Its looking increasingly like a replacement for the now unusable medium wave
since the latter is full of interference frominternet mains adaptors
internet over mains, computers and cheap rubbish phone chargers.
If they cleaned up the sources of interference, then medium wave could be
good enough for speech radio, and as I recall form my youth, it was good
enough to receive the pirate offshore stations and radio Luxembourg by
night.

At the moment DAB has too many low bit rate stations with massive
compression and gritty sounding audio, has managed in just a few short years
to make obsolete all DAB Radios except the newest ones and then made the
programs rubbish.
Brian

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Brian Gaff <brian1gaff@gmail.com> wrote:
> Its looking increasingly like a replacement for the now unusable medium wave
> since the latter is full of interference frominternet mains adaptors
> internet over mains, computers and cheap rubbish phone chargers.
> If they cleaned up the sources of interference, then medium wave could be
> good enough for speech radio, and as I recall form my youth, it was good
> enough to receive the pirate offshore stations and radio Luxembourg by
> night.
>
> At the moment DAB has too many low bit rate stations with massive
> compression and gritty sounding audio, has managed in just a few short years
> to make obsolete all DAB Radios except the newest ones and then made the
> programs rubbish.
> Brian
>

My DAB radio in the car works just fine. I can get World Service, Times
Radio and Radio5, none of which I can get on FM. Times Radio is a bit hit
and miss as they use a cheap commercial multiplex that doesn’t have enough
transmitters around the country. If you are at home there’s more than
enough high quality Internet feeds.

On 16/07/2022 10:32, Brian Gaff wrote:
> Its looking increasingly like a replacement for the now unusable medium wave
> since the latter is full of interference frominternet mains adaptors
> internet over mains, computers and cheap rubbish phone chargers.
> If they cleaned up the sources of interference, then medium wave could be
> good enough for speech radio, and as I recall form my youth, it was good
> enough to receive the pirate offshore stations and radio Luxembourg by
> night.
>
> At the moment DAB has too many low bit rate stations with massive
> compression and gritty sounding audio, has managed in just a few short years
> to make obsolete all DAB Radios except the newest ones and then made the
> programs rubbish.

I recently got some of the Powerline devices and not noticed any
inteference to anything.

DAB sounds perfectly OK to me and far better than VHF FM in the car.

We do not have any DAB+ services here but most sets have it and the BBC
national services and some others continue to use basic DAB.

I cannot remember the last time I used Medium Wave or Long Wave, many
years ago.

Yes but the recent announcement that the bbc are possibly going to axe r4x
will impact the very demographic who listens to it, those on freeview and
dab portable radios, living them only smart phones, most do not have and
Amazon devices tied to the home.
Brian

--

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The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Tweed" <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:tau1do$3blhu$1@dont-email.me...
> Brian Gaff <brian1gaff@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Its looking increasingly like a replacement for the now unusable medium
>> wave
>> since the latter is full of interference frominternet mains adaptors
>> internet over mains, computers and cheap rubbish phone chargers.
>> If they cleaned up the sources of interference, then medium wave could
>> be
>> good enough for speech radio, and as I recall form my youth, it was good
>> enough to receive the pirate offshore stations and radio Luxembourg by
>> night.
>>
>> At the moment DAB has too many low bit rate stations with massive
>> compression and gritty sounding audio, has managed in just a few short
>> years
>> to make obsolete all DAB Radios except the newest ones and then made the
>> programs rubbish.
>> Brian
>>
>
> My DAB radio in the car works just fine. I can get World Service, Times
> Radio and Radio5, none of which I can get on FM. Times Radio is a bit hit
> and miss as they use a cheap commercial multiplex that doesn't have enough
> transmitters around the country. If you are at home there's more than
> enough high quality Internet feeds.
>

