MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
> On 15/08/2021 17:15, Tweed wrote:
>> DAB is good when the transmitter network is properly engineered, as is the
>> BBC MUX.
>
> I have no interest in any of the other MUXes!
>
>
Neither did I until Times Radio came along. It’s a useful alternative to
Radio4, which for me has large unlistenable periods in its schedule - The
Archers, part 5 of a serial that you’ve not heard the other 4 parts to and
an increasingly unfunny series of comedy programmes.

On 15/08/2021 18:02, MB wrote:
> On 15/08/2021 17:15, Tweed wrote:
>> DAB is good when the transmitter network is properly engineered, as
>> is the
>> BBC MUX.
>
> I have no interest in any of the other MUXes!
>
>
Broadcasting isn't just about serving you.

On 15/08/2021 17:15, Tweed wrote:
> DAB is good when the transmitter network is properly engineered, as is the
> BBC MUX. However Times Radio disappears in much of Northumberland as the
> commercial MUX hasn’t bothered with a transmitter between Newcastle and
> Edinburgh.

That's got nothing to do with poor engineering. It's to do cost/benefit

The SDL mux actually does very well, I don't get many dead spots here in
Hampshire.

There are about 12 BBC DAB sites that are in or serve Hampshire. SDL
only use three of them, yet car radio coverage is very similar.

SDL nationally it only has a about 50 sites. The BBC have over 400.

Mark Carver <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 15/08/2021 17:15, Tweed wrote:
>> DAB is good when the transmitter network is properly engineered, as is the
>> BBC MUX. However Times Radio disappears in much of Northumberland as the
>> commercial MUX hasn’t bothered with a transmitter between Newcastle and
>> Edinburgh.
>
> That's got nothing to do with poor engineering. It's to do cost/benefit
>
> The SDL mux actually does very well, I don't get many dead spots here in
> Hampshire.
>
> There are about 12 BBC DAB sites that are in or serve Hampshire. SDL
> only use three of them, yet car radio coverage is very similar.
>
> SDL nationally it only has a about 50 sites. The BBC have over 400.
>

Properly engineered is different to poorly engineered. Lots of not properly
engineered things in this country are due to the finance people having the
last word. Finance folk get things wrong more often than the engineers do.
Years ago we had things like the ITA, set up precisely to stop the
commercial operators from cutting corners.

On 14/08/2021 12:50, Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote:
> Actually, I had a chat with an engineer about this last year and they said
> that most companies are fighting a losing battle with vandals who keep on
> breaking open the boxes in the street and he is surprised that nobody has
> been electrocuted by now, Maybe they were?
> Brian
>
The Virgin boxes near me haven't been vandalised, they are just so
flimsy the doors fly open more or less by themselves.
Someone (probably a Virgin customer) has attempted to shut the doors by
wrapping Selotape round and round the box.

Rather like many wall boxes for Gas and Electricity, with their no UV
stabilised plastic hinges

Openreach as we know are far from perfect, but at least their FTTC
cabinets are built like brick shit-houses

On 15/08/2021 18:43, Tweed wrote:
>
> Properly engineered is different to poorly engineered. Lots of not properly
> engineered things in this country are due to the finance people having the
> last word. Finance folk get things wrong more often than the engineers do.
> Years ago we had things like the ITA, set up precisely to stop the
> commercial operators from cutting corners.
But isn't engineering is about finding a solution within the constraints
that are presented, and the budget available ?

You can cut corners to save money, and that's NOT good engineering though !

Mark Carver <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 15/08/2021 18:43, Tweed wrote:
>>
>> Properly engineered is different to poorly engineered. Lots of not properly
>> engineered things in this country are due to the finance people having the
>> last word. Finance folk get things wrong more often than the engineers do.
>> Years ago we had things like the ITA, set up precisely to stop the
>> commercial operators from cutting corners.
> But isn't engineering is about finding a solution within the constraints
> that are presented, and the budget available ?
>
> You can cut corners to save money, and that's NOT good engineering though !
>
Well let’s take DAB coverage (I’m not going down the rabbit hole of bit
rates….). For years I never understood why people moaned about poor in car
reception, as mine was fine as I drove up and down the country. Then Times
Radio came along and it became clear. If you listened to a commercial mux
you got a second rate service. So that tainted the DAB brand in the minds
of many. That may actually have financial consequences in the long term for
the commercial operators, but they were more fixated on short term goals.
So yes, the commercial dab muxes are not properly engineered and corners
have been cut.

