In article , Tim S Kemp
writes
Keith G wrote:
"Tim S Kemp" wrote in message

That's beacause DAB sounds worse than FM

Academic if you ask me - I haven't heard anything but crap on either
one lately.....

How true - however the whole DAB/FM debate annoys the hell out of me.

The majority of radio listening is done in the car and on small portable
units. 99.99% or more of people would not be able to specify which sounds
better overall. In fact there's a tradeoff - the noise floor of DAB tends to
be better than that of FM,

Tends.. though FM is sufficiently good for purposes.....

even if FM doesn't suffer from "artefacts" that
most people don't hear anyway.

Dunno about that our next door neighbour bought a Dab tuner on the
grounds that it would supposedly sound better, and he's not a happy
bunny with it....

--
Tony Sayer

In article , Keith G
writes

"Jim Lesurf" wrote


Perhaps you're listening to the wrong stations... :-)


I have given up on FM atm due to reception difficulties - I hope to remedy
this soon this year, short of clamping an oil derrick to the side of the
house.

Keith your FM "difficulties" are simply lack of a good aerial as you
well know.

DAB Radio 3 comes up as 'R!3! No Service' and is silent for some
reason and many of the other channels appear to be Russian and don't work
either. (When a Channel appears to be English it isn't actually
broadcasting, it appears...??) So I've even got to do summat about the
bloody DAB!!

Something very wrong there then, just down the road from Sandy heath
etc....

--
Tony Sayer

In articl
What a load of ********.

Sad to read that sort of one line comment coming from you Don,
especially about a contributor who has spent most of his professional
life in broadcasting and pro audio, and IMHO has some very valid
opinions and is someone whom I much respect......
--
Tony Sayer

In article , tony sayer

wrote:
I
Alas, the broadcasters have no real control over the effects of
buildings, etc, and so minima due to local effects will occur even in
some places well inside a service area. This isn't due to DAB as such.
Though that isn't much consolation if it prevents you from getting
convenient reception.

Ah!, that was one of the things that DAB was "supposed" to better!...


Overall, I think it may well do so. So, for example, it should avoid the
increased levels of distortion associated with multipath for FM. Also tend
to reduce the sensitivity to moving the RX about (as intended when DAB was
aimed squarly at in-car/mobile reception).

However no modulation system can totally overcome the reality that in some
locations the signal level will drop to a low level due to local multipath
or blocking. Hence DAB may be 'better' than FM at dealing with this, but
can't be expected to ensure such problems *never* occur.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

In article , gordon
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:


Do you know where you are getting your 11D and 12D from?

No. Window faces S, ground floor, stone house. So KoS, Blackhill,
Craigkelly are all a bit obscured. [Back to an earlier question - if a
block is from various transmitters on the same frequency, how can you
tell which?]

Not a question that can always be easily answered for a SFN - although I
plan to have a try sometime in the next couple of months. :-)

In principle, you can try and diagnose this is various ways.

1) By using a highly directional antenna and plotting the signal level as a
function of bearing. This may give some clue as to which directions the
signals are coming from. However might need a very directional antenna, and
only work if not 'swamped' by many local reflections or standing waves.

2) By examining the received waveform in the time domain. This will show
effects due to different times of arrivals of the contributions. Thus
giving info on the relative path lengths to the TXs and/or noticable
reflections.

3) By examining the time-averaged spectrum of the RF signal. As with the
above, this will have interferometric modulation on it which would indicate
the path differences between contributions. This is where the wide RF
bandwidth of DAB is useful and the quasi-flat nominal power spectral
density. You can use the non-flat fade pattern to work out path differences
provided the differences are large enough to show a clear modulation on the
spectrum.

Ideally, doing a combination of the above and trying to make sense of the
result.

I intend to try this sometime soon where I live since I have reason to
system I am getting significant contributions from Angus *and* Durris,
despite these - from here - having a path difference of around 50km, and a
bearing difference of the order of 30 deg.[1] The more distant TX has a
path to us that is essentially 'clear' over the sea almost all the way.
Hence the level for TV here from that is almost as strong as for the closer
TX. I suspect that something similar may be occuring with the SFN DAB.
Alas, it seems impossible these days to get info on TX patterns, etc, from
the BBC, so can only surmise at present.

For obvious reasons, this is likely to be a difficult diagnosis, and would
require kit that most radio listeners won't have. Fortunately, I can still
'borrow' what kit I will need from my old research group. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

[1] Hence in my case I doubt that any of the commercial DAB antennas would
be much use here for method (1) as they are unlikely to have a high enough
gain/directionality. So I'll probably try (2) and (3) from a dipole.

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Serge Auckland
wrote:


Actually, the revenue comes from the *TV* license fees... :-)

For the BBC only, I was thinking of the commercial operators when I wrote
the above.