Then you don't live anywhere near me, or have a surprisingly good set of
adaptors. Anything from just before the high end of medium wave to about 28
megs is trashed by squeals, ticking noises and hash. it has notches for the
ham radio bands, but not any of the shortwaver broadcast bands or even the
cb band.
Brian

--

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briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"MB" <MB@nospam.net> wrote in message news:taugal$3d1jh$1@dont-email.me...
> On 16/07/2022 10:32, Brian Gaff wrote:
>> Its looking increasingly like a replacement for the now unusable medium
>> wave
>> since the latter is full of interference frominternet mains adaptors
>> internet over mains, computers and cheap rubbish phone chargers.
>> If they cleaned up the sources of interference, then medium wave could
>> be
>> good enough for speech radio, and as I recall form my youth, it was good
>> enough to receive the pirate offshore stations and radio Luxembourg by
>> night.
>>
>> At the moment DAB has too many low bit rate stations with massive
>> compression and gritty sounding audio, has managed in just a few short
>> years
>> to make obsolete all DAB Radios except the newest ones and then made the
>> programs rubbish.
>
> I recently got some of the Powerline devices and not noticed any
> inteference to anything.
>
> DAB sounds perfectly OK to me and far better than VHF FM in the car.
>
> We do not have any DAB+ services here but most sets have it and the BBC
> national services and some others continue to use basic DAB.
>
> I cannot remember the last time I used Medium Wave or Long Wave, many
> years ago.
>

On 16/07/2022 15:00, MB wrote:
>
> I cannot remember the last time I used Medium Wave or Long Wave, many
> years ago.
>
I only discovered this weekend that the radio in my 18 month old car has
no AM available, it only has FM and DAB

In article <taugal$3d1jh$1@dont-email.me>, MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:

> I recently got some of the Powerline devices and not noticed any
> inteference to anything.

The effect of 'powerline' types of devices is that their impact will vary
with the details of what they are connected to - inc the house wiring
details. So may seem fine in some cases but not other. And may seem OK to
the user, but not for a neighbour.

> DAB sounds perfectly OK to me and far better than VHF FM in the car.

DAB is fine for choice of 'info' purposes. But less so for things like
classical music concerts. Main problem is OfCom "going for the money" and
allowing many low-rate stations to be crammed in regardless of the impact
on quality.

> I cannot remember the last time I used Medium Wave or Long Wave, many
> years ago.

Same here now. Can't say that I miss them now the stations I want are on FM
and iPlayer.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
biog http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On 17/07/2022 11:10, Jim Lesurf wrote:

> The effect of 'powerline' types of devices is that their impact will vary
> with the details of what they are connected to - inc the house wiring
> details. So may seem fine in some cases but not other. And may seem OK to
> the user, but not for a neighbour.

There can be problems the other way round. Some years ago I put a NAS
box in the spare bedroom out of the way, and connected it to my home
network via a pair of powerline devices. It worked OK until I was using
my laptop and as the battery was running low I powered the laptop with
its charger and the powerline link immediately failed. It restarted when
I turned off the laptop charger. It seems that the OEM charger was
putting interference into the mains sufficient to kill the powerline
carrier.

As an aside, I eventually ran a long ethernet cable and stopped using
the powerlines. I have also replaced the old laptop with a newer one.

Jim

On Sun, 17 Jul 2022 13:31:15 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
<brian1gaff@gmail.com> wrote:

>Yes but the recent announcement that the bbc are possibly going to axe r4x
>will impact the very demographic who listens to it, those on freeview and
>dab portable radios, living them only smart phones, most do not have and
>Amazon devices tied to the home.
> Brian

I would have thought for most people an on-line searchable archive
would be far more useful than a station full of random repeats.

