BAD-DAB anyone?

[Didorx]

Every morning I get no dab reception when commuting... 15 mile journey, from one city to another.

I don't live in the sticks, and neither I work in the sticks.. bang on populous south of England.

Work colleague drives an Audi and does a similar journey, but has no issues.

Anyone else suffering from dab-alitis!?

[Jim28270]

Are all stations the same?

Mine's been faultless for the two months I've had the car. First car DAB and really impressed.

[Brockysuperb]

Ditto...live in New Forest, regularly drive to London and Channel Ports. Also been down to Cornwall twice which used to be notorious in my Mk 2 for radio on FM and self installed DAB (both the A35 and North Cornwall itself). Now really faultless reception. Worth getting dealer to check aerial connections?

[Didorx]

Cheers.. will get the dealer to check.

[Coops]

My DAB has been fine, had it on this morning, perfect signal.

[chalkiessoup]

Good reception here in the Westcountry but I prefer to use FM. Sound quality is better due to much greater bandwidth whereas DAB only provides MP3 quality with its compressed bandwidth.. The difference is noticeable even on the standard sound system.

[Ant1975]

Sorry - Mine also fautless.  I live on Bodmin Moor and have only ever lost reception when I have headed to the far west towards the Penwith Moors!

[muddyboots]

Interesting. My wife (main driver of ours) has said she thinks the DAB station availability is pretty poor.

Edited 9 February, 2016 by muddyboots

[BillyJim]

When FreeView first started (and DAB uses the same frequencies) the transmitters in the South East were running on lower power so as not to interfere with French TV.

I don't know if that situation has changed.

[BFG1]

I've had no problems in East Sussex - I can finally get Radio 5 when I want to in the car too which is a first as the MW signal for Radio 5 round here is dreadful!

[FelisBengalensis]

When FreeView first started (and DAB uses the same frequencies) the transmitters in the South East were running on lower power so as not to interfere with French TV.

I don't know if that situation has changed.

DAB and Freeview have never shared the same frequencies - at least not in the UK! DAB is 175-225MHz and DTV is 470-800MHz. But both have much lower transmitter powers than analogue radio (or TV).

[BillyJim]

DAB and Freeview have never shared the same frequencies - at least not in the UK! DAB is 175-225MHz and DTV is 470-800MHz. But both have much lower transmitter powers than analogue radio (or TV).

I stand corrected!

[GuzziDibble]

Mine has significantly worse reception than my old Insignia.

 

The gaps going out on the A3 are wider, near Crystal Palace the gaps are bigger and there are more of them.

[FelisBengalensis]

Crystal Palace is poor I agree......low power again. There has recently been some replanning too.

I think the transmitter on the A3 is at Stoke D'Abernon (near M25 J9) and is only 20W......that's less than a taxi radio......so no wonder it's bad in that area! Parts of Surrey & West Sussex seem to suffer for some reason which is possibly as outlined below......

There used to be an issue with UHF Analogue TV in the area as the French transmitter at Caen was a major interference problem in the summers. France also uses Band 3 (the VHF block we use for DAB in the UK) as their main TV allocation. The UK retired Band 3 TV decades ago! I suspect the good transmitter sites in the south would interfere with French TV and as such it has severely limited DAB availability in parts of the southern UK. French DAB is in a completely different part of the radio spectrum and uses DAB+

Edited 10 February, 2016 by FelisBengalensis

[Guest]

Als live in Kernow, DAB is ok, not found anywhere I loose signal.