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Wireless in a post apocalyptic world


UltraWomble

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/norway-radio-fm-switch-off-turn-off-mw-lw-world-first-country-a7521581.html

 

So Norway have pulled the plug on FM... The UK are scheduled to follow suit in the next 5 years. 

What will those of us with fully integrated wireless sets in their motors do? Its not a case of popping down Halfords and buying a £49.99 DIN-E set and wedging it in the dash - no, for some lucky shitters if we try that things like the heater and de-mister will cease to be.

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The obvious solution would be one of those little FM transmittery things, though sound quality with these isnt always that great.  Option two is to wire a second system in from scratch - not ideal, but at least it would work I suppose.

Option three is to buy a cheap DAB radio and velcro it to the dashboard, powering it off the fag lighter.... Something I have done in the past, though the dash of the Almera doesnt really lend itself easily to this option.

 

Option four is just listen to MW and CD's.

 

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I've got one of these, https://www.robertsradio.com/uk/products/radio/dab/solardab-2

 

worked a treat in the old freelander after the AM packed up on the car radio. headphone jack plugged into the aux in, worked well.

 

It's a tough little radio, moves from workshop to garden, has been dropped, kicked, rained on, just keeps going.

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What will those of us with fully integrated wireless sets in their motors do? Its not a case of popping down Halfords and buying a £49.99 DIN-E set and wedging it in the dash - no, for some lucky shitters if we try that things like the heater and de-mister will cease to be.

Sell that newfangled tosh and get a car into which's dash you can wedge a £49.99 DIN-E set from Halfords.

Dah, like.

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[Pistonheads mode]

But all new cars already have a DAB radio

[/Pistonheads mode]

 

I'd get on the forums and check if it's possible to wire in an Aux input.  Most of my cars have been so old that they either take a DIN radio or have cassette players so I can put one of those old aux-to-tape adapters in.  But cars from 2000ish onwards seem to have CDs only.  If a CD autochanger is available then maybe it's easier to wire it in there?

 

Otherwise you could take inspiration from the '70s builders vans and put a transistor radio on the dashboard?

 

I think DAB radio is probably not going the be The Next Big Thing, as intended.  If they'd switched off FM a few years ago as promised then maybe it would have been, but now 4G is getting more common, 5G is being introduced soon and data packages on mobile phone contracts are getting cheaper.  There's also a limit on the number of digital radio stations you can cram in without sacrificing quality whereas with internet radio you can fit as many as you like.  I also think the cost of setting up an internet station must be a lot lower than digital and everyone's looking for a cheaper way as advertising gets more diluted and the revenue falls away.

 

I can't believe I'm the only person who stocks up on podcasts while having my breakfast, then listens to them (phone via aux socket) in the car while driving.  If that's the case then instead of an aux socket on the existing radio, maybe there's a bluetooth thing you can do which links the car speakers to a separate little amp and then you can link your phone in that way.  Something that's better audio quality than a mobile phone installation I mean.

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I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to upgrade due to the threatened FM switch off unless it's specially to upgrade the number & scope of services. While it's going to happen some day, there is still no set time-frame for this (I work in TV & radio broadcast/transmission) despite the many and various dates that are thrown around on the internet. 

 

Originally it was to have been 2015, then 2017, 2018 then 2020 and that's not happening either. The way things are going I suspect it won't be much before 2025 and there are a lot of reasons for this mainly due to coverage in outlying areas as coverage figures refer to percentage of population not in terms of geographical area (the last 405 line TV transmitter was only shut down in the mid 80's) and the number of mainly older people who still rely on radio rather than TV/web. 

 

While not considered by the great & good, the environmental impact of this move - think how many radios you have in the house and car/garage and multiply this by the number of households in the UK, even half of these get junked not upgraded, that's a lot of landfill that folk are going to be dumping! 

 

Additionally, as tech gets cheaper, if you wait until there's a definate date given (as with TV DSO), there'll be loads of cheap stuff on the market to choose from.

 

BTW - I tend to agree with GarethJ - as 4G & 5G coverage improves, I think the future is more internet radio based rather than DAB as the quality is better, it's like DAB used to be before they started chopping down the bit-rate to cram loads more stations in the available bandwidth. (some call DAB Dead And Buried). So spending a great deal on a DAB might be a bit of a blind alley, personally, I'd lean towards internet radio for the future. 

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I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to upgrade due to the threatened FM switch off unless it's specially to upgrade the number & scope of services. While it's going to happen some day, there is still no set time-frame for this (I work in TV & radio broadcast/transmission) despite the many and various dates that are thrown around on the internet. 