On Sat, 16 Jul 2022 15:00:53 +0100, MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:

>On 16/07/2022 10:32, Brian Gaff wrote:
>> Its looking increasingly like a replacement for the now unusable medium wave
>> since the latter is full of interference frominternet mains adaptors
>> internet over mains, computers and cheap rubbish phone chargers.
>> If they cleaned up the sources of interference, then medium wave could be
>> good enough for speech radio, and as I recall form my youth, it was good
>> enough to receive the pirate offshore stations and radio Luxembourg by
>> night.
>>
>> At the moment DAB has too many low bit rate stations with massive
>> compression and gritty sounding audio, has managed in just a few short years
>> to make obsolete all DAB Radios except the newest ones and then made the
>> programs rubbish.
>
>I recently got some of the Powerline devices and not noticed any
>inteference to anything.

I think you have answered that point in your last paragraph.
>
>DAB sounds perfectly OK to me and far better than VHF FM in the car.
>
>We do not have any DAB+ services here but most sets have it and the BBC
>national services and some others continue to use basic DAB.
>
>I cannot remember the last time I used Medium Wave or Long Wave, many
>years ago.

On 18/07/2022 11:00, Scott wrote:
> I would have thought for most people an on-line searchable archive
> would be far more useful than a station full of random repeats.

Give me a station that can be received anywhere, including the car, over
an "on-line searchable archive" any day.

On 18/07/2022 11:02, Scott wrote:
> I think you have answered that point in your last paragraph.

Not sure what that mean? I listen on a range of broadcast and
non-broadcast frequencies and not noticed any interference. Medium Wave
and Long Wave are so useless that I would not notice.

On 18/07/2022 10:42, Indy Jess John wrote:
>
> On 17/07/2022 11:10, Jim Lesurf wrote:
>>
>> The effect of 'powerline' types of devices is that their impact will vary
>> with the details of what they are connected to - inc the house wiring
>> details. So may seem fine in some cases but not other. And may seem OK to
>> the user, but not for a neighbour.
>
> There can be problems the other way round.  Some years ago I put a NAS
> box in the spare bedroom out of the way, and connected it to my home
> network via a pair of powerline devices.  It worked OK until I was using
> my laptop and as the battery was running low I powered the laptop with
> its charger and the powerline link immediately failed. It restarted when
> I turned off the laptop charger.  It seems that the OEM charger was
> putting interference into the mains sufficient to kill the powerline
> carrier.

Yes, I had something similar happen when digitizing my vinyls. The full
story is probably somewhere in the online archives of this ng, but to
cut a long story of problem solving short, I eventually determined that
when I used the laptop charger, there was mains hum in the
digitisations, but when I used the docking station, there wasn't. The
original Dell laptop charger was causing the mains hum.

--

Fake news kills!

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

Jim Lesurf <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <taugal$3d1jh$1@dont-email.me>, MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
>
>> I recently got some of the Powerline devices and not noticed any
>> inteference to anything.
>
> The effect of 'powerline' types of devices is that their impact will vary
> with the details of what they are connected to - inc the house wiring
> details. So may seem fine in some cases but not other. And may seem OK to
> the user, but not for a neighbour.
>
>> DAB sounds perfectly OK to me and far better than VHF FM in the car.
>
> DAB is fine for choice of 'info' purposes. But less so for things like
> classical music concerts. Main problem is OfCom "going for the money" and
> allowing many low-rate stations to be crammed in regardless of the impact
> on quality.
>
>> I cannot remember the last time I used Medium Wave or Long Wave, many
>> years ago.
>
> Same here now. Can't say that I miss them now the stations I want are on FM
> and iPlayer.
>
> Jim
>

For the classical music concerts many fine Internet streams now exist. DAB
does the job it was designed for, in car reception, very well. If you start
to complain about the number of stations using it you have to decide which
to cull. Based on listenership Radio3 might be on the danger list….

In article <tb39v1$90um$1@dont-email.me>,
Indy Jess John <bathwatchdog@OMITTHISgooglemail.com> wrote:
> On 17/07/2022 11:10, Jim Lesurf wrote:

> > The effect of 'powerline' types of devices is that their impact will vary
> > with the details of what they are connected to - inc the house wiring
> > details. So may seem fine in some cases but not other. And may seem OK to
> > the user, but not for a neighbour.

