Wireless in a post apocalyptic world

[Jim Bell]

The ones I've heard were mono and sounded shite. Can you get decent ones?

Theres loads of decent portable ones around. Keep it charged or hardwire.

 

http://www.techradar.com/news/audio/portable-audio/10-best-portable-speakers-1069079

[BorniteIdentity]

Why is DOB expensive?

 

It is more inefficient due to the frequencies employed (ie 195-235MHz rather than 88-108Mhz)  In theory, you have to use about four times the power on DAB to cover the same footprint on FM.  In reality, what happens is you have lots more transmission sites. This obviously carries increased costs to Arqiva which is then passed on to the broadcasters themselves.

 

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?

 

This would be fixed OVERNIGHT if we adopted DAB + as the standard.  Many will know of the power of AAC+ over MP2, but if you want to hear the difference do an A/B comparison of JAZZ FM STEREO on DAB and Something like Kerrang.  It's night and day difference on the same bandwith.  Also, have a listen to UNIONJACK which is 24k AAC.  JUST about bearable in the car, and fine on a portable.

[cros]

Stick a bluetooth speaker somewhere, stream podcasts/radio/choons direct from phone. Theres no need for head units as its no longer 1995.

That sounds like an idea. A bit of sawdust in the gearbox sand I'll be able to hear it too.

[Pillock]

Dab as it stands is awful - quality is pap for most of it (although didn't know about AAC vs MP3 so I'll do some homework) and the choice is simply awful.

 

Pop, pop, pop, pop, dedicated religious stations, pop, pop. One rock station and that has to play watered down shite, to keep investors happy to pay the massive bills presumably. There's just nothing for music fans, it's all background shite. We're no better off than FM, just the amount of similar stations has increased.

 

Oh, and local stations too, so if you're driving you just go out of range and find that station isn't on the next transmitter. How very 1980s.

[Jim Bell]

I had a dab once. I listened to PLANNETROCK and it was good. I never went far in that car though. Never tried changing the station either.

 

7/10.

 

 

Wud plannetrock egen.

[Pillock]

But.... Adverts TeamRock was better but couldn't afford the £99 trillion pounds a year for a DAB licence.

[Eddie Honda]

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.

In the past I've used a cable, but now in the car I just use:

 

 

Too much effort for me. I got lazy, let the postie do the walking and got a couple of these:

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-Bluetooth-Car-FM-Transmitter-MP3-Player-Car-Kit-with-LED-Display-Dual-USB-2A/32242120827.html

 

Does the job of Bluetoothing via pods to it, even on the crowded FM round here. If you like wires and not BT, there a very short 3.5mm to 3.5mm jack cable to feed in the signal.

 

oh and the burd that does to vocal messages on it on start up, pairing, etc. loves me long time.

The burd drives Mrs H mad, but it works well enough.

 

The green answer button will restart Antenna Pod or the music player app from where it left off and another press will pause it. Theres a couple of buttons on the side that with a long press will alter volume, and short press skip forward/back

[tapir]

RE DAB - i'm hoping 4/5g gets good enough coverage we can just dispense with DAB and stream instead - surely this is a cheaper better quality option?

 

RE Cars - Astra has stereo and LCD display coded to the car, try and swap out the stereo and you lose the comp. display for range, MPG and all that. No aux in either. Not that any of that matter as the stock speakers sound terrible. I've had replacements sat the garage for months, never quite got to the top of the list.

[Asimo]

Anyone got / ever seen a Manually tuned fm only car radio?

Because I want one, definitely not one of those clunky push button jobs or anything with any kind of tape or disc player built in. If such a thing has existed I would guess it would be European and 1960s / early 1970s.

[overrun]

I had a dab once. I listened to PLANNETROCK and it was good. I never went far in that car though. Never tried changing the station either.

 

7/10.

 

 

Wud plannetrock egen.

 

Absolute Radio for me.

[Guest Hooli]

Absolute classic rock for me, but they turned it off around here

[forddeliveryboy]

The BBC cocked up big time by adopting DAB as their choice, the quality isn't great even when at its best as with R3, which is a good bit worse than FM. Sharing more and more stations in a bandwidth has reduced most to bloody awful - I'd prefer background noise, standing waves and interference associated with MW on a winter's night than many DAB stations. It's all about Prophet Max, a politician's rather than radio engineer's decision.

 

Radio 4 LW all the way for me - one transmitter for the whole of England (and which reach across Western Europe, too) makes sense. And just one recharge of the AAs lasts nearly a month if I leave the radio on 24/7 at home (so up to 4 or 5 months usually), try that with DAB and they're dud after 2 days. Not good for the apocalypse when wind and solar power is all wot will work (of course Radio 4 would survive a nuke attack as well as it would some harsh words by Putin or Trump).

