UK DAB radio ?

From my understanding there is an error in the UK brochure, the DAB picture is not the right one. I think it replace the AM/LW with the DAB (so you'll loose that).

But honestly at £400.... not sure they'll send that many!

 

Hi UK guys,

I am an ham and short-wave listener. Does anybody have a DRM receiver yet for the Prius over there cross-the-pond ? I think I remember SW radios being available for some cars some years ago over there too.

I listend to DRM on my PC hooked to a modifed ham radio transciever. The P-stereo music from TDP (Belgium), broadcast out of the Radio Canada (Nova Scotia) is a favorite. Echo des Tages and Vatican Radio are very reliably decoded on DRM here near Chicago from Germany and Italy respectively.

I am listening to Radio Cairo (good propagation day) midle-eastern music on AM on 7540 KHz as I type this and sort through Prius Chat.

 

My Prius T-Spirit (UK Spec) is on order - arrives in the UK soon I noticed the DAB Radio accessory in the Toyota UK brochure as posted here.

I phoned my dealer and they say it's a box which fits behind the glove box and it connects to the Sat Nav/Audo system. Cost £378-00 plus fitting.

The part number is PZ473-T0210-AO.

Has anyone tried the DAB out in a Prius (or any Toyota)??? As I'd like to know if it's worth the money or not.

 

That article says FM isn't going to be switched off for a very long time.

edit:
Found this link...
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/bl...n-engineer-in-wonderland---dab-nightmare.html

 

I suppose the question for me is if DAB is worth £400 odd of your hard earned? The answer is no. Doesn't stop me still wanting to give it a go in a Prius. FM will continue for a few more years until Ofcom decide there is a sufficiently high DAB uptake in the UK. Of course this might never happen. Then there's also the DAB V2 in the background.

 

DAB doesn't work unless you happen to live in London, Manchester or Leeds area. Complete waste of money IMHO. Bought one as a gift a few years ago and may as well have flushed my money down the toilet.

If you think hiss and crackle on FM is bad, wait until you get the metalic stuttering you get on DAB in a dodgy area. It's about 10 times worse than the breaking up on a digital mobile phone. At least you can listen to the music on FM in a bad area.

I'm not a luddite and happily adopt new technology if it will make my life better (eg Prius) but the DAB in the UK is a non starter. I ask, why are so many stations pulling out?

Ooh I'm in a grumpy mood today.

 

I Grumpy - how are you doing? I'm sorry that you have had bad experiences with DAB. We have several in our house and they all work well. But I haven't tried DAB in car and we do tend to listen only to major stations that use a wide bandwidth. I think one of the problems with DAB is that the bandwidth gets sliced very narrowly to allow more stations with a consequent reduction in quality.

I live in Bedfordshire, but I have carried a portable DAB radio on several holidays in the UK and it has always worked well. I love it for the football commentaries on Five Live.

 

A friend has a VW Passat with DAB fitted as an option. He is very pleased with it and finds it reliable. Where I live in Kent near Tonbridge I can receive all the BBC stations and a few of others. I work in Maidstone @ 20 miles down the M20 and can only receive the BBC station. I agree that the signal strength is poor in many areas.

http://www.ukdigitalradio.com/images/coverage-map.gif

 

OK having seen the above coverage map I'll amend my post to include all the major cities and motorway routes. Great if that's where you live and work but pants if you don't.

If my understanding is correct DAB+ is much more reliable and has better error correction but immediately renders almost all existing DAB receivers obsolete. Perhaps we should follow Australias lead and introduce this technology?

 

I'm waiting for HD-DAB

 

DAB HD, will that happen in my lifetime? Looks like DAB LD (low def) still hasn't happened in 8 odd years. Long live FM!

 

The big problem with DAB is the broadcasters cut back on the bit rate of stations to squeeze more stations into the multiplex, and the quality suffers. Many people reckon good ole FM is better than DAB. It is not so much a problem with the technology but economics. Agreeing with GrumpyCabbie digital breakup sounds appalling, at least with FM a weak signal is less objectionable.

 

Hi All,

Not sure about HD-DAB. Here HD Radio really is "Hybrid Digital", and there is nothing "High Definition" about it. The closest thing I have heard that is an improvement in audio quality for terrestiral broadcasting is DRM+. Which will be in the Mid VHF region, and with 100's of Kb / sec data rate.

One of the advantages of DRM, DRM+ included is the multi-site broadcasting capability. They can put several transmitters on the same frequency, and the signals will be combined as if they are just different delays on the signal. This is kinda like diversity transmitting, and will fill in the multi-path voids.

 

I am getting DAB this weekend. It won't replace any screen it will be hidden behind the console.

 

Yep got the DAB radio installed this weekend together with my bro.

The Antena is located on the windscreen on the top corner and looks really cool, the wiring runs down from the side colum all the way to the centre through and behing the bottom glove box, then the DAB unit is situated in the centre of the centre console stuck and cable tied it in, and that it.

 

How long did it take you to install?

Are you pleased with the sound quality and reception?

 

I've had DAB on an Avensis for the last 3 years, just swapped that car for a new Prius T Spirit yesterday. I could not justify £400 for the DAB option :-( As far as reception is concerned I have been all over the UK and never had a great issue with lack of reception, yes there are a few dead spots but nothing you can't live with. I especially like BBC7 comedy and drama channel.
Now I have the Prius I thought I would load the Hard Disk with downloaded radio shows BUT how do I get MP3s onto the darn thing? It'll rip a CD no problem but I want to put GBs of downloaded music and shows on to it - any tips on hiw I do that??
Thanks

Additional - now using a re-writable CD to shuffle MP3s onto the HD, very disappointed with this.

 

I think that problem of DAB is, that it is basically technologically obsolete. It still uses MP2 codec, while now it is time to upgrade it to AAC. Upgrading to AAC means old DAB radios are junk, but quality of sound using same bit rates goes dramatically up.

Another problem of DAB is, that its rollout over FM should be planned on a global scale, or at least on European one. With starting point being AAC codec over very old junk of MP2.

We have similiar problem here in Slovenia with DVB-T for TV. While standard around the world is still mostly MPEG2, we are going DVB-T with H.264 (MPEG4) for video and AAC for sound. And it is worth it. It is year 2010 anyway and H.264 is already 7 years old, while AAC is over decade old.