> There can be problems the other way round. Some years ago I put a NAS
> box in the spare bedroom out of the way, and connected it to my home
> network via a pair of powerline devices. It worked OK until I was using
> my laptop and as the battery was running low I powered the laptop with
> its charger and the powerline link immediately failed. It restarted when
> I turned off the laptop charger. It seems that the OEM charger was
> putting interference into the mains sufficient to kill the powerline
> carrier.

> As an aside, I eventually ran a long ethernet cable and stopped using
> the powerlines. I have also replaced the old laptop with a newer one.

> Jim

I've been using Powerline adaptors quite happily for many years, but
suddenly it didn't work well between rings. It was when I had a charge
point for my EV fitted that this happened. The charger has an internet
connection.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 17/07/2022 11:10, Jim Lesurf wrote:
> DAB is fine for choice of 'info' purposes. But less so for things like
> classical music concerts. Main problem is OfCom "going for the money" and
> allowing many low-rate stations to be crammed in regardless of the impact
> on quality.

Terrible when they want to use bandwidth for programmes that people want
to listen to rather use excessive amounts of bandwidth for programmes
with very few listeners and who want higher quality than they can quite
likely recognise.

On Mon 18/07/2022 12:09, charles wrote:
> In article <tb39v1$90um$1@dont-email.me>,
> Indy Jess John <bathwatchdog@OMITTHISgooglemail.com> wrote:
>> On 17/07/2022 11:10, Jim Lesurf wrote:
>
>>> The effect of 'powerline' types of devices is that their impact will vary
>>> with the details of what they are connected to - inc the house wiring
>>> details. So may seem fine in some cases but not other. And may seem OK to
>>> the user, but not for a neighbour.
>
>> There can be problems the other way round. Some years ago I put a NAS
>> box in the spare bedroom out of the way, and connected it to my home
>> network via a pair of powerline devices. It worked OK until I was using
>> my laptop and as the battery was running low I powered the laptop with
>> its charger and the powerline link immediately failed. It restarted when
>> I turned off the laptop charger. It seems that the OEM charger was
>> putting interference into the mains sufficient to kill the powerline
>> carrier.
>
>> As an aside, I eventually ran a long ethernet cable and stopped using
>> the powerlines. I have also replaced the old laptop with a newer one.
>
>> Jim
>
> I've been using Powerline adaptors quite happily for many years, but
> suddenly it didn't work well between rings. It was when I had a charge
> point for my EV fitted that this happened. The charger has an internet
> connection.
>

It possible also has an invertor of some sort running at high frequency
for efficiency to convert the incoming mains to whatever voltage the
unit uses for charging. I believe something like 90V is common, but for
example Tesla and Porsche high power units run at silly levels like 800V
so that the battery can be charged quickly. An invertor should be
filtered so that it doesn't get into the mains, but it can still radiate.

On Mon 18/07/2022 12:41, MB wrote:
> On 17/07/2022 11:10, Jim Lesurf wrote:
>> DAB is fine for choice of 'info' purposes. But less so for things like
>> classical music concerts. Main problem is OfCom "going for the money" and
>> allowing many low-rate stations to be crammed in regardless of the impact
>> on quality.
>
> Terrible when they want to use bandwidth for programmes that people want
> to listen to rather use excessive amounts of bandwidth for programmes
> with very few listeners and who want higher quality than they can quite
> likely recognise.

Do remember that many many people - especially the younger generation -
have probably never heard decent music played through a proper hi-fi
system. To them mp3 at 128K on their phone headphones sound 'good.' OK
DAB is 128K mp2 which is even worse, but put that on a small domestic
radio with a small poor quality loudspeaker and it probably sounds much
the same. Listen to a DAB+ station at the same data rate and you would
hear the difference instantly. Unfortunately there ain't such stations
in the UK - they use 48Kb which is equivalent to mp2 at 128K.

