth, CD audio etc.

Only snag is there is no apperture in the latest car deisgns to accomodate an aftermarket product like there used to be years ago.

Maybe it's time for car and aftermarket electronic companies makers to re-look at this. Could they all agree on a set standard apperture so one could go out and choose ones own Apple, Sony, Kenwood or whatever car unit of which the car integrated wiring is standard on all makes. This way one could keep really up to date and keep the cost the car makers charge for all this kit at a minimum.

By terryxp on 3 November, 2011, 12:00pm

Zero coverage in mainland Europe

Not only is DAB obsolete, but the rest of Europe has recognised this and adopted DAB+ which is incompatible.
I put this point in a letter addressed personally to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and (sign of the times) received an e-mailed reply from a minion referring me to one of their websites!! In it was a statement that future digital radios will have chips suitable for both standards. No timescale mentioned, of course. Needless to say the major retailers had never heard of this plan! Steer clear of DAB if you want to use your radio outside the UK.

By grumpyoldman on 3 November, 2011, 2:21pm

DAB is great

I have been running DAB in my bmw for almost 4 years and i can confirm the coverage accross England is excellent. Today I have driven from Oswestry to Bicester as i do often and only ever suffer the very occasional 2 second drops.
The choice of stations which i can listen to is superb....
I recently had to choose a new company car and any who dont offer DAB were removed from my list. DAB offers more choice, more consistant coverage and more information. I suspect most negative comments come from those without the real experience...
leave them to stick with AM

By lukemax123 on 3 November, 2011, 9:00pm

DAB Switch Over

DAB coverage in major cities it great outside not so much, as the large radio groups like Global Radio or Bauer Media aren't investing. This maybe more to do with the fact the government is dithering in this area, first it has to commit to a date and to decide whether the BBC needs to rollout DAB as it is doing so well with Digital TV at present. Solve this and the broadcasters will begin to invest widely in DAB, however, we must not forget about the motor industry if feel their reluctance in more to do with the fact the UK isn't looking to invest in DAB the way that europe is resolve this problem and the industry will follow and if it doesn't then impose fines on them.

By therock31611 on 4 November, 2011, 10:18am

DAB - The English Patient

As a trained audio engineer and radio collector, I can assure you that DAB is far from great. I have a working knowlege of literally hundreds of machines, both analogue and digital, and can say with confidence that the performance of DAB falls well below that of comparable analogue models. If you are happy with the quality of DAB, then you have never heard a good FM tuner.

The government, broadcasting authorities, BBC and radio manufacturers have spent millions selling us a lemon which is likely to go the way of Betamax videos and APS cameras. Other countries would not adopt such outdated and inadequate technology. Bootiful, as we say about our favourite turkeys.

By CrystalBall on 4 November, 2011, 9:08pm

Forget DAB what about Digital Radio Mondiale?

DAB is appalling, I had a DAB radio both in house and on the move.

It was superb in the house as long as you set the radio up perfectly with the antenna in the best position possible to get the station, but on the move it's useless.

I had a portable DAB radio and whenever I went out to places like Derbyshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, or any country based area I was getting just broken bits of talk and rubbish and it was so awful.

DRM (Digital Radio Mondaile) however would make far more sense.

The major issue with DAB is that it uses FM radio frequencies. FM is great for short term analogue transmissions because it is far more clearer than AM (LW/MW) analogue transmissions.

However DRM is an alternative to DAB that Radio Luxembourg amongst many others is trying. DRM works a lot better for digital than DAB because it uses LW and MW frequencies. Ok some people might be thinking - oh no why would we want to go back to LW remembering the sound quality of things like Atlantic 252, however with Digital radio sound quality doesn't matter. All the radio needs to hear is either a low tone or high tone (1 or 0) which allows it to build up an audio file (like an MP3) and play it. The computer inside the digital radio doesn't care whether that 1 or 0 is full stereo or not, it only needs to be able to differentiate between the two and then it can turn that data into full top quality digital stereo sound. Which is why LW and MW would be far better than FM. LW and MW can travel a lot further than FM and still be understood perfectly by the digital radio, thus meaning on the move the sound would have a lot less interference than is currently received on DAB. LW can travel so far that even Radio Luxembourg could be picked up from the UK on DRM, imagine that for something like BBC national radio stations they'd only need one DRM transmitter to cover pretty much all of the UK, instead of putting up hundreds of DAB transmitters here there and everywhere.

By TheKLF99 on 8 November, 2011, 11:03am

Not perfect, but better than VHF/FM

I have a DAB tuner in my Jaguar and the quality is excellent - yes, there are some areas where the breaks up but in my experience the FM signal in those areas is equally unusable. Normally, the DAB signal sounds much better and more consistent than FM. That is, after all, the point of DAB - better mobile reception, not sitting in a room with a huge aerial wired up to your hi-fi tuner.

For those without DAB in their cars, there is a widely available add-on unit - similar size to a sat-nav - which is also DAB+ compatible. It works well even on the supplied windscreen aerial, although not up to the standard of a proper built-in system.

The broadcasters now need to concentrate on increasing the DAB coverage and the power of existing transmitters (across all multiplexers, not just the BBC as has happened in my area) and increase the bitrate instead of trying to cram in loads of stations which no-one listens to. That would still be vastly more than DRM on LW could ever support and the last thing we need now is another standard.

By mark_brock on 15 November, 2011, 9:18am

S***e, if its caused this much grief, concern, confusion in the UK, and comments are that it is already out of date technology [and we wont worry about the wasted millions!] I shake in my boots about what will happen in Oz :-((

By barina47 on 25 November, 2011, 4:52am

could do better- see me after school

dab started out fine in our household in Birminghamshire, but over the last 6-12 momths we have noticed IF you can get a signal to your favourite station that the signal strength fluctuates so much as to render it un-listenable- this is with ALL the sets in the house:
2 pure radios, 1 sony portable, 1 sony mini hifi & 1 retro bush radio

ironically we got a better signal whilst on holiday in a caravan!

By nobertsback on 20 December, 2011, 12:10pm

National DAB = Dismal Access to Broadcasts, Nationally.

I live in Devon my parents in Sussex I used to take my DAB radio when I visited but as DAB has no auto-retune. I have to retune the radio at the parentals and on my return home.

The RDS analogue radio in my car works fine and sorts out the retune switching seamlessly needing no attention at any point currently DAB is too flawed by current technology for use in mobile receivers - car radios.

Motor manufacturers increasingly use the 'radio' display to notify on everything from service intervals to last called telephone numbers.

Meaning that to change a head unit for an after-market item means loosing the information display and potentially loss of some important parts of your vehicles operations and notifications. This assumes that your car's data interchange will accept the loss of the radio display many will not.

It is all a very messy miss of standards, not helped by manufacturers offering an incorrect USB input for your 1pod. Chevrolet take note. Move to larger 24v systems and it is a journey back in time to single CD players and AM, LW only tuners...

Many of us spend more time in our vehicles than we do in our domestic lounges yet manufactures seem totally unable to offer an in-car infotainment system capable of making the experience enjoyable.

By Townsman on 20 December, 2011, 7:02pm