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VHF FM reprieve

some form of streaming being the final winner

That might be an option in urban areas, I don't it'll work in the more rural areas. As I move around in the North East of Scotland I can't always get 4G. As for the more remote Highlands unless you are on a trunk road you could struggle to get any mobile reception. FM can reach areas not reached by DAB. I remember as a child when at our house we could get BBC on the old Band 1 frequency but the ITV could not get into the valley on the Band 3 frequency now used by DAB.
 
Probably the Droitwich Long Wave transmitter will outlive them all - if they can find the valves.

Here in Sweden there is an ancient LW transmitter thats so old it doesn't even use valves. Some kind of rotating device with lot's of comutators to modulate the signal. Just morse code, of course, who on earth would want speech transmitted over radio?
 
Here in Sweden there is an ancient LW transmitter thats so old it doesn't even use valves. Some kind of rotating device with lot's of comutators to modulate the signal. Just morse code, of course, who on earth would want speech transmitted over radio?

Ah yes, the Grimeton Very Low Frequency transmitter. A very interesting rotating RF generator.
It's on air tomorrow morning: https://alexander.n.se/category/news/?lang=en

You made need a very, very long antenna.
 
That might be an option in urban areas, I don't it'll work in the more rural areas. As I move around in the North East of Scotland I can't always get 4G. As for the more remote Highlands unless you are on a trunk road you could struggle to get any mobile reception. FM can reach areas not reached by DAB. I remember as a child when at our house we could get BBC on the old Band 1 frequency but the ITV could not get into the valley on the Band 3 frequency now used by DAB.
4/5G at 700 MHz is meant to be the answer to rural coverage, essential for the TETRA public safety switch off
How long before most car radios support 700 MHz is another mystery
 
We've only got one DAB radio and when there's a poor reception spot it goes completely.

Overall, including business we've got about 15 FM radios, new equipment still comes with FM / no DAB.

Even 4G is better if we stray into the badlands of Suffolk.

4 FM in house, one Freesat, four Freeview, should have fast broadband by Christmas.

I don't think DAB has a chance.
 
The DAB operator has very little government pressure to provide rural coverage and no commercial motive. Spending a lot of money on OPEX and CAPEX to provide DAB coverage in a village will never make sense without some subsidy or license requirement
 
(From the Mullard Maintenance Manual) :- "Change base, raise heater volts to 6.3, re-design circuit"


You`d think so but :- (extract from Wikipedia)

In 2011 as part of the BBC cuts it was announced that there would be no re-investment in long wave which may mean an eventual end to BBC Radio 4 in this part of the radio spectrum.[3] The Guardian published a story in October 2011 saying that the transmitter relies upon a pair of glass valves, of which there are fewer than 10 left in the world, and the BBC did not believe it was safe enough to manufacture more.[4]
 
Live in a valley on the N coast of Cornwall and can't get either DAB or FM,have to rely on streamed or Freeview.
 
I know such places exist, if you drive across the country DAB coverage is very patchy, not normally a problem on FM.

The coverage figures are done by population, not area covered, I think, so a modest transmitter in half a dozen cities gets you 50% coverage despite the fact that the majority of the country can`t get the programme.
 
DAB is what you get if you don't have the idea of public broadcasting behind it, only commercial drivers. So FM / LW continues to provide the public broadcasting bit.
 
Here in Sweden there is an ancient LW transmitter thats so old it doesn't even use valves. Some kind of rotating device with lot's of comutators to modulate the signal. Just morse code, of course, who on earth would want speech transmitted over radio?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexanderson_alternator

It was possible to transmit speech, after a fashion, using this technique, it involved putting a carbon mic in the aerial feed.
 


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