I assume eventually digital will be dropped and whatever frequencies are left over used for next gen internet they won’t allow it to be kept for something that won’t be national.
I know people on here disagree but streaming and apps will replace digital with better internet speeds and of course analog is fine for FM.
In case you think the Mandurah DAB+ was a failed experiment because you get No Service when you tune to The Wave or Coast or you think your new DAB radio is acting strange because when you scroll to the next station the stations start to play well that is because for some reason these stations changed to a new ID. Saturday morning that is exactly what happened and I had two versions of each station. I had to delete all stations and rescan to lock onto the correct station ID. No idea why that happened but I suspect few even realised because even fewer listen to these stations on DAB (especially in the car if you drive to/from Mandurah and Perth with all the dropouts, you get more reliable reception via FM and as mentioned Radioapp/Tunein streaming).
Same here.
Just noticed the ensemble ID has changed to 62C0 (was 72C0). And station service IDs have changed according. 91.7 The Wave now 62C2 (was 72C2), 97.3 Coast FM now 62C1 (was 72C1)
Not sure why. No other changes noted. I guess, as far as our radios see it, 2 new stations.
Nova919’s DAB service information seems to be stuck, it’s been displaying “Now Playing: Old Me by 5 Seconds Of Summer” for over a week straight now…
About Coles DAB ,sometimes if I’m listening to Coles Radio on DAB in the car and if I enter a Coles store there seems to be a 5 minute delay on the Coles Store radio
They are possibly sourcing the signal via company internal network rather than off air.
The in-store radio (prior to it being done by Nova) was delivered via Satellite - I wonder if that is still the case (especially for stores without DAB access)
Didn’t take long for ads to appear on Fox Dance. It reminded me of the glory days of Koool, OMG! and More, ad free.
Is the software and/or hardware for this just massively unreliable? This happens on a regular basis across all stations.
It’s not the primary delivery method and so it’s not monitored like the main FM signal.
True, but surely it shouldn’t fail this often?
2GB DAB+ (Sydney) have very recently released a whole new series of slideshow images. There’s a slideshow image for everyone of their programs AFAIK (or aware).
Not one of them has a 2GB logo on them, so no doubt the slideshow images have been designed for usage on their other DAB+ stations such as 4BC.
Some of you may be disappointed to hear this, but it’s the state of DAB radio, it’ll be a long post so bear with it.
I was talking with the head engineer for DAB+ earlier in the week, not the repair tech, the actual guy who designs the DAB+ network for CRA.
To start off, the Como site in Southern Sydney has issues with the antennas, the receive doesn’t have enough protection from the transmit, due to a new antenna manufacturer & design, so there’s a circular issue with the On Channel system. The antennas that were removed from the Redfern site will be installed here in late March, & this should rectify the issue & it’ll be on air after that. Some of the other gear that was removed from the Redfern site will be going to the Arthurs Seat site in Vic, but I don’t know when that’s planned?
He also said that DAB+ is a sloppy standard, nowhere near as refined as DVB-T, & that CRA deemed audio glitches/dropouts as a result were acceptable (where it wouldn’t be in TV). He was discussing the fact that unlike DVB-T, there’s no locked timing between transmitters i.e there’s no GPS, 1PPM, or 10MHz locked timing, so when they turn on a On Chanel Translator, there could be a delay between the TX’s of anywhere from 0 micro seconds to 6 seconds, which is acceptable under the standards, but you don’t know & can’t predict or control this delay, so if your annoyed at the dropouts of audio when driving around, this is most likely cause (if you otherwise have a good signal), as you’ll be getting data conflicts between transmitter sites from the signal delay in the SFN.
Another thing is, that DAB+ won’t likely be rolled out to regional areas anytime soon or fast, as CRA tried to make the Nationals (ABC & SBS) join their Multiplex & essentially fund the DAB+ transmitters regionally for the commercials, but the Nationals said FU, we’re going to use channel 9C everywhere & run a full suite of channels like they do in the Metro areas, so the commercials have to go it alone & fund their own TX’s, which they don’t have the money to do. It’s also partially the reason the ABC & SBS put their digital radio channels on their DTV services, so they got the jump on the commercial digital offerings for essentially no money.
Partially related to this, back at the start of DAB+ the Nationals were going to get higher TX powers, like they do with AM/FM to cover a greater area with digital radio, but CRA found out what their plans were & complained, so it was put in legislation that all services National, Commercial & Community would have the same TX power & coverage areas, so CRA crippled the ABC/SBS Digital radio coverage plans at the start.
I also said to him DAB+ shouldn’t have been used in Australia, we should be using DRM/DRM+ especially regionally, & he agreed 100%, but said, don’t mention that anywhere near CRA you’ll be shot, DRM is a dirty word around them. He said the ABC & ACMA want to use DRM, but CRA keep insisting on pushing DAB+.
He also said the Nationals outsmarted CRA again with the Mandurah DAB+ service, because they use it as a booster translator service into the South side of Perth where some places have poor reception, but the commercials can’t do that, being different metro & regional. He didn’t say but I’m reading between the lines that some of the issues with the Gold Coast DAB+ services hold up, are related to similar?
@RFBurns, brilliant recall, thanks for sharing. I look forward to revisiting this post soon when I have more time.
2ue is off air on dab. But is ok on 954 am.
It’s back on air now. @RFBurns great post. I always wondered why they bothered with Redfern.
The most obvious problem with the first Gold Coast proposed license plan was that they were licensed with a Category 1 multiplex for the commercial stations, which means that they would need to carry ABC Local Radio on the National multiplex - but the National multiplex for the Gold Coast is on a frequency that needs to be used as the basis of an SFN for covering all/some regional markets.
The implication of the above is that the Commericals would have wanted the ABC/SBS to fund the building of the commercial transmitters for them to be licensed as a Category 2 - rather than only paying a small carriage fee for their portion of the operating costs under the regulated access model.
My personal view is that the ABC/SBS shouldn’t be throwing more money after bad technology decisions - especially where they would need to conform with arbitrary license areas that don’t apply to them. Entrenching DAB+ only serves to benefit the arbitrary limits on competition the restrictions on available bandwidth create, and the CRA want to use government funding, either directly or via the ABC/SBS rolling out a digital transmitter network, to entrench their position.
They quite rightly shouldn’t waste their limited funding on a CRA effort to lock out competitors.
As an aside - DRM30 replacing the domestic ABC Shortwave service would have been a win win for everyone and a good first step to receiver availability.
I wonder if the limitations mentioned above for SFNs on DAB+ only apply for these on channel repeaters - and that if you have an actual SFN with proper planning - such as the Mandurah site sharing 9C, that you can avoid/control those problems? Or will there be reception issues in south Perth because of that site?
I appreciate all the technical areas of radio etc including DAB+ but I really don’t have a technical mind and therefore don’t fully understand tech chat. I also appreciate those of you with technical experience who can see all the problems with DAB+ but personally since 2009 I only listen to DAB+. I live halfway between Melbourne and Geelong and have never had any major technical difficulties. I click on Digital Radio mostly to see if there are any new stations or news on stations etc. I would like to propose to the moderators to divide this topic into Digital Technical and Digital Station chat.
I went to Toowoomba on the weekend and thought I’d see how far west I got before the first drop out occurred. I got as far as the hill before Plainland before the first drop out. I thought that was actually quite good considering I’ve heard the west of Brisbane was problematic for DAB
