Part of the problem is that what one person might hear and what
another person might hear is different. Whilst I know some people who
can, personally I can't tell the difference between DAB Radio 2 and FM
Radio 2 broadcast via the same set.
Actually that's a lie. I can. FM is the one with the fuzz and
hiss.
I'm not one of the biggest fans of DAB for a number of reasons, but in a
lot of London you do get better reception of DAB than you do of the FM
networks. I live in East London, in an old factory that has two very
big (maybe 100ft tall) water towers sticking out the top with a communal
FM aerial up the top of one of them. Unobstructed line of sight to
Crystal Palace, should give great reception in theory (barring some
multipath from the Docklands towers). The reality is that local pirate
activity tends to cause problems for near enough everything on the band,
and having such a high aerial makes matters worse. BBC London was
impossible to listen to on FM this morning, both from my cheap clock
radio and the proper tuner plugged in to the external aerial.
It is up to the individual what they prefer though, personally
compression artefacts on a stable signal are less intrusive to me than
having an artefact free signal being trashed by the beat of a nearby
pirate station fading in and out. Although given the choice between a
poor FM signal and a poor DAB signal I'd just turn the radio off as DAB
does not degrade gracefully.
--
Gareth Davis | Production Systems Specialist
World Service Future Media, Digital Delivery Team - Part of BBC Global
News Division
* http://www.bbcworldservice.com/ <http://www.bbcworldservice.com/> *
702NE Bush House, Strand, London, WC2B 4PH
