BS: UK Radios Scrapped?

Subject: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Billy Suggers
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 06:36 AM

In case you haven't heard, the Digital Britain Report - from those fine folks who gave you the Licensing Act - proposes that we make analogue radios more or less obsolete by (they hope) 2015.

Driven by the best motives in advancing the UK into a fully digital society, the proposals would make all our present car radios & portables pretty nigh useless except for local FM (and French Long Wave).

Information :

Search on "Analogue switch-off" - good article here:

Guardian News


The Official View:

DCMS report

Petition:
Petition

If you agree, fine. If not, now's the time to get cracking, write to your MP, put your heads over the parapet & yell!

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 06:49 AM

But the Guardian article states that the freed up FM slots will allow for local & community stations to broadcast, how's that switching off?

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 07:29 AM

I can't work my digital TV, or rather my old TV with digital Freebox. My brain just won't get the hang of it. Soooooo...I no longer watch the TV, unless the kids are here, 'cos they know how to do it.

What the f**k is happening in this world? Life used to be so easy, and now we've got the Control Freaks changing this and changing that..and what for?

I guess that soon I won't be able to listen to the radio either. Ho hum.

At least I've got Youtube..er..at the moment, which is far better than both, during the times I *can* watch it, as I'm on AOL and it won't play Youtube clearly between around 2/10pm every day, drives me bats...

Moan moan moaning minnie moan.... :0)

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 09:27 AM

There are problems about regulation of the satellite platforms, too.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 11:54 AM

Well, it could be another case of "If it ain't broke, break it." There's a management book out by that title. Could the reason for the mess we're all in.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: pdq
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 12:07 PM

"...now we've got the Control Freaks changing this and changing that..and what for?" ~ Lizzie Cornish

If you give people power over you, the will use it.

Don't give them any power they don't absolutely need.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Doktor Doktor
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 01:15 PM

Ahh Mr Happy ... no they're not - see point 38 of the Executive Summary Report - the entire job looks like a "Yes Minister" script. Read, wonder, be entertained.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Newport Boy
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 03:05 PM

The main problems are that the sound quality of the current DAB in the UK is significantly worse than FM, and that there are more areas unable to receive DAB than FM. The move is a nonsense.

I bought a good DAB portable radio (Pure) to replace my 15-year old Panasonic FM. The sound is so poor I can't bear to listen to it. Thank goodness I retired the old Panasonic to act as my computer speakers. I now have all my music at good quality.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: paula t
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 03:54 PM

Oh no. I'll have nothing to shout at in the mornings!

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 05:03 PM

Well, it keeps people employed. Aren't we supposed to scrap our old cars, whatever, to keep the economy rolling?

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 12 Jul 09 - 05:46 PM

Yeah Q. According to this bunch of brain dead zombies, we drive around in fifteen year old bangers because we are so rich we don't give a s**t about the planet.

They can't seem to get their heads around the plain fact that most people who own a more than ten year old car CAN'T AFFORD A NEW ONE, EVEN AT A £2000 DISCOUNT.

HEY THERE, you great Scottish TWIT......WE AIN'T WAVING, WE'RE F**KING DROWNING. SO STOP PUSHING US UNDER!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:18 AM

Don, because of his eye injuries he probably cannot see you.

The scrappage allowance is a really stupid scheme that destroys classic cars (my Volvos are NOT "bangers"), damages the planet because of the energy used to make new cars, and sends money out of the country (UK) to the owners of the only car plants left in the country.

It also harms the poor because it drives up the price of old cars towards the value of the scrappage allowance and reduces the remaining stock of old cheap cars for those who need them.


But most of the rest of the stuff that Brown and Darling have done about the recession (apart from looking the other way, thanks to the pro-capital policies of New Labour promised by the great B. Liar, as we slid into recession, while the bankers (oh, foxes in charge of the henhouse?) failed to cut interest rates because they were more bothered about inflation (mostly affects thse with savings) than recession (mostly affects those at the bottom of the job pile)) has been right which is why the forecasts of UK progress are better than those of German progress where the German Chancellor sneered at the Brown-Darling Measures as "crude Keyesianism" (which I would have thought was obviously what was needed and proven in the last recession to work).

