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I'm very sad to see this go. I was listening to DAB in the car, not so far from here last weekend, and it kept cutting out. Whereas you could get LW everywhe

I'm very sad to see this go. I was listening to DAB in the car, not so far from here last weekend, and it kept cutting out. Whereas you could get LW everywhere! I developed a love of cricket on Test Match Special from a very young age. A tiny inexpensive radio could get it anywhere. I actually never minded the interruptions from the Shipping Forecast, the real reason they kept this service up for so long. I know there are many ways to get a forecast now, none of which is as reliable as radio 4.

Scoundreller 4mo ago
A/The real reason was that electricity meters were built around a part of the signal being used to switch between price tiers but recently phased out.
Peanuts99 4mo ago
Digital radio was always going to be crap, it doesn't degrade gradually as signal gets worse They should have just put all the money into a better 4G network and ran radio through that.
- fredoralive 4mo ago
  Bit of hindsight bias there, DAB was first developed in the mid 1990s, ubiquitous fast wireless IP in everyone’s pockets is at least a decade, perhaps nearer to 20 years in the future. There are quite a few transitionary technologies that we needn’t have developed had we just waited for something better to come along (but without the R&D into some of them…). (Also doesn’t analogue FM also kinda cut off fairly abruptly?)
  - expedition32 4mo ago
    I have a DAB radio and it gets constant interference. Meanwhile FM is stable. In the same set up. Really soured me on this digital radio technology.
  - mybrowsercache 4mo ago
    FM stays listenable even with heavy distortions when you drive out of range and you can decide for yourself when you no longer tolerate the signal. Digital doesn’t give you warnings and just goes silent
    - guenthert 4mo ago
      DAB+ receivers can (and many do) display signal quality. Not playing distorted, noisy signals is a feature I greatly appreciate.
      - hulitu 4mo ago
        > Not playing distorted, noisy signals is a feature I greatly appreciate Haha. The DAB+ signals are compressed as much as possible.
        guenthert 4mo ago
        Some more than others. E.g. Deutschlandfunk Kultur is broadcasted in decent quality, as is NDR3. Klassik Radio fares poorer, but that's due to the bandwidth allocated to them. Comparison here is FM, not FLAC.
      - hdgvhicv 4mo ago
        It’s a digital cliff. Analog fades away but is never a true replication digital remains stable for over but then vanishes. At the same quality dab is still perfectly long after fm becomes gabled. It then vanishes. The problem with dab in early days was the lower strength, the poor quality decoding, and the lower bitratr than should be been used for the codec.
        dotwaffle 4mo ago
        Not entirely true. There's quite a bit of error correction applied: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting#Error-correction_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting#Err...
- microgpt 4mo ago
  One-to-one communications and broadcast communications are different. Perhaps every 4G tower could broadcast the news on a special data channel, but it would be a separate system from the main 4G data channel.
- cogman10 4mo ago
  > it doesn't degrade gradually as signal gets worse That has a lot more to do with the dated implementation and less to do with digital radio. There are a number of digital broadcasting techniques which can minimize and compensate for noise, including a slight delay with a signal correction and fault tolerant codecs. DAB was implemented using the old MPEG2 audio codec. DAB+ uses the now 15 year old codec HE-AAC which isn't really designed to handle corruption. Opus handles loss a lot better (see their examples https://opus-codec.org/examples/ https://opus-codec.org/examples/ )
