DAB RADIO IRELAND ROBERTS SOLAR DAB DIGITAL AUDIO BROADCASTING
August 10, 2009
A few days ago I went out and bought myself a Roberts DAB Solar radio. I already have two old valve radios and as I live in a one room flat that’s more than enough but I like radio and figured it was time for me to update to DAB. The fact that this model is solar powered was very much a plus. I handed over 130 euros in Peats and have been kicking myself ever since. The radio is fine , it’s the DAB (Ditital Audio Broadcasting ) bit that’s a problem. A problem in Ireland that is. There are four DAB stations along with RTE 1 RTE 2 RNG etc but there is nothing worth listening to beyond junk music. Unfortunately I didn’t realise that you couldn’t get BBC or any other station for that matter so I am stuck with pure dross.
The stations really are terrible. Bland. If your a fan of BBC World Service / Radio Four and that type of thing then keep your money in your pocket and don’t go for DAB because DAB in Ireland just means BAD. I am literally kicking myself. $130 spent and nothing to listen to apart from Joe Duffey.
August 18, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Hi Joe,
The set you have is a good one – and DAB is a great way to listen to Radio. The trouble in Ireland is that the Broadcasters are reluctant to move on to DAB at the moment as they would have to pay for the FM service as well as the DAB!
New Broadcasters find it hard to justify paying to move onto a platform with a (relatively) limited listener base as the advertisers are not prepared to pay the same rate for their ads on DAB as they do on the more popular FM. It is a classic “Chicken and Egg” scenario!
DAB has a host of exciting features that are currently not implemented in Ireland (from complex scrolling text to actually including Pictures such as album covers, Artists mug shots, or Web cams from the studio – and even full motion video footage too) but until the Regulator announces that FM WILL be closing down – the Broadcasters will not invest in DAB.
There is a group of determined DAB supporters in the Irish Broadcast World in RTE – and in the Commercial Broadcasters (Dusty Rhodes etc). Any support that one is able to offer them will have huge follow on as the regulator simply must be given the confidence to make that all important announcement to allow DAB to surge ahead and deliver the quality, variety and service it is so capable of.
August 18, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Tony ,
Thank you for your comment. I don’t think we really need any of the ‘features’ that you mention. But the real problem is that RTE just not in the same league as BBC. The content across all the RTE stations is pretty poor…as someone who likes classical music and jazz I never , never listen to the like of Lyric and the rest of the station are , for the most part , pumping out only music ….and we have out record decks and cd player if we want that.
RTE is now a very conservative and right wing station that seems to think it’s mandate is to push the new Corporate European ideology. Bad language is becoming commonplace on it and we hear vulgarities that would not be tolerated elsewhere in the air waves….and then there is that dreadfull ‘dart’ accents..
No , I don’t think DAB in Ireland will improve unless they find some way of broadcasting the BBC.
March 29, 2011 at 10:08 pm
could not agree more with this. the swear words on irish radio are a disgrace and do demean irish broadcasting. there is very little wit or invention on irish radio. also too many d.js trying sooo hard to sound cool and get down wit da kidz !its just cringey. i would love to be able to get bbc radio on d.a.b simply because its miles better than irish radio.
December 26, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I agree with you 100%. I just bought a dab radio hoping to tune into BBC and other foreign channels. I was disgusted to learn that I was stuck with RTE. DAB is no improvement on the existing rubbish.
April 4, 2010 at 9:35 pm
i agree totally i wasted money on a dab radio to be stuck with a load of rubbish irish stations when i wanted other stations… my old radio was fine.. lol ah well what a waste of money..
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May 25, 2010 at 9:57 pm
BBC on DAB will only work in areas where the BBC license fee is paid. No way are they ever going to get slots on Irish DAB, or so I have been told.
The BBC analogue radio (AM/FM) and TV (standard definition colour) that we can get south of the border is a bonus, and anyone who can pick up RTE analogue signals in NI or UK is lucky.
Stick with satellite or Internet if you want to listen to BBC radio in digital after the switch-off of analogue.
Looks like Lyric FM is your only choice on RTE DAB right now; the non-RTE stations on Irish DAB are all pop/rock/etc.
And you are moving from a valve radio (with its beautiful warm analogue sound) to an all-digital low-bandwidth multiplexed system, where the talk/news stations get a low bitrate (and in mono too!) and even the “quality” music stations are streaming at less than 256kbps: the same bitrate as a cheap MP3 download. It’s “almost” CD quality. “CD quality” was defined in the 1970s by Sony and Philips, using 1970s computer and optical storage technology (the Red Book standard was released in 1980).
The only advantages I can think of with DAB are: no hiss or fade with a weaker signal, and the dynamic range might be better (if the broadcaster has separately processed feeds for DAB and FM to the transmitter).
Coverage on DAB is not as good as FM, and a typical DAB radio uses more power than an equivalent FM radio (of course a valve radio would use even more, and most of them can’t pick up FM).
Some stations (mostly pirates) are now using RDS on FM for complex scrolling text, so FM isn’t strictly audio-only.
May 25, 2010 at 10:41 pm
I just checked the WWW a bit: it looks like DAB+ sound quality will seriously improve on DAB, due to better encoding (AAC+ not MPEG). Anyone who still hasn’t moved to DAB should probably wait for a radio that can pick up DAB+ (early models will probably do both DAB+ and DAB).
May 25, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Thank you for your comments Dec. I much prefer the old valve sound but the way the stations wander or fade tends to spoil the listening…
May 28, 2010 at 9:36 pm
My late grandmother had a lovely valve radio, which she threw out when one of the tubes was on its last legs and causing crackle. All she had to do was get one tube replaced, but she bought a transistor radio instead. Then she got used to the “instant on” convenience and being able to carry it around her house, and they were more important factors to her than the sound.
Station drift could be easy to fix depending on what’s causing it, and it could be lessened by moving the set or aerial (if there is one plugged in).
I don’t know of any shops that can repair a valve radio, but there must be at least one left in Dublin. If you can always get a good signal back by fine-tuning it when it fades, it may be worth getting it looked at.
Valves are always going to sound better because of the way they process harmonics in sound: transistors and IC’s work in a different way electrically, and have a “harsher” sound as a result. You still can’t beat the real thing!
Guitar amplifiers and high-end Hi-Fi systems still use valves, and if it wasn’t for the ongoing influence of Jimi Hendrix and similar rock musicians, valves would be extinct, or at the very least horribly expensive to replace.
Of course you have to wait for valves to warm up, but it’s worth the wait for that sweet rich sound.
Last time I looked, HMV on Grafton St. were selling an ipod dock with a valve amplifier. Not sure if it has a radio built in, so it could be useless on its own (I don’t have an ipod, so I didn’t look too closely).
August 14, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Thanks for saving me the money, like yourself I like BBC World Service Radio 4 & 5 live.
I listen to these through the TV, that’ll do for now cos there aint much worth watching on the box anyway
September 1, 2011 at 12:24 pm
I bought a squeezebox boom due to problems with dab.
Much better accessing Radio 2 and 5 through Internet.