Personally, I would have said that "what the public needs" from the BBC is
for the BBC to be willing to act in ways that commercial broadcasters
cannot. i.e. to be willing to cater for minorities, diversity, and hold up
higher technical and content standards.

FWIW I *do* "think the BBC should be above all this". The reason for that
is quite simple. If the BBC just set out to mimic commercial radio then
the logical question becomes, "What do we need BBC radio for? The
commercial stations do just the same things." Hence if they don't
seek to "be above this", then they will die as a result of being an
unnecessary duplication of commercial activities but at public
expense.

What justifies BBC radio (and TV) is their ability to do things which
the commercial broadcasters cannot or will no do. And to provide
content, and set standards, which act for the public good. Thus
serving a public need in terms which commercial stations have no
interest or ability to provide.

Thusm, just as it makes commercial sense for Classic FM to have a
limited 'play list' and heavy level compression. So it makes
sense for R3 *not* to do this. If R3 becomes another Classic FM,
then who 'needs' it when Classic can do it with no revenue from
the license fee?

What justifies the existence of R3 is their willingness to act in
ways that Classic cannot or will not.

To some extent true, and I wish the BBC was stronger in upholding Reithian
standards, but if they did, I am certain that audience figures overall would
fall, even if they added a few more quality enthiusiasts, and the BBC's
detractors would immediately jump on them for becoming elitist and ignoring
the Public. Sadly, these days numbers seem to be everything, and the BBC
cannot hang on to the license fee if they are not perceived to be serving
the larger public. Whether there should be a license fee, is altogether
another arguement.

In my view Radio 3 *does* do something that Classic FM won't do, that is, to
play complete works rather than just the interesting bits. It also runs many
hours of interesting if obscure music, whereas Classic FM wants to play
music that people are familiar with.

Also, on the question of BBC sample rates, I know I am correct in my earlier
statements, as I was the person who negotiated the contract with the BBC for
my former employer for the supply and installation of the main and
transmission routers at Broadcasting House and also supplied the router for
The Mail Box redevelopment in Birmingham, and the equipment was put into
service just as I retired. To recap, all radio studios work at 44.1k
sampling, with no SR conversion of sources. News studios work at 48k, as
they provide programme for both radio and TV. SRC is done at the output of
the networks for distribution. The Optimod audio processing is done as part
of the Network Distribution process, that is, there is a pair of Optimods
(main and standby) for each network, fed from the 48k Distribution system,
and the processed audio goes out to the various transmitters. It would have
been better if the Optimods were located at the transmitters, but for
reasons of cost, audio is processed centrally.With digital distribution, the
difference between processing centrally or at the transmitter is not too
great, perhaps 1-1.5dB of maximum loudness, and the BBC generally are not
too bothered about being the loudest on the dial.

Commercial operators and BBC Local Radio process at the transmitter, as each
programme feed only goes to one or possibly two transmitters, as local
stations (both BBC and commercial) run different ads, idents etc on each
local transmitter even if the programme is the same.

S.

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith G
writes

"Jim Lesurf" wrote


Perhaps you're listening to the wrong stations... :-)


I have given up on FM atm due to reception difficulties - I hope to remedy
this soon this year, short of clamping an oil derrick to the side of the
house.

Keith your FM "difficulties" are simply lack of a good aerial as you
well know.



OK, I've not been idle - I've cut my dear old Luxman back into the loop and
fitted one of those 'T shaped' flexible aerials pro temps:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Luxmanback.JPG

.....and am now getting a good mono sound (best for a long time) with just a
bit of scritchiness in stereo.

I know you done this before, but can I ask you to point me the *the* loft
aerial that will cure all my ills? It's gotta go in the loft, neither of us
want the disruption of an outside aerial (yet)!

Finally, I'm resolved to get this FM malarkey sorted now, I can't hack this
DAB **** any longer - like all else 'digital' it isn't as foolproof/good as
they claim and, as ever, quality is the first thing out the bloody
window....!!

While I'm on, what's this receiver like?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

Worth throwing a few pahnd at it?

(I prefer a *knob* but it do look the biz and I like the 'name'...?? :-)

"Jim Lesurf" wrote


FWIW I suspect that the better DAB *tuners* may be 'hi fi'. The snag is
that the broadcasts might not... :-)


Hah!

"Serge Auckland" wrote


snipt


In my view Radio 3 *does* do something that Classic FM won't do, that is,
to play complete works rather than just the interesting bits. It also runs
many hours of interesting if obscure music, whereas Classic FM wants to
play music that people are familiar with.



Yes/no/maybe, but without reservation the thing that Classic FM *does* do is
batter you ****less with moronic ads all day long!!

(I do like John Brunning's progs tho'......)

"tony sayer" wrote


Dunno about that our next door neighbour bought a Dab tuner on the
grounds that it would supposedly sound better, and he's not a happy
bunny with it....


Hah!

(again...)