Let’s not be forced into a DAB radio switchover

My wife and I are TOTALLY against the cessation of national FM transmissions for, among others, the following reasons:

* We have 9 FM receivers (4 high quality tuners (i.e. several hundred pounds worth), 4 radio alarms and 1 car radio). Each one of these would need replacing at considerable cost.
* If all our FM receivers become redundant, there will be significant increase in waste costs to be dealt with under the WEEE regulations.
* DAB signal processing uses more complex circuits than FM, hence the power requirement for receivers will increase. This does not help the UK energy strategy, let alone my own.
* The replacement DAB transmissions are, very probably, likely to be of lower fidelity than the FM transmissions. See BBC white paper WHP061.
* ‘Live’ transmissions will actually be subject to delay (due to the encode/decode circuitry), therefore, for example, the hourly time pips will be incorrect.
* It is very unlikely that our listening habits will change with the increased number of stations. The advent of digital TV didn’t really change our viewing habits. It has, however, meant that the visual quality has improved with HD transmissions. This viewing enhancement is coupled with the availability of larger TV screens due to LCD and Plasma technology. This is an advantage that cannot be applied to radios. And the higher quality audio capability is not likely to be implemented due to commercial considerations cited in various sources. Does anyone really sit and watch the scrolling text on their DAB radio?
* The MPEG and HE-AAC codecs required for DAB are proprietory. Therefore, a large public system will be supporting a private system. This cannot be an open system and there will be no competition as only a single vendor can supply the codecs.

In short, there is no real advantage to us, as consumers, in the phasing out FM in favour of DAB. In fact it will incur significant costs and we appear unconvinced that it will deliver any audible benefits.

Why, why, why must FM be phased out for DAB?

I, too, think it is pointless to switch of FM and make everyone go digital. Why? Well, the only reason I can think of is so the government can make money by selling off wavelengths. Even when the signal quality has substantially been improved, there seems to be a range of reasons why keeping FM is a far better option: 1) DAB radios simply drink battery power. I saw one advertised as ‘giving up to 10 hours of reception on one set of batteries’. My various FM radios give up to one month on one set of batteries. 2) A big thing is made of the fact that we can listen to loads more stations. Yet I’m sure the vast majority of people are like me and regularly listen to just 2/3 stations, with many simply listening to just one. 3) Quite apart from the waste of having to replace all the mains and battery driven FM radios we have accummulated over the years, car radios will also have to be replaced or adapted. And digital reception is either there or it’s not. Yet when listening to Five Live in my car, I really don’t object to poor reception. Yes, I would like better reception all the time, but I least I get a continuing feed.

Overall I think DAB is worse than FM. Although both have similar sound quality, DAB has annoying breaks in reception, my portable radio and its telescopic aerial are more sensitive to position than when tuned to FM, and digital stations take longer than FM to come through after pushing a preset button. I use FM unless listening to a station only transmitted digitally.

This “portable” radio’s batteries last only about 2 hours, so it’s not really portable and a 240v power unit is needed,. It uses more than 50 times as much electrical power when receiving DAB as my 45 year old battery FM portable, in which the batteries last for weeks. There are no reception problems with digital listening ‘on-line’, sound quality is good, but my desk top PC uses 1000 times the power of my old FM portable.

For a year I owned a car with a factory fitted DAB receiver, which only got enough signal strength in some places when parked. When moving, it made a loud distorted buzzing noise, or no sound at all. I deduce DAB car radio is at present of little use.

I think the Government is being misled by the radio industry into backing a national radio change from FM to digital. There has been no public consultation. The Digital Economy Act was forced through Parliament with inadequate debate. I’ll be very cross if the four national FM stations I listen to are closed, which will infringe consumers’ right to decide individually how to use services in the best way for them. I think it would be a scam to oblige consumers to pay for new equipment which will be more costly to run and may well give a poorer service. I think it will be the worst environmental example to make us get rid of working radios when we’re already using resources much faster than they can be replaced. The present system has no consumer problem and a changeover should be cancelled.

According to industry data cited in Parliament by Communications Minister Ed Vaizey, in the third quarter of 2011 some 17.8% of new cars registered were fitted with DAB radios.

My comment on this is what he didn’t say:
“Or, put it another way, some 82.2% of new cars did not have DAB radios fitted!”

Now that’s hardly a ringing endorsement from the motor trade – despite all the promises of “things to come”!

The deadline will have to continue to move, and the technology will become increasingly prehistoric!

Dump all my old AM radios! I have about 10 – no way! They will always be some countries using the AM band in Europe as its cheap and covers distances.

Why waste a fortune on (a) buying a DAB set when FM is superior audio quality (b) having to buy significantly more batteries. The cost of batteries for DAB is still vastly in excess of that for “old fashioned” radios, so many aspects about DAB have to be linked with comments of the “better things to come” type.

I bought one DAB set and found that does not work in some rooms of my house! A friend who works in retailing tells me that customers often return their radios as they “don’t work properly”. I hardly use mine, should have returned it.

“The Emperor’s Clothes”?

“Let’s not be forced into a DAB radio switchover”

A letter to your MP setting out some salient points might be one way of achieving this.

Maybe your MP would sponsor an Early Day Motion? Its worth asking.

We live in a part of the country where FM reception is not great and the digital TV signal is very restricted. I doubt that switching to digital radio would have any positive benefits whatsoever. At a rough count. I reckon that switching off the FM signal would render useless about 20 radios, Hi-Fi tuners, radio alarm clocks, mobile phone radios and car radios. That would cost us hundreds of pounds to replace and all for no benefit. I would strongly encourage Which? to fight the digital switchover.