  - bestham 4mo ago
    > DAB was implemented using the old MPEG2 audio codec. No, it was MPEG 1 layer 2 often at 192 kbps. Later they switched to HE-AAC with DAB+.
  - dotwaffle 4mo ago
    DAB+ uses EEP (and RS) which was deliberately chosen to give better signal quality all the way to the point of losing reception. Old DAB used UEP which degrades faster, but instead of having no signal, it went to a muddier / warbling kind of sound that characterised early DAB receivers. And technically while some people do call it MPEG2, it's actually MP2, also known as MPEG-1 Audio Layer 2, an audio codec in the same family as MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3). I imagine that today they'd probably use something like Opus and a fountain code or similar, yes... But you can't expect everyone to replace their radio every 10-15 years ;)
    - cogman10 4mo ago
      > I imagine that today they'd probably use something like Opus and a fountain code or similar, yes... But you can't expect everyone to replace their radio every 10-15 years ;) Certainly not, which is why I believe DAB (no plus) is still floating around. And I'm not really suggesting that they made a bad choice. I'm mostly pushing back on the notion that digital means all or nothing audio. If broadcast audio stays alive (which it may not) then I hope the next standard is opus, fountain codes, and QAM-64 or similar so we can stuff a bunch of bits into error correction while still having graceful degradation, better than analog, when the signal degrades.
- jhoechtl 4mo ago
  They do its called 5G broadcast. No, this doesn't require point to point connections.
- yakkers 4mo ago
  At the very least, I wish Digital Radio Mondiale won out over DAB. It’s designed to use the existing long, medium and short-wave bands and can even co-exist with an AM broadcast. I imagine digital radio would work quite well with the propagation characteristics of the mediumwave (and longwave) broadcast band. There’s also DRM+ for the VHF band, including the FM broadcast band. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Radio_Mondiale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Radio_Mondiale
- Marsymars 4mo ago
  I guess depends on your definition of "crap". In practice, my city has some hills, and none of the half-dozen FM stations I listen to in my car come in without static in some places in the city. Whereas the single HD Radio station has perfect reception, all the time. Plus the sound quality is noticeably better.
gorgoiler 4mo ago
Some things in life happen for the very last time and we never realize it. Where were you when Jim Maxwell interrupted the test match coverage, for the final time, to declare that “listeners on long wave will now hear the shipp-ing four-cairst”? :) With apologies to Affabeck Lauder
- WarOnPrivacy 4mo ago
  > when Jim Maxwell interrupted the test match coverage for the final time... Jim Maxwell has thrown to the shipping forecast for the last time -- July 31, 2023 ref: https://xcancel.com/abcsport/status/1685999353712848896 https://xcancel.com/abcsport/status/1685999353712848896
  - gorgoiler 4mo ago
    You absolute bloody gem. Brilliant. Thank you :)
    - WarOnPrivacy 4mo ago
      I asked Kagi's Assistant. It's been surprisingly helpful.
arprocter 4mo ago
Funny you mention the cricket In the HBO miniseries Generation Kill the marines are tuned into the beeb long wave to get news updates, and there's a cricket score read out in the first episode https://www.reddit.com/r/generationkill/comments/6o2w2s/episode_1_bbc_radio_accuracy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/generationkill/comments/6o2w2s/epis...

