Can you specify the Yeti with a digital radio? I know you can get any VW with a digital radio but can't see anywhere in the Skoda brochure offering a digital radio for any car in their range! Surprising with all the talk that digitai will take over from FM within the next ten years. I know that our radios at home are now digital with much improved reception.

Your lucky to have good digital reception because digital radio is one of the most difficult signals to receive. It is a great pity that GB government has opted to take the low tech digitalized broadcast at the expense of FM Analogue. Their are many complaints about the poor digital service in GB, with many people who can receive, only getting a mono service. The government decided to go down this avenue against advice. Even the German state has rejected digital radio, opting to remain with analog! Digital radio will only give good results if the bit rate is high enough. Our government intensions are to charge for band width or bit rate. This is forcing companies to offer low quality sound in order to save money. Even BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 listeners have complained bitterly about the reduction in sound quality. Bearing in mind that the audiophile listeners to these stations often have very expensive Hi Fi and radio sets yet have been forced to listen to clipped and compressed sound. GB has the world greatest distribution of Nation transmitters, many of which were developed in the 1920's and 1930's these have been maintained and modified over the years to give outstanding broadcast quality sound to every corner of Great Britain. £ Billions of tax payers money is now going to be spent to build new transmitter stations and remove the old. Digital radio cannot operate successfully as a national network from the existing transmitters because of serious technical problems. Digital requires practically a line of sight from transmitter to receiver. Even listeners close to the Winter Hill Transmitter have no signal if they live on the other side of buildings while others have no problem. FM listeners do not have this problem. Evidently the government had an option of a higher quality system but in their wisdom and against advice chose the cheaper option, what a surprise! While Germany has abandoned it and other countries are considering to do the same our leaders have chosen to bin a perfectly good system for the sake of increased revenue. The two systems will not run side by side. Forget spending lots of £ on expensive systems it will not be worth it. Those unfortunates who have spent £ thousands on expensive quality HiFi already, well hard luck in a few years it will be useless and worthless.

I am not against digital, not at all. If it was invested in properly and the best system developed then it would not be too bad for some but it will never be able to reach all of the GB land mass and listeners. If Analogue was allowed to continue much as long wave has been able to then that would be the ideal. Just pick up any quality Hi Fi mag and it will be seen that their are active protest sites already popping up and collections of signatures amassing for number 10.

If you can not find a dedicated digital radio then their are a few add on sets that do not cost the earth that are available. These work by broadcasting a short range FM signal from the digital radio to an empty station on your current fm car radio. they are very small and unobtrusive and I believe give good results from quality broadcasts.

If you want, I can find a link for these digital radios.

Edited 15 December, 200916 yr by Anthony 1

Isn't the Pure Highway one of these digital addons.

http://www.pure.com/products/product.asp?Product=VL-60905&Category=

External aerial here http://www.pure.com/products/accessory.asp?Product=VL-61112

What is amazing is that I use a Pure Move (40hrs battery charge) in the tank bag of my motor bike, wired to my intercom, with the aerial sticking out the side and I get very good reception.

If I use it in the car the aerial needs to be up by the screen. I am hoping it will work sitting (or laying) in the cubby hole on the top of the dash.

http://www.pure.com/products/product.asp?Product=VL-60833&Category=

tom

With the Bolero radio on the SE, you can input a stereo signal through the Aux socket in the Jumbo armrest box. So any DAB radio with a headphone output can be "wired" through the car radio using the Media and Aux settings. With an RRP of £105 for the radio and car kit, its an expensive way of installing DAB when a £40-£50 DAB radio will do the job.

Edited 16 December, 200916 yr by Terfyn

Yes, Pure is the one I had in mind.

It’s ironic that my mother can't receive VHF radio in her kitchen due to location (in a valley) and probably multiple path reflection, even though she is only 4 miles from Pontop Pike. But she can receive excellent quality DAB at the same location.