 

This.

 

As many of you know, I work in broadcast radio.  There is no FM switch off date set for the UK, and we're a long way from that even being set - never mind the event becoming a reality.

 

In truth, what will *probably* happen is similar to the late 80s when the national broadcasters moved to FM; their AM frequencies will be offered to other broadcasters (probably in this case community/local broadcasters).

 

The current situation isn't ideal for radio companies; DAB is very expensive (and very inefficient compared with FM) and having to do both FM AND DAB is costly.

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The current situation isn't ideal for radio companies; DAB is very expensive (and very inefficient compared with FM) and having to do both FM AND DAB is costly.

Why is DOB expensive? And what's this about inefficiency compared to FM? Talk about one step forward and two steps back...

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Those chinese FM transmitters are shite

 

They are that. Some years back I bought a Veronica 50Mw FM TX, primarily so I could listen to my stuff - stereo, computer, satellite radio etc. -  in the garage. The quality is decent, and it runs off 12V so could be used in a car. Deviation isn't bad at all, so if you set it to broadcast on 87.5MHz no-one else will know you are there.

 

Sadly I just checked the website and it looks like they've stopped selling them... 

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cuts out whilst it buffers in the middle of your favourite song.

 

I can't bring myself to listen to music on DAB because the quality is so unutterably bad. I was one of those conned by the 'CD quality' claims, and bought a Cambridge Audio separates tuner, only for it to sit unused most of the time. The World Service sounds better than it did on SW, but that's about it, sadly.

 

Anyway, that's enough of all this modernity... shouldn't we be having a thread about MiniDisc head units? Or those Short Wave car radios Sony used to produce for the Middle East market? :-D

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I think DAB started off high quality & then the bandwidth got reduced as they sold more n more overlapping frequencies. Something at the back of mind tells me the BBC kept their higher quality feeds & everyone else suffered?

I'm sure someone on here will know if I'm right or not.

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I think DAB started off high quality & then the bandwidth got reduced as they sold more n more overlapping frequencies. Something at the back of mind tells me the BBC kept their higher quality feeds & everyone else suffered?

 

I'm sure someone on here will know if I'm right or not.

 

Yep, national BBC stations have the highest bitrates, although even Radio 3 with the highest isn't brilliant. Just imagine trying to listen to your heavy metal on Kerrang! at 64kbps in mono...

 

This explains it all pretty well.

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post-7547-0-53992200-1484477164_thumb.jpgpost-7547-0-09219700-1484477189_thumb.jpg

 

The P4 has never had its facia sullied by any receiving apparatus, and in light of this news it has been the right decision. I once came close as evidenced by the wires kicking about behind the dashboard, but luckily I decided that the awful whine in first and second is still better listening than Radios 1-6.

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These new stereos bloody annoy me. No CD player? Oh well, plug in your 'phone or iPod then piss about looking at it on the seat whilst you try and change tracks.

I stil scout the CD's in The Land of Pounds and occasionally buy an album which I lost 15 years ago. I'd hate not having a CD player in the car. As for DAB radio, I usually plug in a mini digital thing into the aux in of my radio when I'm working outside, in order to pick up something better than the local Snooze/repeat EffEmm. Admittedly, I do have to wave the cable around in different directions for around ten minutes until I can get a clear signal without alienesque noises in the background.

As for daB radio in the car though, I can only assume that some of you are gentry.

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Bluetooth and Internet radio ftw! I use fm for 3 stations, but increasingly just hit the mode button, turn the Bluetooth doodah on and put the radio on, or hit play on my phone music.

 

 

As for skipping stuff, I've stopped putting full albums on my phone, and have just put tracks I like on. Can still skip, my Bluetooth thing has buttons.

 

If I do ever change the radio in the car, itll be a mechless unit, Bluetooth, SD and/or USB are all that's needed. But cheap units are bastards with USB, the radio I had in the zx could only see 8gb on a device, so the 32gb stick I bought could only have 8gb on... I found this out at sf 15 by loading it up and not being able to find half of it... Ended up streaming podcasts on the drive around the lake, which worked quite well tbh

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There is a guy on the youtubes whos name I have temporarily forgotten....thick German accent.....anyway, he has a few interesting videos on fitting bluetooth receivers inside old headunits, usually ditching the cassette mechanism, but would be viable for a CD unit too I would imagine. Thats what I would be doing if I had a modern with a built in stereo and no aux input.

 

edit... found it....

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