That’s a decent looking radio.
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Two of the biggest problems are entirely of the broadcasters own making.
- DAB+ not promoted sufficiently. As stated here previously it should have been promoted as DAB+ rather than as ‘Digital Radio’
- Numerous broadcasters squeezing in as many stations into their allotted 128kb/s allocations as they feel they can ‘get-away-with’ without their perception of the dumb listener noticing the under sampled crap audio. The TV broadcasters are doing the same thing. It’s all about revenue, ratings. Not giving the listener a pleasant audio experience that DAB+ could offer at 128kbps.
2CH & 2GB are much nicer to listen to on DAB+ due to 128kbps sampling rather than the restricted bandwidth of AM BCB & with it’s RFI susceptibility with local QRN.
Sure FM can & does sound better than DAB+ in many instances especially when a good signal is received without multipath reception issues. However I suspect the number of multipath reception issues with FM in places like Sydney & Melbourne are on the increase due to the huge growth of multi-storey apartment buildings blocking & creating multiple signal paths & thus for fixed single dwelling & apartment home I reckon DAB+ might be better alternative to FM in some instances & with some stations.
I do wonder with many of these new multi-storey residential apartment buildings if they allow FM broadcast reception via the TV outlets or if the MATV systems have FM trap filters installed? If they do DAB+ might be a better alternative. Perhaps it all depends on each complex.
Either way it’s nice having multiple options: FM , AM, DAB+ & Internet Streams etc.
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They should but they’ll be claiming that it’s too expensive to do so. I double checked that my new car has DAB in it, but it’s not being promoted strongly enough.
They should be putting them in the WSFM and KIIS showbags at the show.
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Pretty sad, when K-Mart is currently selling a DAB+ receiver for all of $24!
…and Show Radio should be on DAB+ as well, although it wouldn’t overly surprise me if they aren’t.
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Gotta wonder when Easdown slags off at digital radio and how bad it sounds. Then says the radio has a big full sound that’s deep and lustrous. Make up your mind!
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I’ve lived in three different buildings in the last five years. The first had FM capability via MATV up until analog TV was switched off. Apparently they replaced the antenna system so we lost both FM and UHF TV.
The other two have had no FM or UHF TV availability. Except for what leaks into the coax.
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Yeah, but if you read it properly, they’re most likely talking about the FM & AM component of the radio receiver being discussed.
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No AM in the radio
They said there is an AM/FM version
But he’s referring specifically to the one he tested. The FM/DAB+ version.
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Good point
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FB dark video Triple M are running in Hobart to promote MMM Classic Rock coming soon on DAB+.
Yes 4TAB 3 contains Sky Sports Radio audio currently.
I renamed 4TAB ONE and TWO to RadioTAB and 4TAB 2 whilst changing 4TAB 2 to 32kbps PS and 4TAB 3 to 32k mono. (4TAB TWO was 64k true stereo).
Allows me to compare channel settings, audio quality… etc as all channels have very similar audio content.
I plan to tickle 4TAB 3 ‘s FEC settings to test and try to increase the robustness of the signal to the north as it’s bloody shithouse due to the null and doing that on the main channels is not something I’d be comfortable doing whilst “experimenting” with settings.
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I’d be interested how that goes - all the FEC experimentation I’ve seen in Melbourne has been the community stations going in the other direction, with EEP-3B and 4A.
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DAB+ Software: QIRX “DAB-Only” V2.0.1.0 Beta
https://softsyst.com/Download
I’ve recently been playing with the above software with a RTL-SDR dongle.
Interesting it has a DAB+ transmitter ensemble recognition feature that can measure the carrier strengths of the individual DAB+ transmitters DAB+ Transmitter Code: TII & ensemble codes.
And also some of these displayed on a moving spectrum display. Thought it might be useful to some.
I was wondering if anyone in the industry has a lookup table for most of the Australian DAB+ TII ensemble codes that would ID a particular DAB+ transmitter site?
It appears that the main Sydney DAB+ transmitter is identified as:
Ch. 9A E-ID: 1004 MainID: 21, SubID: 1
Ch 9B E-ID: 1005 MainID: 22, SubID: 2
Ch 9C E-ID: 3000 MainID: 23, SubID: 1
Another tx:
Ch. 9A E-ID:1004 MainID: 50, SubID: 23
Some Australian DAB+ TII/Ensemble TX codes here: http://www.wohnort.org/dab/australia.html
Another European ensemble code example:
http://www.wohnort.org/DAB/thueringen.html
The above main site also interesting for receivers, antennas & lots more re DAB+
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From the QIRX site re the DAB+ only version:
-
DAB Spectrum Display
- Constellation of the bits in a non-conventional linear display, showing the accuracy of the decoded bits with high resolution.
- TII Carriers: This display shows the carriers of the Transmitter Identification in the Null-Symbol. QIRX has been the first SDR to display this information.
- Multipath Delay , showing the relative delays of a signal having taken different paths along its way to the receiving antenna.Regrettably these features are not available in the Linux version, as the Mono environment does not support the MS-Chart of the Windows .NET runtime.
- Transmitter Identification: In DAB mode, QIRX detects and displays the Transmitter Ids (TII values). This should work also in complex mobile receiving environments. The TII recognition is included as binary (not Open Source). QIRX has been the first SDR providing this feature.
- TII Logging: In its DAB-Only version, QIRX offers a simple, text-based logger of the TII codes. The logging takes place in a fixed time raster of one second.
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We’re rolling! 9A is on the air in Hobart.
I managed to capture the RF carrier coming on the air on a spectrum analyzer, will post soon.
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Has Grants/7HO launched any additional stations?
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Only KIX and the simulcast of 7HO at the moment. Will post a scan soon.
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