On 15/08/2021 19:22, Tweed wrote:
> Mark Carver <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 15/08/2021 18:43, Tweed wrote:
>>> Properly engineered is different to poorly engineered. Lots of not properly
>>> engineered things in this country are due to the finance people having the
>>> last word. Finance folk get things wrong more often than the engineers do.
>>> Years ago we had things like the ITA, set up precisely to stop the
>>> commercial operators from cutting corners.
>> But isn't engineering is about finding a solution within the constraints
>> that are presented, and the budget available ?
>>
>> You can cut corners to save money, and that's NOT good engineering though !
>>
> Well let’s take DAB coverage (I’m not going down the rabbit hole of bit
> rates….). For years I never understood why people moaned about poor in car
> reception, as mine was fine as I drove up and down the country. Then Times
> Radio came along and it became clear. If you listened to a commercial mux
> you got a second rate service. So that tainted the DAB brand in the minds
> of many. That may actually have financial consequences in the long term for
> the commercial operators, but they were more fixated on short term goals.
> So yes, the commercial dab muxes are not properly engineered and corners
> have been cut.
The commercial DAB muxes wouldn't be economically viable, if they had
400 tx sites to pay for.
They provide the maximum coverage they can afford to, before the profit
they'd make becomes to low to bother running a business.

You can't compare with ITA/IBA era ITV. ITV was set up in the 1950s and
commercially financed Public Service Broadcasting.
It had to match  the range, quality, and coverage of BBC TV.

In terms of coverage it did. ITV/4 national coverage exactly matched
that of BBC 1/2.

It was never 100%, but came as close a _practicable_ and not as close as
_economically_ viable.

Commercial Radio (and in the IBA's era was it only local) had to have
the same principles.

All of that for radio went out of the window in 1991.

D1, and SDL's DAB Tx networks are engineered to the same standards as
the BBC's (and share many of the transmitter sites, and antennas etc),
it just that they have fewer transmitters and therefore less coverage.
They can't financially sustain more transmitters.

On 15/08/2021 18:49, Mark Carver wrote:
>
> Openreach as we know are far from perfect, but at least their FTTC
> cabinets are built like brick shit-houses

Well, not really, they're f*king useless as crash barriers :-)

http://www.macfh.co.uk/Temp/FTTC_-_Green_Cabinet_In_Green_Field_Site.jpg

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 15/08/2021 18:02, MB wrote:
> On 15/08/2021 17:15, Tweed wrote:
>> DAB is good when the transmitter network is properly engineered, as is
>> the
>> BBC MUX.
>
> I have no interest in any of the other MUXes!
>
>
I don't listen to the BBC mux because of the leftwing bias. OK, R3 now
and again when they aren't playing 'world music.'

Bill

On 15/08/2021 18:17, Tweed wrote:
> Neither did I until Times Radio came along. It’s a useful alternative to
> Radio4, which for me has large unlistenable periods in its schedule - The
> Archers, part 5 of a serial that you’ve not heard the other 4 parts to and
> an increasingly unfunny series of comedy programmes.

Be fair, it's not possible to make funny programmes when you're totally
woke.

Bill

On 15/08/2021 18:27, Mark Carver wrote:
> On 15/08/2021 17:15, Tweed wrote:
>> DAB is good when the transmitter network is properly engineered, as is
>> the
>> BBC MUX. However Times Radio disappears in much of Northumberland as the
>> commercial MUX hasn’t bothered with a transmitter between Newcastle and
>> Edinburgh.
>
> That's got nothing to do with poor engineering. It's to do cost/benefit

Yes, don't forget that broadcasting isn't for your benefit; it's for the
benefit of the broadcasters. You are merely fodder.

Bill

On 15/08/2021 18:49, Mark Carver wrote:

>
> Openreach as we know are far from perfect, but at least their FTTC
> cabinets are built like brick shit-houses

They are made of steel. I think you meant 'built like Centurion tanks'.

Bill

On 15/08/2021 19:50, Mark Carver wrote:

> You can't compare with ITA/IBA era ITV. ITV was set up in the 1950s and
> commercially financed Public Service Broadcasting.
> It had to match  the range, quality, and coverage of BBC TV.
>
> In terms of coverage it did.

Well, nearly. Certainly got close in terms of population as opposed to
area. Compare VHF Holme Moss with VHF Winter Hill and Emley Moor,
especially on the east coast.