Anyway, we do’t need to worry, DAB+ will be here in a couple of years…………………..ah, we will have to buy new radios again….bugger! I only hope car manufactures get their act together and start to fit DAB+ as standard, from the moment of it's release (yes I know, fat chance :( )

Isn't the Pure Highway one of these digital addons.

http://www.pure.com/products/product.asp?Product=VL-60905&Category=

External aerial here http://www.pure.com/products/accessory.asp?Product=VL-61112

What is amazing is that I use a Pure Move (40hrs battery charge) in the tank bag of my motor bike, wired to my intercom, with the aerial sticking out the side and I get very good reception.

If I use it in the car the aerial needs to be up by the screen. I am hoping it will work sitting (or laying) in the cubby hole on the top of the dash.

http://www.pure.com/products/product.asp?Product=VL-60833&Category=

tom

Hi Tom

Are you not defeating the point of DAB radio, when you have to feed the output of the DAB back into the FM radio ?

Radiotwo

Hi Tom

Are you not defeating the point of DAB radio, when you have to feed the output of the DAB back into the FM radio ?

Radiotwo

I accept that the perfect solution would be a built in DAB radio but Skoda don't do one in the Yeti.

But if you want to get really good reception for Test cricket on 5 and listen to Radio 7 (good old fashioned comedy and mystery hours) you need DAB.

I'll initially plumb my Move into the armrest socket and listen to it via the car speakers or fit a Highway in the little glovebox in front of the gear lever, use an external aerial and plumb the output to the armrest socket.

tom

I have not listened to BBC Radio 7 so I am unfamiliar with its content though, but BBC Radio 4 does have plays as I am sure your aware, I was listening to one this afternoon. I have just had a peep, they do have a very broad range on R7. Have they Stopped cricket on BBC Radio 4 Long Wave? I know that Long Wave AM transmissions are not very wonderful.

Selection of in car DAB

http://www.getdigitalradio.com/digital-radios/search

I know that the PURE HIGHWAY has received some very good reviews and is very easy to set up and if you look around the net can be bought quite cheaply.

http://www.getdigitalradio.com/digital-radios/view/158/category:in-car

Wikipedia link to DAB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio_in_the_United_Kingdom

An Extract from the above

Digital radio in the United Kingdom is being promoted by radio stations and the broadcasting industry on the premise that it provides a wider choice of radio stations, is easier to use, and is resistant to the interference which other broadcast media are susceptible to. However, the price paid for the extra number of stations is that the audio quality on DAB is lower than on FM. Also some areas of the country are not presently covered by DAB; the BBC says that it may not provide coverage to the final 10% of the population, and may use DRM instead. The United Kingdom Government intends to migrate the vast majority of AM and FM analogue services to digital in 2015, subject to targets being met for coverage and listening figures for digital radio.

I hope that you can find a suitable solution and that you can continue listening to the Spoken Word and Test match Cricket via the BBC.

We had the Pure Highway in the Beetle and when it was in cover it was very good, significantly better than FM. Unfortunately we live in a valley and the windscreen aerial didn't deliver enough signal for DAB in the last couple of miles of the drive home. Not tried it with the Yeti, but obviously now have the option of feeding it direct into the AUX socket rather than via an empty FM frequency.

The Jaguar's optional DAB tuner is a different story - reception is excellent, significantly better and more consistent than FM. On the odd occasion I have reverted to FM due to the signal breaking up, the FM signal is usually unusable as well. So as the second-cheapest option on the XF (after the alloy space-saver spare) I am glad I went for it.

At home, ironically this is the first house where I have acceptable FM reception (via a 4-element Yagi on the roof) and we also have the option of receiving digital radio via our Freesat box as well as the Arcam's FM tuner, overcoming the bandwidth limitations of FM. DAB reception on portables is variable but when it is good, the sound is significantly better than FM. The BBC have recently increased the power of their multiplexer which has helped - unfortunately Digital 1 (which includes Classic) haven't followed suit so far.

