rubbish car radio fm reception - what other options are there?

OnePound

I've been told I could upgrade my system to dab by getting an aerial upgrade and a small dab tuner the size of an iPod but that would cost £300
Would streaming the radio via my phone internet be an option? But I'd lose connectivity often wouldn't I?
How about just upgrading the FM aerial?
When I listen to my favourite niche channel its hissy most of the time due to poor reception.

OnePound

Can someone confirm that investing in dab would solve the reception issue for definite? Does dab produce crystal clear reception 100% of the time on all channels? Or does it have its own problems?

wiogs

I stream internet radio when I drive and rarely does the signal drop out.

Obviously depends on your network provider and their coverage. I use a fair amount of data doing this (approx 4Gb) so an unlimited or large allowance plan helps

DAB does not solve the problems there are still areas where you will get no reception.

Again depends on your driving locations

forgotmyname

If you have rubbish reception then its probably a faut with your unit or antenna.

The only time i get poor reception is when im out of the transmitters range on that frequency.

Quiet_Spark

DAB has never dropped out for me, unless I'm going out of range of the transmitter but that applies to all radio signals regardless of the carrier wave type or modulation used.

If you are getting dropouts/background hiss when you shouldn't be, then it is either down to the head unit or antenna as already mentioned.
If you do have a defective antenna, then converting to DAB will simply exacerbate the problem.

Does your current head unit have a stereo/mono switch?
If so, select mono and see if the problem reduces/goes away. If it does, your antenna (or the cable from it) is defective.

OnePound

Its only a problem on the niche radio station I listen to that broadcasts from Guildford, the further away I get the more hissy it gets . So I reckon the aerial is ok. I just don't want to listen to radio 1 all the time which has ok reception!

Quiet_Spark

Your use of the term "niche" radio station has me thinking it's one of the smaller one's that are probably running at a very low transmit power, hence it goes out of range quite quickly for you(especially as you say it only happens on that station).

What station is it?

OnePound

Quiet_Spark wrote: »

Your use of the term "niche" radio station has me thinking it's one of the smaller one's that are probably running at a very low transmit power, hence it goes out of range quite quickly for you(especially as you say it only happens on that station).

What station is it?

Thanks for replying. It's kane fm. They seem to only offer live or streamed music rather than podcasts. Does dab use the same transmitters as fm radio? I just assumed dab would pick up some new style signal that was much more reliable.

Mr_Mink

OnePound wrote: »

Thanks for replying. It's kane fm. They seem to only offer live or streamed music rather than podcasts. Does dab use the same transmitters as fm radio? I just assumed dab would pick up some new style signal that was much more reliable.

DAB works by transmitting 1's and 0's instead of waves, when this stream hits buildings and other such objects it's less likely to get jumbled (which leads to the hissing/static on FM/AM etc). When the signal of DAB drops the radio simply cannot reassemble the 1's and 0's into sound so you have silence. Whilst DAB is more reliable than the old analogue systems it still can have range and interference issues, just not as many.

I don't recall anyone else asking, is this station even broadcasting on DAB radio at the moment?

forgotmyname

A quick google showed they only have 15watts of transmitter power so a weak signal at best.

The station and distance from their transmitter is your problem.

Seems other stations maybe close on their frequency also.

Strider590

Mr_Mink wrote: »

DAB works by transmitting 1's and 0's instead of waves, when this stream hits buildings and other such objects it's less likely to get jumbled (which leads to the hissing/static on FM/AM etc). When the signal of DAB drops the radio simply cannot reassemble the 1's and 0's into sound so you have silence. Whilst DAB is more reliable than the old analogue systems it still can have range and interference issues, just not as many.

Your MUCH more likely to lose DAB reception than old school FM...... Where FM would "hiss", but remain audible, your DAB will cut out for brief periods but remain crisp/clean whilst it's there.


FM (frequency modulation) is transmitted on a set frequency carrier wave. So is DAB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_modulation

With DAB, the signal/data wave is simply replaced by a serial multiplexed digital signal, lots of 1s and 0s all moving up and down with the carrier wave. The benefit is that one carrier wave can carry multiple multiplexed digital signals, so where you had one station previously, you now have many more.
Also this digital part of the signal runs at such a high frequency, that interference (which once dogged FM) can be filtered out with high frequency band pass filters.

DAB, running in the 200Mhz region (carrier), also isn't quite so capable of long distances and is more susceptible to objects getting in the way, it has to be transmitted at far greater strength than FM.

TBH, it's not easy to understand and I suspect a lot of people only know what they know from the hype surrounding it, which in turn was created by marketing people with not a single technical braincell in their heads.