Bill

On Sun, 15 Aug 2021 18:49:06 +0100, Mark Carver
<mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>The Virgin boxes near me haven't been vandalised, they are just so
>flimsy the doors fly open more or less by themselves.
>Someone (probably a Virgin customer) has attempted to shut the doors by
>wrapping Selotape round and round the box.

If you are a Virgin customer and report a damaged cabinet, they will
automatically take a fiver off your next bill. (I'm remembering from
some time ago, so it's possible this has changed). Don't forget to
note the number of the box as well as its location.

Rod.

On 15/08/2021 22:49, williamwright wrote:
> On 15/08/2021 19:50, Mark Carver wrote:
>
>> You can't compare with ITA/IBA era ITV. ITV was set up in the 1950s
>> and commercially financed Public Service Broadcasting.
>> It had to match  the range, quality, and coverage of BBC TV.
>>
>> In terms of coverage it did.
>
> Well, nearly. Certainly got close in terms of population as opposed to
> area. Compare VHF Holme Moss with VHF Winter Hill and Emley Moor,
> especially on the east coast.
>
I was thinking more about UHF than VHF.  The Beeb had a 10 year head
start on the ITA, and had Band I rather than Band III.
When the roll out attention switched from VHF to UHF at the end of the
60s, there were large (in terms of area) unserved areas for ITV.

In places such as the highlands and islands of Scotland ITV appeared for
the first time on UHF along with BBC 2.

From just one channel up to three overnight !

On Sun, 15 Aug 2021 18:00:48 +0100, MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:

>On 15/08/2021 17:17, Tweed wrote:
>> In what way? There are 5 physical buttons, and pressing the button gets the
>> station. There’s umpteen more presets for position 6 onwards that needs a
>> twiddle of the selector knob.
>
>The five physical will just about handle the main stations.
>
>If I want to "tune" from Preset 28 to Preset 31, I have to go back to
>the menu and scroll through from Preset 1 to Preset 31.
>
>There should be an option to have Preset 1 on a VHF FM station perhaps,
> Preset 2 on a DAB one and perhaps Preset 3 on an Internet radio station.
>
>Memory is cheap now so easy to lots of Presets / Memories but they need
>to be easily accessible without too many keypresses.

The usual arrangement for radio presets appears to be that the same
buttons - and not nearly enough of them, typically five at most - will
select presets on whichever waveband is already selected, so you have
to select the waveband first. Ideally you'd want each preset to select
the waveband as well, and any other relevant settings such as tone,
volume, stereo/mono etc. They already do this with some TV sets, where
each HDMI input can have its own picture settings so I don't see why
the same sort of thing shouldn't be possible with radio, but I've
never seen it.

The maximum number of preset buttons I've seen on a radio is ten, but
I think it would be feasible to have a dozen or more if they were
grouped in some way to make them easy to locate. Again, this isn't an
original idea, as we've been doing it with piano keys for centuries.
Perhaps what it needs is for the task to be given to designers who
actually use radios themselves.

Rod.

On 15/08/2021 20:07, Java Jive wrote:
> On 15/08/2021 18:49, Mark Carver wrote:
>>
>> Openreach as we know are far from perfect, but at least their FTTC
>> cabinets are built like brick shit-houses
>
> Well, not really, they're f*king useless as crash barriers :-)
>
> http://www.macfh.co.uk/Temp/FTTC_-_Green_Cabinet_In_Green_Field_Site.jpg
>
If that had been a Virgin cabinet it would have ended up in the next but
one field !

In article <inugs3F87mvU1@mid.individual.net>,
Mark Carver <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 15/08/2021 22:49, williamwright wrote:
> > On 15/08/2021 19:50, Mark Carver wrote:
> >
> >> You can't compare with ITA/IBA era ITV. ITV was set up in the 1950s
> >> and commercially financed Public Service Broadcasting.
> >> It had to match the range, quality, and coverage of BBC TV.
> >>
> >> In terms of coverage it did.
> >
> > Well, nearly. Certainly got close in terms of population as opposed to
> > area. Compare VHF Holme Moss with VHF Winter Hill and Emley Moor,
> > especially on the east coast.
> >
> I was thinking more about UHF than VHF. The Beeb had a 10 year head
> start on the ITA, and had Band I rather than Band III.
> When the roll out attention switched from VHF to UHF at the end of the
> 60s, there were large (in terms of area) unserved areas for ITV.