The Obama measures are in many respects similar to the Brown-Darling ones.

From what I hear about conveyancing, there is considerale improvement already.


What Brown and Darling really ought to have done was nationalise the banks so that they could control lending, and retake control of interest rates from the triumvirate. I always said that interest rates were too important an instrument of policy to be left to private capital and an "independent" bank to control.

Likewise the bureaucratic and tick-box FSA was bound to be less effective than "Henley winks", so long as the winkers were on top of the game. But that was not a Labour mistake (said he rashly without checking).


It is capitalism that has done it to you Don. What you need is some healthy socialism - and (slightly tongue in cheek bit here - vehicles for the masses, like the original Volkswagen, or the 2CV).



I warn you, allow the old Etonians back and it will get far, far, worse.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 04:34 AM

Most of us radio people have seceral sets. i have one in each room so i can listen on the move
I am not at all happy at the prospect of scrapping them all. Digital ones are much more expensive, and use about 10 times more energy. Also, differents sets are out of synch. with each other.
Coverage and quality is worse than FM.
Commercial stations have ALL pulled out of digital broadcasting. This whole thing is being financed out of the BBC licence fee.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Stu
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 07:24 AM

I certainly won't be scrapping my shortwave set.

I love drifting through the short wave bands listening to voices and music resolve from the background hiss only to fade back into the ether, or happening upon the eerie robotic tones of a numbers station. Often RF breakthrough sends a disembodied voice that's been bounced off the upper atmosphere and bursts through a broadcast for a second, then is gone.

You don't get that with a DAB radio.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Billy Suggers
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 07:35 AM

Ahhhh .........Sugarfoot's reminded me of the Lost Joys Of DX-ing ... and the happy times listening in on the Trawler Waveband in Suffolk, hearing the skippers swearing.
So maybe theres an opprtunity here to recover past pleasures. I feel a song coming on :)

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 07:59 AM

Maybe I should dig out my old short-wave too. It was a shame it did not have bandspread on the 49 metre band though, nor any FM nor side-band.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: John J
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 03:50 PM

There's still plenty of ship-to-shore stuff on HF, just have a listen. It's all on SSB, sadly no CW. There's loads of stuff on VHF....but it just hasn't got the same romance as HF. On the other hand LORAN's gone, so it can't be all bad.

John
G4WQD

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 07:15 PM

The whole DAB digital radio thing is a con. The basic problem is that there are too few transmitters, so bandwidth is being shared out. FM radio is far superior. Standards for digital radio in other parts of Europe are far superior to the DAB crap in this country.

As for digital TV, don't get me started...

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 13 Jul 09 - 10:54 PM

IS any one else in Europe using DAB ??

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Darowyn
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 04:47 AM

Leadfingers:-
When they are they are mostly using a better system that what we have on offer- which is too lo-fi and too crowded in bandwidth.
The solution is simple.
Don't buy a DAB radio.
There's no way that the BBC, or any of the commercial broadcasters would switch off the FM output if it would mean losing most of their listeners.
They can't afford to do it- they will not do it.
FM will be around for a long time yet.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: Billy Suggers
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 06:57 AM

From my friend the half-Polish Hi-Fi freak:

The DAB1 standard that is used for digital broadcasting in the UK is very poor. DAB2 as used in Europe and the rest of the world is better but, if we adopted it, all the existing digital radios would have to be scrapped.
There are truly horrendous reception problems with DAB so it's difficult to see how the BBC could turn off the analogue system without breaching its charter.
Of course, what the government wants to do is to auction off the spectrum for more mobile phones ...
This has been a hotly discussed topic for the last few years in the hi-fi community. Folkies are a few decades behind the leading edge. No surprises there then :-P

Subject: RE: BS: UK Radios Scrapped?
From: GUEST,Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 14 Jul 09 - 07:40 AM

It would be better to scrap all the DAB1 radios than to scrap the FM system.

DAB1 is voice quality only, not music quality, in my opinion. I did consider returning mine to the shop as not fit for purpose.