Now go abroad where DAB+ is prevalent at a decent data rate and that too
sticks out like a sore thumb!

Woody <harrogate3@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On Mon 18/07/2022 12:09, charles wrote:
>> In article <tb39v1$90um$1@dont-email.me>,
>> Indy Jess John <bathwatchdog@OMITTHISgooglemail.com> wrote:
>>> On 17/07/2022 11:10, Jim Lesurf wrote:
>>
>>>> The effect of 'powerline' types of devices is that their impact will vary
>>>> with the details of what they are connected to - inc the house wiring
>>>> details. So may seem fine in some cases but not other. And may seem OK to
>>>> the user, but not for a neighbour.
>>
>>> There can be problems the other way round. Some years ago I put a NAS
>>> box in the spare bedroom out of the way, and connected it to my home
>>> network via a pair of powerline devices. It worked OK until I was using
>>> my laptop and as the battery was running low I powered the laptop with
>>> its charger and the powerline link immediately failed. It restarted when
>>> I turned off the laptop charger. It seems that the OEM charger was
>>> putting interference into the mains sufficient to kill the powerline
>>> carrier.
>>
>>> As an aside, I eventually ran a long ethernet cable and stopped using
>>> the powerlines. I have also replaced the old laptop with a newer one.
>>
>>> Jim
>>
>> I've been using Powerline adaptors quite happily for many years, but
>> suddenly it didn't work well between rings. It was when I had a charge
>> point for my EV fitted that this happened. The charger has an internet
>> connection.
>>
>
> It possible also has an invertor of some sort running at high frequency
> for efficiency to convert the incoming mains to whatever voltage the
> unit uses for charging. I believe something like 90V is common, but for
> example Tesla and Porsche high power units run at silly levels like 800V
> so that the battery can be charged quickly. An invertor should be
> filtered so that it doesn't get into the mains, but it can still radiate.
>
>

Or could it be that the charge point has decent RF suppression components,
is close to the consumer unit and is thus making the consumer unit a good
attenuator.

On 18/07/2022 11:00, Scott wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Jul 2022 13:31:15 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
> <brian1gaff@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes but the recent announcement that the bbc are possibly going to axe r4x
>> will impact the very demographic who listens to it, those on freeview and
>> dab portable radios, living them only smart phones, most do not have and
>> Amazon devices tied to the home.
>> Brian
>
> I would have thought for most people an on-line searchable archive
> would be far more useful than a station full of random repeats.

I used to subscribe to Amazon's streaming (né LoveFilm), but apart from
finding that the films were mostly the sort to be found on Freeview
sooner or later, I found the sheer quantity overwhelming, so I would
delay watching TV series until they were removed from the archive,
usually without any notice. (At least there didn't seem to be a way to
register interest in a series.)

There's a lot to be said for being drip fed programmes, especially as I
can time shift them with a PVR. (Actually I have two, one of which can
burn films/programmes to DVD.) If I miss a BBC programme I don't mind
using iPlayer (via a tablet). As an archive of old programmes, mostly
films, YouTube does a good job.

--
Max Demian

On 18/07/2022 12:23, Tweed wrote:
> Jim Lesurf <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:
>> In article <taugal$3d1jh$1@dont-email.me>, MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I recently got some of the Powerline devices and not noticed any
>>> inteference to anything.
>>
>> The effect of 'powerline' types of devices is that their impact will vary
>> with the details of what they are connected to - inc the house wiring
>> details. So may seem fine in some cases but not other. And may seem OK to
>> the user, but not for a neighbour.
>>
>>> DAB sounds perfectly OK to me and far better than VHF FM in the car.
>>
>> DAB is fine for choice of 'info' purposes. But less so for things like
>> classical music concerts. Main problem is OfCom "going for the money" and
>> allowing many low-rate stations to be crammed in regardless of the impact
>> on quality.
>>
>>> I cannot remember the last time I used Medium Wave or Long Wave, many
>>> years ago.
>>
>> Same here now. Can't say that I miss them now the stations I want are on FM
>> and iPlayer.