 

The Beeb put out a spoiler prog a couple of years back about some valves not being available for their transmitters and when the last spare is used, that'll be it - I call bullshit. You can get anything made in China for under 42p, as everyone knows.

[DodgeRover]

I tend to listen to PlanetRock or Absolute Classic Rock if there's a DAB radio on site, otherwise I ask if I can hijack the clients WiFi and confuse everybody by listening to the NZ station The Rock over the net, Aussie stations Triple M and Triple J are good at times too.

Loads of luxury moderns with integrated stereos didn't have an Aux in socket so it's going to be an issue if/ when they do turn it off.

 

Actually what frequency band would the Emergency Broadcast Network use because it would be properly crap having it on DAB should the shit hit the fan and it all turns a bit Mad Max

[Paul Dupart]

Anyone got / ever seen a Manually tuned fm only car radio?

Because I want one, definitely not one of those clunky push button jobs or anything with any kind of tape or disc player built in. If such a thing has existed I would guess it would be European and 1960s / early 1970s.

 

Voxson Radios fitted in certain Fiats (131) in the early 80's were FM only, ISTR with no cassette..

[Eddie Honda]

The Beeb put out a spoiler prog a couple of years back about some valves not being available for their transmitters and when the last spare is used, that'll be it - I call bullshit. You can get anything made in China for under 42p, as everyone knows.

They haven't been looking hard enough on eBay either.

[forddeliveryboy]

Actually what frequency band would the Emergency Broadcast Network use because it would be properly crap having it on DAB should the shit hit the fan and it all turns a bit Mad Max

 

There may well be a compulsory form of Facebook by then, run by whichever Chinese IT company bids lowest, with NINos as your nick. They'll let you know the official line on there.

 

Or people with loudhailers will drive round in ancient Toyota pickups or LandRovers, depending on who's won.

 

If power goes down nationwide, then we're doomed and we'll just have to wait for reboot by the new powers that be, once there has been a sufficiently large readjustment of population numbers.

 

 

They haven't been looking hard enough on eBay either.

 

Prolly where RTL bought their new equipment.

[CortinaDave]

This. I also work in radio. DAB takeup is about a third at the moment, FM is by far still king

 

DAB is completely unaffordable for many smaller stations. Ours was quoted around £120k per year to be on it. Crazy! And the sound quality is lousy compared to FM due to low bitrates.

 

The public haven't bought into DAB at anything like the levels it was hoped. Switch off is a good decade plus away at least. Our FM licence was renewed last year until 2027.

 

 

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.

[pshome]

Anyone got / ever seen a Manually tuned fm only car radio?

Because I want one, definitely not one of those clunky push button jobs or anything with any kind of tape or disc player built in. If such a thing has existed I would guess it would be European and 1960s / early 1970s.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Autoradio-Oldtimer-Blaupunkt-Minden-VW-Audi-ca-76-/112270220637

[Dave_Q]

For the stock units which came with aux in as an option, it's highly likely that with a bit of pokery and/or an extra wiring thing or adaptor you can add it in.

[UltraWomble]

By the sounds of it then the Almera will have rusted away before FM gets the boot.

 

It does have MW and LW though these are "ffffffzzzzzzipp...Headingly where you join us on this glo....fffffffrrrrrrdddzzzzipp..nd England are just twenty four.....ffffffiiiiippppp... to bat" in sound quality.

 

Just bought myself a ChingChongDingDong MP3 and FM radio for use on the bike and trying to tempt the son into buying one of these for his bedroom and plumbing it into his PA speakers rather than him luzzing another £400 at a frigging 1000W Pantasonic uBer speaker with just a built in CD.

 

http://www.richersounds.com/product/mini-hi-fi/marantz/mcr611-melody-media/mara-mcr611-blk

 

Im a bit miffed he feels the need to move on from the Sony mini Hi-Fi with minidisc player, but there you go...

[PiperCub]

This. I also work in radio. DAB takeup is about a third at the moment, FM is by far still king

 

DAB is completely unaffordable for many smaller stations. Ours was quoted around £120k per year to be on it. Crazy! And the sound quality is lousy compared to FM due to low bitrates.

 

The public haven't bought into DAB at anything like the levels it was hoped. Switch off is a good decade plus away at least. Our FM licence was renewed last year until 2027.

 

It doesn't surprise me that takeup is not as great as expected given the way they have chopped the bit-rate (hence quality) - often halving it from what it used to be hence the iffy quality.