Edited 16 December, 200916 yr by mbrock

I was listening to the test match today in the car on long wave.

tom

mbrock,

I used to listen to a lot of radio at home, mainly BBC R3 & BBC R4 occasionally R 2 but not very often. I used an early Quad FM Valve radio with separate Valve Amp power supply. It was converted to decode stereo transmissions. Absolutely fabulous sound, listening to Classics, the Spoken Word or more recent music inching Jazz and other better written modern music. It was also very sensitive and if I pointed the arial in the correct direction I could listen to the Irish stations as well including the Classical programs in the evening. I also had a dedicated Multi element aerial. The only thing was being od it was tuned for better listening at the lower frequencies as that was where mainly BBC programs at one time. So Classic FM was not the best. We have terrific thunder storms hear when they occur and have had some very near hits. One blew up my entire Hi Fi system including my Quad and lots of other stuff. We used to have it on nearly all of the time. I never replaced it, it is still sitting here. ma bee it could be fixed? I did not try because I felt that digital was upon us soon. So for several years I have been without. I looked into digital even corresponding with a quango dealing with it and read some reports in Hi Fi News and some other esoteric audiophile magazines. I just felt very sad at the future demise of FM, knowing its history and that it is at the peak of its technology. I have never owned a CD Player having a Linn vinyl player so I am an Old Die Hard. the industry would have us all believe that digital is best but it really depends |I feel on the bit rate and inner components of the equipment.

Whilst we wont see the quality of a live Radio 3 FM broadcast again, at least until DAB+ arrives (depending on data rates etc) one thing that has improved with the advent of digital sound is the recording format. When I started in Radio, all recoding were made on 1/4” at 15 i.p.s. (at least they were for network) on type 200 tape. The sig to noise ratio was nothing like as good as the modern digital recordings. Plus some of the mics that we used (4038s etc) were not really what you would call full bandwidth

So the trade off is the stuff we record today is much better at the source, but until newer technology comes along, not quite so good over the air. The cake can’t be eaten and owned at the same time………..at least not yet

Edited 16 December, 200916 yr by Lady Elanore

Anthony,

Thanks for your reply - I used to have a valve Leak Troughline tuner though it wasn't very sensitive. And some Quad ESLs, subsequently replaced by less space-hungry Leak Sandwich and then via various Kefs to my current PMCs. When I was a teenager, the local TV repairman had a Quad 22/FM2/II setup driving some waist-high corner speakers consisting of sand-filled panels with Tannoy concentric drivers. And an excellent colour TV he had built into a radiogram cabinet, to a Mullard design published in Wireless World! Sorry, I digress...

I agree DAB isn't perfect and, just as with digital TV, there seems to be a rush for quantity over quality. I find it most annoying when TV documentaries are all jerky and blocky beause the bandwidth has been given to some football match on another channel. However terrestrial TV is impossible where we are, and although the FM signal from the Yagi is good, for portables it is variable to say the least. So for that and in the car (well the Jag anyway), it seems the best compromise.

Incidentally, a friend of mine near Glasgow restores Quad equipment, he's done quite a few Quad IIs.

Mark

I raised the same question some months ago. You can add a DAB tuner to VW radios, but not to the Skoda rebadged versions of the same radios! With national FM stations possibly dying by 2015 (only 5 years away!) I do not want to buy a car in 2010 and try to sell it with an obsolete radio in 2015. The VW DAB tuner option is a factory fit, so it does not appear possible to add it later (and cannot be added to the inbuilt satnav units either!

I have added a Pure Highway to my Octavia, and it works well enough, but it's yet another box fitted to the windscreen that has to be removed to deter yobs from bricking your windows to nick it.

For the time being, I'm holding off buying a Yeti (or any other Skoda) until they can offer this option.

Chris

That is a problem, YOBS, I agree about boxes also. Some people have a plethora of them HPD Speed-trap and no doubt Highway as well not to mention mobile phone cradles, cables and all the rest of the paraphernalia.

I raised the same question some months ago. You can add a DAB tuner to VW radios, but not to the Skoda rebadged versions of the same radios! With national FM stations possibly dying by 2015 (only 5 years away!) I do not want to buy a car in 2010 and try to sell it with an obsolete radio in 2015. The VW DAB tuner option is a factory fit, so it does not appear possible to add it later (and cannot be added to the inbuilt satnav units either!

I have added a Pure Highway to my Octavia, and it works well enough, but it's yet another box fitted to the windscreen that has to be removed to deter yobs from bricking your windows to nick it.

For the time being, I'm holding off buying a Yeti (or any other Skoda) until they can offer this option.