> For the classical music concerts many fine Internet streams now exist. DAB
> does the job it was designed for, in car reception, very well. If you start
> to complain about the number of stations using it you have to decide which
> to cull. Based on listenership Radio3 might be on the danger list….

For classical music I record concerts from Freeview Radio 3 on my Humax,
transfer them with USB to my laptop, and use WavePad to edit and convert
them to MP3 which I can play on an MP3 player. I think I've got pretty
much all the pieces I want now; there doesn't seem to be much in the
forthcoming Proms season that I need.

--
Max Demian

On 18/07/2022 16:06, Woody wrote:
> On Mon 18/07/2022 12:41, MB wrote:
>> On 17/07/2022 11:10, Jim Lesurf wrote:
>>> DAB is fine for choice of 'info' purposes. But less so for things like
>>> classical music concerts. Main problem is OfCom "going for the money"
>>> and
>>> allowing many low-rate stations to be crammed in regardless of the
>>> impact
>>> on quality.
>>
>> Terrible when they want to use bandwidth for programmes that people
>> want to listen to rather use excessive amounts of bandwidth for
>> programmes with very few listeners and who want higher quality than
>> they can quite likely recognise.
>
> Do remember that many many people - especially the younger generation -
> have probably never heard decent music played through a proper hi-fi
> system. To them mp3 at 128K on their phone headphones sound 'good.' OK
> DAB is 128K mp2 which is even worse, but put that on a small domestic
> radio with a small poor quality loudspeaker and it probably sounds much
> the same. Listen to a DAB+ station at the same data rate and you would
> hear the difference instantly. Unfortunately there ain't such stations
> in the UK - they use 48Kb which is equivalent to mp2 at 128K.
>
> Now go abroad where DAB+ is prevalent at a decent data rate and that too
> sticks out like a sore thumb!

For most people living busy lives, though, music is an accompaniment to
eating toast, getting the kids up, cooking a meal, scrolling through
their phone, sitting on a train, driving their car or generally moving
about. It isn't a sit down and listen closely for an hour or so in an
anechoic chamber with no interference.

Quality for most is a bit of an irrelevance.

On Mon, 18 Jul 2022 11:33:10 +0100, MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:

>On 18/07/2022 11:02, Scott wrote:
>> I think you have answered that point in your last paragraph.
>
>Not sure what that mean? I listen on a range of broadcast and
>non-broadcast frequencies and not noticed any interference. Medium Wave
>and Long Wave are so useless that I would not notice.

What I mean is that Brian's original post referred to interference to
medium wave reception by electronic devices.

If you don't listen to medium wave, it follows you are not well placed
to comment :-)

On Mon 18/07/2022 18:08, Scott wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jul 2022 11:33:10 +0100, MB <MB@nospam.net> wrote:
>
>> On 18/07/2022 11:02, Scott wrote:
>>> I think you have answered that point in your last paragraph.
>>
>> Not sure what that mean? I listen on a range of broadcast and
>> non-broadcast frequencies and not noticed any interference. Medium Wave
>> and Long Wave are so useless that I would not notice.
>
> What I mean is that Brian's original post referred to interference to
> medium wave reception by electronic devices.
>
> If you don't listen to medium wave, it follows you are not well placed
> to comment :-)

Don't forget that Brian is a radio amateur so he may not listen to MW
radio but he will be listening to many other frequencies in and around
that band.

On 18/07/2022 17:57, Norman Wells wrote:
> Quality for most is a bit of an irrelevance.

To me the actual programme content is the most important thing, some are
more interested in figures whether or not they can actual hear the
difference which results in people paying silly money for oxygen free
loudspeaker cables.