In article , Eddy eddy.bentle
scribeth thus

Hi Guys, you've been really helpful in the past with audio problems, can
you help me out with this one, please?

Am really flummoxed with all the media reports of the digital
change-over. Can anyone tell me if FM and AM radio are definitely going
to be killed, i.e. completely, when the "digital change-over" happens?

Here I am in 2008 needing to buy a NEW bedside radio, but we live in
South West Shropshire, on the Welsh border, and I understand that
there's no digital signal here . . . yet. And locals believe there
never will be. Can anyone tell me if the "digital change-over" is
definitely going to apply to radio as well as TV? (If so, it may mean
that the only way we'll be able to get radio in this remote rural
location will be via our satellite dish.)

Where we are the analogue TV signal is so weak, we have no alternative
but to have a satellite dish and watch freeview. So that's the TV side
sorted.

But will buying a new analogue radio (FM/AM) turn out, a year years down
the line, to have been a waste of money?

Thanks.

Eddy.


I really wouldn't worry about AM or FM being shut down for a long time
yet. What is far more likely to happen is that the current sorry mess
that is DAB (Dead And Buried) will eventually give way to DAB + using a
much better CODEC .. but then again all these transmission systems have
to be paid for and they aren't cheap hence the recent shut down by GCap
media of the Jazz and Planet rock and core none of which were making any
money.

They, GCap, would pull out of DAB as a duplicate of their FM services if
they could but the transmission contracts prevent that.

DAB I expect will be supported more by the BBC then the commercial
broadcasters but I wouldn't loose any sleep over any FM shutdown...
--
Tony Sayer