Chris

Annoyingly you can fit the SatNav and Dab to an Audi A4. perhaps it will come along in the not too distant future as other VAG cars upgrade their kit?

mbrock,

I used to listen to a lot of radio at home, mainly BBC R3 & BBC R4 occasionally R 2 but not very often. I used an early Quad FM Valve radio with separate Valve Amp power supply. It was converted to decode stereo transmissions. Absolutely fabulous sound, listening to Classics, the Spoken Word or more recent music inching Jazz and other better written modern music. It was also very sensitive and if I pointed the arial in the correct direction I could listen to the Irish stations as well including the Classical programs in the evening. I also had a dedicated Multi element aerial. The only thing was being od it was tuned for better listening at the lower frequencies as that was where mainly BBC programs at one time. So Classic FM was not the best. We have terrific thunder storms hear when they occur and have had some very near hits. One blew up my entire Hi Fi system including my Quad and lots of other stuff. We used to have it on nearly all of the time. I never replaced it, it is still sitting here. ma bee it could be fixed? I did not try because I felt that digital was upon us soon. So for several years I have been without. I looked into digital even corresponding with a quango dealing with it and read some reports in Hi Fi News and some other esoteric audiophile magazines. I just felt very sad at the future demise of FM, knowing its history and that it is at the peak of its technology. I have never owned a CD Player having a Linn vinyl player so I am an Old Die Hard. the industry would have us all believe that digital is best but it really depends |I feel on the bit rate and inner components of the equipment.

Ah, good to hear from a fellow Radio 3 listener

I raised the same question some months ago. You can add a DAB tuner to VW radios, but not to the Skoda rebadged versions of the same radios! With national FM stations possibly dying by 2015 (only 5 years away!) I do not want to buy a car in 2010 and try to sell it with an obsolete radio in 2015. The VW DAB tuner option is a factory fit, so it does not appear possible to add it later (and cannot be added to the inbuilt satnav units either!

I have added a Pure Highway to my Octavia, and it works well enough, but it's yet another box fitted to the windscreen that has to be removed to deter yobs from bricking your windows to nick it.

For the time being, I'm holding off buying a Yeti (or any other Skoda) until they can offer this option.

Chris

Exactly my concern, buy a car without DAB radio now and then watch the value plummet in 2015 when you try and sell it. It just seems common sense to avoid obsolescence if you can see it coming. Guess it is back to VW next time around.

Does this mean that a Columbus system is not worth considering as a factory option? Do people think that it is possible that there will be a DAB upgrade path for a RNS510? I have been thinking about adjusting my factory order, however to think that the radio would lose its functionality is a little concerning... Any thoughts on whether to purchase would be appreciated.

It is a concern that FM will just be switched off. It will be cause a lot of expense to a lot of people. Some of whom will have spent considerable on exotic equipment only to see it lying dormant and useless within a short period of time. I would say that it is up to you, have a read in some of the Hi Fi press, Hi Fi News, Hi Fi World and other quality Hi Fi Magazines. What Hi Fi might not have this sort of information, it is only a general and in my opinion low quality Hi Fi Mag with just the most common brands. It should be possible to find out on the web sites of the above also for more definitive answers.

Thanks for the reply Anthony, makes sense to check the HiFi press out. Not really been in the loop for sometime regarding this subject. It appears then that the end may be nye for my Meridian 504FM receiver....

Jonathan

Well Jonathan,

That may well be the case unfortunately however the fight is not over yet. Not that I can claimed have done any sparing with the authorities on this matter but their are some campaigns led by the Hi Fi Press and other more enlightened individuals. I believe that their is the usual add a signature thing going on also.