Scoundreller 4mo ago

A/The real reason was that electricity meters were built around a part of the signal being used to switch between price tiers but recently phased out.

Peanuts99 4mo ago

Digital radio was always going to be crap, it doesn't degrade gradually as signal gets worse They should have just put all the money into a better 4G network and ran radio through that.

fredoralive 4mo ago
Bit of hindsight bias there, DAB was first developed in the mid 1990s, ubiquitous fast wireless IP in everyone’s pockets is at least a decade, perhaps nearer to 20 years in the future. There are quite a few transitionary technologies that we needn’t have developed had we just waited for something better to come along (but without the R&D into some of them…). (Also doesn’t analogue FM also kinda cut off fairly abruptly?)
- expedition32 4mo ago
  I have a DAB radio and it gets constant interference. Meanwhile FM is stable. In the same set up. Really soured me on this digital radio technology.
- mybrowsercache 4mo ago
  FM stays listenable even with heavy distortions when you drive out of range and you can decide for yourself when you no longer tolerate the signal. Digital doesn’t give you warnings and just goes silent
  - guenthert 4mo ago
    DAB+ receivers can (and many do) display signal quality. Not playing distorted, noisy signals is a feature I greatly appreciate.
    - hulitu 4mo ago
      > Not playing distorted, noisy signals is a feature I greatly appreciate Haha. The DAB+ signals are compressed as much as possible.
      - guenthert 4mo ago
        Some more than others. E.g. Deutschlandfunk Kultur is broadcasted in decent quality, as is NDR3. Klassik Radio fares poorer, but that's due to the bandwidth allocated to them. Comparison here is FM, not FLAC.
    - hdgvhicv 4mo ago
      It’s a digital cliff. Analog fades away but is never a true replication digital remains stable for over but then vanishes. At the same quality dab is still perfectly long after fm becomes gabled. It then vanishes. The problem with dab in early days was the lower strength, the poor quality decoding, and the lower bitratr than should be been used for the codec.
      - dotwaffle 4mo ago
        Not entirely true. There's quite a bit of error correction applied: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting#Error-correction_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting#Err...
microgpt 4mo ago
One-to-one communications and broadcast communications are different. Perhaps every 4G tower could broadcast the news on a special data channel, but it would be a separate system from the main 4G data channel.
cogman10 4mo ago
> it doesn't degrade gradually as signal gets worse That has a lot more to do with the dated implementation and less to do with digital radio. There are a number of digital broadcasting techniques which can minimize and compensate for noise, including a slight delay with a signal correction and fault tolerant codecs. DAB was implemented using the old MPEG2 audio codec. DAB+ uses the now 15 year old codec HE-AAC which isn't really designed to handle corruption. Opus handles loss a lot better (see their examples https://opus-codec.org/examples/ https://opus-codec.org/examples/ )
- bestham 4mo ago
  > DAB was implemented using the old MPEG2 audio codec. No, it was MPEG 1 layer 2 often at 192 kbps. Later they switched to HE-AAC with DAB+.
- dotwaffle 4mo ago
  DAB+ uses EEP (and RS) which was deliberately chosen to give better signal quality all the way to the point of losing reception. Old DAB used UEP which degrades faster, but instead of having no signal, it went to a muddier / warbling kind of sound that characterised early DAB receivers. And technically while some people do call it MPEG2, it's actually MP2, also known as MPEG-1 Audio Layer 2, an audio codec in the same family as MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3). I imagine that today they'd probably use something like Opus and a fountain code or similar, yes... But you can't expect everyone to replace their radio every 10-15 years ;)
  - cogman10 4mo ago
    > I imagine that today they'd probably use something like Opus and a fountain code or similar, yes... But you can't expect everyone to replace their radio every 10-15 years ;) Certainly not, which is why I believe DAB (no plus) is still floating around. And I'm not really suggesting that they made a bad choice. I'm mostly pushing back on the notion that digital means all or nothing audio. If broadcast audio stays alive (which it may not) then I hope the next standard is opus, fountain codes, and QAM-64 or similar so we can stuff a bunch of bits into error correction while still having graceful degradation, better than analog, when the signal degrades.
jhoechtl 4mo ago
They do its called 5G broadcast. No, this doesn't require point to point connections.
yakkers 4mo ago
At the very least, I wish Digital Radio Mondiale won out over DAB. It’s designed to use the existing long, medium and short-wave bands and can even co-exist with an AM broadcast. I imagine digital radio would work quite well with the propagation characteristics of the mediumwave (and longwave) broadcast band. There’s also DRM+ for the VHF band, including the FM broadcast band. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Radio_Mondiale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Radio_Mondiale
Marsymars 4mo ago
I guess depends on your definition of "crap". In practice, my city has some hills, and none of the half-dozen FM stations I listen to in my car come in without static in some places in the city. Whereas the single HD Radio station has perfect reception, all the time. Plus the sound quality is noticeably better.

gorgoiler 4mo ago

Some things in life happen for the very last time and we never realize it. Where were you when Jim Maxwell interrupted the test match coverage, for the final time, to declare that “listeners on long wave will now hear the shipp-ing four-cairst”? :) With apologies to Affabeck Lauder

WarOnPrivacy 4mo ago
> when Jim Maxwell interrupted the test match coverage for the final time... Jim Maxwell has thrown to the shipping forecast for the last time -- July 31, 2023 ref: https://xcancel.com/abcsport/status/1685999353712848896 https://xcancel.com/abcsport/status/1685999353712848896
- gorgoiler 4mo ago
  You absolute bloody gem. Brilliant. Thank you :)
  - WarOnPrivacy 4mo ago
    I asked Kagi's Assistant. It's been surprisingly helpful.

arprocter 4mo ago

Funny you mention the cricket In the HBO miniseries Generation Kill the marines are tuned into the beeb long wave to get news updates, and there's a cricket score read out in the first episode https://www.reddit.com/r/generationkill/comments/6o2w2s/episode_1_bbc_radio_accuracy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/generationkill/comments/6o2w2s/epis...