DAB lobby launches radio scrappage scheme

Will they also guarantee me a signal...?

Because I don't have one right now in this rural area. Not long since our local Trading Standards made Tescos refund money to a lot of people they'd sold DAB radios to without telling them this.

The whole thing's a huge scam aimed solely at selling new equipment and - given how much we USED to pay for a radio - expensive equipment at that.

I'm always amazed

I'm always amazed how popular DAB radios are in your country. Recently I have seen a documentary on manic depression, and just there in the background was a DAB radio. I am an electrical engineer and have so far seen less than 10 DAB radios in my life. And none of those were at a home.

How much is it going to cost me

to get something as reliable as this?

http://home.clara.net/lesmcdm/images/icf.jpg

Almost 37 years old, used near enough every single day of those 37 years and the only fault is a broken telescopic aerial. Cost me £55 back in 1973 ish.

Does anyone even make consumer electronics these days that will last till 2047?

Pointless pointless pointless

See heading.

DAB+

Are DAB radios sold in the UK these days generally capable of receiving DAB+? I'm not keen on buying a radio that only uses a standard that's already obsolete.

Then again, with the BBC's plan to kill off 6 Music, I don't really see the point in upgrading at all.

Why trade in an old radio

I've seen new ones in Poundland, so those who really want a dab radio can get the discount and keep their old radio.

Why is absolutely every everyone talking such complete rot?

What have you lot got against DAB? The quality is categorically not worse than FM. Fact. Its clear that most commenters havent even listened to one. Theoretically the quality is potentially worse at lower bit rates but you cant hear it on the radios you have dotted around the house. No-one uses FM radio for HI-FI listening, they use CDs for that. (You lot probably dont , cos vinyl is better yada yada yawn).

The features are superb. 2 of my sets allow me to pause and rewind live radio. I never need to wait till the end of a song to hear the presenter tell me what it is, because its there on the screen. Theres no fiddling to get the dial in just the right place to the nearest 1000th of a degree to avoid crackle.

I agree that lots of places dont have signal yet, but that will improve when you old die hards piss off from the airwaves and some bandwidth can be given over to the future.

Just get used to it. DAB radios are great. I was given one as a gift 6 years ago, and was initially sceptical. That lasted minutes once I got one and actually listened to it. And yes, 2 of my sets are mono. But how much stereo separation do you really get on a cheap tranny? And could you really give a monkeys when youre listening to Jeremy Vine in the kitchen preparing lunch ?

Grow up.

No to dab

Whoaaaaa

It's not public wants driving this, it's not even the broadcasters, it's not technical innovation, it's political.

SAY NO TO DAB

The environment...

From the BBC story:

"Those beyond repair will be recycled under the government's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, aimed at reducing the amount of electrical and electronic equipment produced."

Which is quite the biggest load of crappy spin I've seen since Labour's election manifesto. They are trying to wrap this up as some sort of environmental crusade, even though DAB radios use much for energy than good old analogue. But the worst bit is that they talk about a scheme that encourages us to buy new electrical equipment as a means to reduce the production of new electrical equipment. Priceless.

Car Radios & RDS/Traffic Info

The time to switch off FM is 15 years after car manufacturers stop installing FM radios in cars.

DAB? Forget it.

I was given a DAB radio a year or so ago. At first I was quite pleased with the prospect of listening to the new stations. Then I turned it on. I can only get one station inside my house, and I live in a good reception area. It's pants!

Car Scrappage?

They are claiming that this is modelled on the car scrappage scheme. In what way?

The car scrappage scheme guaranteed you two grand if you were trading in a car that was at least ten years old and that you had owned for at least a year against a brand spanking new car. The idea supposedly being that it would encourage and help people to buy a new car who wouldn't otherwise buy a new car, thus helping out the automotive trade. The ten year limit being there to stop people who would already be likely to buy a new car from benefitting. Being entirely fair however, the grand contributed by UK.gov wouldn't even cover the VAT on a new car so it wasn't like they were really giving anyone any money. They did put a bit of environmental spin on it by claiming that old cars pollute much more than new ones, but did not take into account the pollution caused by building the new car and scrapping the old car.

OTOH I see no similarities with this radio scrappage scheme. In this case I see no mention of a government contribution. It seems that the discount will depend on what you're buying, reading between the lines that presumably means spend more money get more discount.

The idea of reconditioning radios and giving them to African kids is of itself confusing. How much would it cost to "recondition" (presumably quality check) a radio? How much does it cost to manufacture a cheap FM radio? The environmental impact you say? Well how about this: Set up factories in Africa manufacturing cheap wind up FM sets. Economically good for the locals because it creates jobs. The radios go to the locals, but they can also sell them abroad. And the radios cause no further environmental damage because they don't rely on mains or batteries.