As you know the Government, all Governments, I am not being political with a P but a p, takes advice from various bodies and interested parties and then makes its decisions. I guess that expenditure and income come into that very heavily and I have no idea who advised them. Digital is capable of transmitting and receiving quality signals but it needs a certain bit rate to do so. Also developments of advanced digital systems have not been properly developed so the government has decided to opt for the cheeper and not so good system which is behind what some other EU partners were involved with. Even so Germany a major party has pulled out of digital and will stick with FM analogue for the foreseeable future. The other thing is that is of concern, the government wants lots of new independent broadcasting stations. That sounds good but the reason why they want them is because they will have to buy licenses to broadcast and that the cost to each station will be dependent on bit rate or band width. For some sorts of bang bang make you deaf music this will not be a problem because it is rubbish anyway but for listeners of higher quality music such as classical, jazz, Jules Holland sort of stuff and so on, the low quality will be very noticeable. Even for listeners of the spoken word. As I have said earlier, the BBC received thousands of complaints from listeners because they lowered the bit rate thinking that n one would notice. Possibly true if all one had to listen on was an old tranny radio but many have far better equipment especially audiophiles. Some of the complaints were that even during plays the sound was reduced to mono with all the actors radiating from one speaker while the other was completely dead. Classical Music fans reported that recordings were heavily compressed with little dynamic range and poor sound. The BBC was forced to up its bit rate under pressure I understand.

One of the other onerous things is the way the BBC and Government have conspired together and that they are not being transparent. Evidently their is a legal requirement for transparency from government departments including the BBC or something to that end and the BBC is being highly secretive so I have read. the BBC feels that it does not have to put its cards on the table for all to see. Of course they aim to gain from the new system and the government want the revenue and to reduce their expenditure.

I wrote something one another vehicle forum some where, were I had more of the relevant information newly read and digested by my but now I am having to recall from memory and am getting a bit on one might say. I cannot immediately recall the exact proposals nor what bit rate is considered satisfactory for what ever source or at what rate things begin to deteriorate.

As you can imagine all of this is horrifying to audiophiles, listeners of high quality music and the spoken word alike. Why should we be forced to go down an avenue which so obviously inferior than what we have already. I am not being nationalistic or partisan but GB has by far the best broadcasting network in the world bar non. It has been highly developed.

As per usual the vas Living close to a transmitter will not grantee reception either because it is highly directional and subject to its own type of interference. Te majority of listeners have absolutely no idea about any of this, that is new isn't it! All we are told is they it will be better with more programs. More programs, yes, but they will be garage type, low budget set ups, and the vast majority will only be local. To set up a digital \National network is going to cost the tax payers £ billions and it will still be unsatisfactory in terms of quality and organization with much f the country living in black spots just like they do for the mobile telephone network. A massive new transmitter mast building program will be on the cards because the existing system will not do and highly complicated phase transmissions will have to be designed in, to avoid countless types of technical problems including phase distortions, time delays, whistling dead spots, alternative channels and so on.

Hey Anthony, it appears 2015 is not set in stone. Though the writing is on the wall, there appears to be a proposal to move MW stations over to DAB and that FM might remain for local community radio. From a purely selfish perspective, I hope BBC's R4, R3 etc, remain in the delightful world of Analogue.

Jonathan

Your proposal would be more acceptable. the more pressure brought to bear might change the whole scenario and a change of government might bring a reprieve. But what colour of government? That is the question. I doubt that their will be very much in it cometh the day. Overly strong majorities are never a heathy thing. It is a little while since I have looked into things.

Funnily enough, I was looking at buying a DAB set. I usually read around things that I am interested in to gain insight. I was more than alarmed when I did. I had not fixed my equipment because I just guess that it would become redundant and I also thought wrongly that DAB would be wonderful because that is how it is sold. I should have been a little weary because I remember the horror of CD when it was first introduced and how poor it was when compared to some of the very best in vinyl reproduction. I have a Linn Sondek LP12 which was at that time one of the very best record decks available. Analogue was of a high order in the more expensive ranges and CD just could not come anywhere near, no matter what the manufacturers claimed. Again the bit rate sampling was to low for good reproduction but if one was only used to having a radiogram or a Dancet then it was very impressive and bight. Today they have not improved on the number of bits but have cleaned them up with higher quality innards and power supplies.

Hey Anthony, it appears 2015 is not set in stone. Though the writing is on the wall, there appears to be a proposal to move MW stations over to DAB and that FM might remain for local community radio. From a purely selfish perspective, I hope BBC's R4, R3 etc, remain in the delightful world of Analogue.

Jonathan