A workmate (ex- now as he's just retired) was a very early adopter of DAB and he loved it at first but with the steady decline of data rate to get more channels/stations in the bandwidth (so to make more money) he was getting fed up with it and was moving over to web-based services via his phone which was blue-tooth'd to his car audio system.

While this is not an infallible system as coverage isn't everywhere by any means, most of the time it works great. 

 

£120K for a DAB licence? Christ, I didn't know it was that much! I do appreciate working in radio these days is a bit of a struggle as there's little money devoted to it as advertisers don't want to pay much. 

[17-Coffees]

I'm somewhat fucked for fitting a new radio...

This is the late model LS400's center console, that screen is used for the radio, stereo, heater/fan's, navigation, etc but has no AUX or USB or other new fanged ports. Well other than the cassette input. (Okay, it does has a 6 track CD player as well)  

 

I can't be arsed faffing about trying to find a set up that'd look factory fit & let me use the climate controls! 

Look's like it'll just be CD's and the cassette - AUX adapter. 

 

Oh well. 

[gm]

I've recently taken to listening to classic fm on my daily commute. I find it makes the drive more relaxing and I arrive at work feeling less stressed. Or at least until the bloody annoying stupid adverts ruin everything

 

Commercial radio sucks the fat one !

[Formula Autos]

Some. 2002-08 Fiestas don't have aux in. And on a lot of cars like that (Bini?) it's optional.

My other half's previous car was an '07 plate Fester with an aux in - the socket was down behind the gear lever.

 

Hers was an ST, mind. Lesser models may not have had this.

 

I use a Belkin FM transmitter to send podcasts from my phone to my car stereo. I've used it in a few cars now, and it works well. Probably the easiest way to keep radio reception in a car without any faff. With a bit of thought and/or crude wiring it could probably be built in near somewhere you could stash a DAB/ internet radio equipped device, to save wires flailing about.

[Richard]

It's not much more than a fiver to add an aux socket to a V series Ford stereo.

[Bobthebeard]

Not sure that I actually understand any of this! Aux in, mp3, DAB or whatever. I never have the radio or toonz playing in my cars. Am clearly boring. I just waft along with my own thoughts for company.

Ahem... As you were.

[DodgeRover]

I'm somewhat fucked for fitting a new radio...

This is the late model LS400's center console, that screen is used for the radio, stereo, heater/fan's, navigation, etc but has no AUX or USB or other new fanged ports. Well other than the cassette input. (Okay, it does has a 6 track CD player as well)

 

I can't be arsed faffing about trying to find a set up that'd look factory fit & let me use the climate controls!

Look's like it'll just be CD's and the cassette - AUX adapter.

 

Oh well.

Other halfs RX300 is the same, reading in the Lexi forums I couldn't find anybody who had managed to add an aux in simply or reliably that didn't involve playing a blank CD or similar

[AMC Rebel]

I'm somewhat fucked for fitting a new radio...

This is the late model LS400's center console, that screen is used for the radio, stereo, heater/fan's, navigation, etc but has no AUX or USB or other new fanged ports. Well other than the cassette input. (Okay, it does has a 6 track CD player as well)  

 

I can't be arsed faffing about trying to find a set up that'd look factory fit & let me use the climate controls! 

Look's like it'll just be CD's and the cassette - AUX adapter. 

 

Oh well. 

 

 

Of course, once we hit critical mass, there will likely be a Chinese unit for 42p that will replace it and add the DAB.

 

The Rover 75/ZTT and BMW E46 lickers can already get a unit that adds satnav, bluetooth, TV, USB, DVD, dashcam, reversing cam and DAB as a straight swap for what was there.

[RoadworkUK]

I had been using a Pure Highway DAB - until it packed up. The replacement version seems to need splicing into the wiring system, and I really CBA.

 

I listen exclusively to BBC6, and though you can hear that the bitrate ain't too clever, it's no worse than the compressed shite that gets pumped over FM which - though an analogue broadcasting medium, often uses horribly compressed digital recordings anyway. If an "exclusive play" turns up on a BBC channel, you can bet it will be played from an MP3.

 

Additional: I have a very pleasant Arcam FM tuner at home, which I can't use because there's been nothing on FM worth listening to here for years.

[Pillock]

My old Focus which was a 2009 model (so brand new in the AS scheme of things) had no DAB, despite being Titanium spec. It also had the climate controls integrated, so no display other than a line on the head unit with temperate and airflow arrows. It also had no aux input

 

So my options were a cheap crappy DAB to FM transmitter glued to the dash and associated power cables trailing, or I found a professional one that hijacked the steering wheel controls to scan between stations, and put the DAB station name into the FM RDS text. That was £180.