A mere 10% to 20% discount? So you want a new radio, your old tranny is on its last legs. You pop down to Argos and see you can trade in your old radio for £3 against a £30 DAB radio. Great. Then you notice you could buy a new FM tranny for under a tenner. Who's going to go for the DAB?

As for car units the prices tend to be well over £100 even for a cheap unit. Who cares if you can get £10 or more off the price? It's still a huge amount of money to pay to replace something that doesn't *need* replacing.

The car scheme worked to an extent on the basis of greed and pride. Running round in a crappy old car? The scheme made that worth enough to put down a hefty deposit on a brand spanking new motor. A lot of people who had never had a new car were going to be attracted by that. A new car on a new plate when your neighbours had a stinking old 56 plate! Where are the bragging rights of having a DAB radio in the kitchen? There are, however, no figures to show how many people have been trapped in a debt spiral by signing up to the car scrappage scheme. How many people who used to have a servicable ten year old car now have no car at all because they couldn't keep up the payments on the new one?

Sorry, it may be a lingering tendency towards socialism, but I just don't see the benefit of any scheme that encourages people to spend money that they don't actually *need* to spend.

DAB == dead duck

As a chartered engineer who worked (note tense!) in DAB (on both Tx and Rx sides) for the best part of ten years, I'd like to think that I can speak with a certain authority on these matters.

A couple of salient points that nobody seems to mention:

Company "R" designed, supplied, and maintained the encoding infrastructure (Musicams, Muxes, etc) for the majority of the UK multiplexes, and went into receivership early last year - the company valuation dropped from £37M to £400k in just a year or two.

(Company "R" also designed and manufactured around a third of the OEM Rx modules currently used in UK receivers, although this side of the business is now totally defunct.)

Company "N" operated the majority of commercial UK multiplexes ran into similar financial difficulties the year before that - requiring a massive bail-out, restructuring, and substantial propping up.

What does that tell you about the long-term viability of DAB?!

AC, for obvious reasons...

Already scrapped mine

chucked out my £75 Dab radio - I gave it to someone who has put it in his garden shed. It was just awful - fm just hisses a bit when the signal drops or is interrupted - dab either sounds like shit gurgling down a drain or cracks and pops and attempt to blow up my very expensive HiFi. The man in the shop lent me a top of the range one to try - that was even worse.

I have a problem with people trying to generate a revenue stream with a piece of new technology but when its worse than the thing its replacing that's just called theft.

So who do we write to?

I was hoping that our new masters in the coalition government might see though all the "digital is best" BS generated by the last lot but my hope is getting more threadbare by the day.

Is there someone we can write to in government to let them know that:

1. DAB in the UK is an ancient (in technology terms) system, and is already obsolete;

2. It is not in any way environmentally friendly to (a) force people to throw out perfectly good receivers and (b) force people to consume lots more power/batteries to receive what they could already get on their old receivers.

3. While I understand that on low-end equipment, any perceived difference in sound quality is likely to be small to indistinguishable, for those who are concerned with overall quality, DAB is rather poorer than conventional FM.

4. DAB coverage is far complete, when compared with viable FM coverage.

5. DAB reception is all or nothing; it either works or it doesn't. FM reception degrades proportionally with the strength of the received signal, meaning that it's a much more viable option for mobile receivers (i.e. in your car), especially when considered alongside my point 4 above.

Add your own favourite argument here as well.

CSW

car's where it at (NOT)

Since I can get Internet radio at home I've no incentive to buy a 2nd DAB radio. Have discovered that though DAB works nicely in the bedroom, it does not on the ground floor of the house. I live in Reading.

If my car maker were to offer a decent replacement head unit (proprietary - no chance in my car fitting a standard one) with an effective DAB (with DAB+ compatibility for Europe) aerial very neatly integrated and fitted to the car at under £200 I'd still be sorely tempted. Spend too much time in the car and analogue won't offer the choice I want.

Just a sad fact that no carmaker wants to offer retrofit (proprietary ) head units at a realistic price, if at all.

Monkey say

“could you really give a monkeys when you're listening to Jeremy Vine in the kitchen preparing lunch”

I wouldn’t listen to Jeremy Vine if you paid me, but I do have decent radio in my kitchen, fed through a nice little 2.1 system to improve the bass and separation, and it sounds fine on FM. My objection to DAB isn’t that I mind people with cloth ears having one, but I mind very much being told that I have to have one too, and that ultimately I won’t be able to use the 7 or 8 FM radios currently dotted around my house and vehicles.

We needed a new portable recently, and I found a decent tranny with FM and LW, running off D-cells (which will probably last a year) for £10.