> In places such as the highlands and islands of Scotland ITV appeared for
> the first time on UHF along with BBC 2.

> From just one channel up to three overnight !

or, on some of the islands from none to three or even, a bit later, from
none to four.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 15/08/2021 22:42, williamwright wrote:
> Yes, don't forget that broadcasting isn't for your benefit; it's for the
> benefit of the broadcasters. You are merely fodder.

Or for the benefit of the advertisers if you are watching a commercial
channel.

On 15/08/2021 22:49, williamwright wrote:
> Well, nearly. Certainly got close in terms of population as opposed to
> area. Compare VHF Holme Moss with VHF Winter Hill and Emley Moor,
> especially on the east coast.

In the days of VHF TV, there were large areas that ITV made no attempt
to cover.

On 16/08/2021 08:56, MB wrote:
> On 15/08/2021 22:49, williamwright wrote:
>> Well, nearly. Certainly got close in terms of population as opposed to
>> area. Compare VHF Holme Moss with VHF Winter Hill and Emley Moor,
>> especially on the east coast.
>
> In the days of VHF TV, there were large areas that ITV made no attempt
> to cover.

For goodness sake, firstly the ITV companies had nothing to do with
defining their coverage. That was the ITA's job. Do you understand the
difference ?

Secondly, as I said, the BBC had a 10 year head start over the ITA. It's
like saying in 1964 the BBC made no attempt to provide BBC 2 outside of
the London area.
Roll outs take time, because money  and resources and equipment isn't
instantly available to do everywhere at once

Quite sensibly in the late 60s, both the BBC and ITA switched their
attention to rolling out TV on UHF, the ITA were about 10 years behind
the BBC on VHF

On 16/08/2021 08:02, Roderick Stewart wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Aug 2021 18:49:06 +0100, Mark Carver
> <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> The Virgin boxes near me haven't been vandalised, they are just so
>> flimsy the doors fly open more or less by themselves.
>> Someone (probably a Virgin customer) has attempted to shut the doors by
>> wrapping Selotape round and round the box.
>
> If you are a Virgin customer and report a damaged cabinet, they will
> automatically take a fiver off your next bill. (I'm remembering from
> some time ago, so it's possible this has changed). Don't forget to
> note the number of the box as well as its location.
>
> Rod.
>

Wished I'd known that!.

I could have taken a notebook and took a number down on my daily walk.....

I could have then had my VIrgin media account for free for the past 10
years as there are loads of VM cabinets with all sorts of issues like,
swinging doors, dents, peeling paint and graffiti!

On 16/08/2021 10:09, SH wrote:
>
> On 16/08/2021 08:02, Roderick Stewart wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 15 Aug 2021 18:49:06 +0100, Mark Carver
>> <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> The Virgin boxes near me haven't been vandalised, they are just so
>>> flimsy the doors fly open more or less by themselves.
>>> Someone (probably a Virgin customer) has attempted to shut the doors by
>>> wrapping Selotape round and round the box.
>>
>> If you are a Virgin customer and report a damaged cabinet, they will
>> automatically take a fiver off your next bill. (I'm remembering from
>> some time ago, so it's possible this has changed). Don't forget to
>> note the number of the box as well as its location.
>
> Wished I'd known that!.
>
> I could have taken a notebook and took a number down on my daily walk.....
>
> I could have then had my VIrgin media account for free for the past 10
> years as there are loads of VM cabinets with all sorts of issues like,
> swinging doors, dents, peeling paint and graffiti!

The ones where I used to live were used as goals by a local gang of
badly brought up and disaffected youths, who vandalised everything in
sight: Roadside cabinets, kiddie's playground, running down all the
bluebells by riding motorbikes and quadbikes through a local wildlife
reserve, etc, etc.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 15/08/2021 22:40, williamwright wrote:
>
> On 15/08/2021 18:17, Tweed wrote:
>>
>> Neither did I until Times Radio came along. It’s a useful alternative to
>> Radio4, which for me has large unlistenable periods in its schedule - The
>> Archers, part 5 of a serial that you’ve not heard the other 4 parts to
>> and an increasingly unfunny series of comedy programmes.
>
> Be fair, it's not possible to make funny programmes when you're totally
> woke.

It's even less possible to be funny when you're paranoid anti-woke, as
yet again you prove.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk