General Chat

they switch off the FM transmitters?

Last I heard, they weren't going to be switched off for years, by which time I will be past caring! :-) :-)

more concerned about when my transmitter gets turned off :-D

I already mostly listen to digital with 4Extra

OH is trying to convince me that we'll have to replace the car. In his dreams!!! :-D

I totally dislike a radio without a dial...........

and it appears to be imminent as it was on radio Cambridgeshire most of yesterday.

its one thing being able to get a digi box for an analogue TV

but what about cars?

but then I am a bit of a luddite.......

If (if) FM radio disappears that will be the end of free-to-air high sound quality broadcasting - tuf if you like Radio3 or Classical FM. Or the excellent jazz programs on Radio2.

DAB broadcasting is very iffy and broadcasters have not resisted the temptation to prefer quantity to quality. Still, if you consider MP3 and Beats as quality sound you'll be ok. Likewise iPlayer radio app.

The majority of AM/FM radio stations do not want a forced changeover to DAB. It is mostly the BBC who are driving this. Their objective is to destroy free independent radio.

http://radiotoday.co.uk/2013/11/owners-of-80-stations-want-dab-switch-halt/

UK and rest-of-EU rollout of DAB are wildly at odds. Thus don't expect much joy with yr DAB radio on the continent and yr new car with DAB radio will have to fall back on FM. Quite what foreign drivers would make of their radios going dead in the UK I don't know.

http://www.dorbag.org.uk/main/latest_show_full.php?id=76

It is a mad, bad and premature idea. That its survival depends on such well known organisations for assessing market demand as UKGov and the BBC speaks volumes.

Has anybody seen a DAB radio costing £ 10 max that can run for days off a battery, weighs no more than a few ounces and will pick up a signal practically anywhere ?

My feeling is that the DAB industry views the rapid rise of ip radio over mobiles with terror and are afraid of becoming completely sidelined.

Remember YouView a sink of hundreds of millions of pounds of BBC and other media company's money rescued at the 11th hour by Alan Sugar and TalkTalk ? Well DAB is YouView mk 2.

fwiw UKGov is dreaming up various fixes for the 2015 election. One of them is the end of the TV license fee. Without it the funding for DAB would vanish.