Digital Radio Australia
Digital Radio has finally launched in Australia’s major Capital Cities. After many years of planning and technical trials, the dabplus or DAB+ system was chosen for it’s ability to jam a whole lot more stations into the infrastructure available – albeit at a reduced audio quality. Hopefully you won’t be able to notice this audio degradation however, and the federal government may prove a savior for the service in a few years when more RF spectrum is freed up (by the analogue TV switchoff which will free up the TV channels for Digital Radio and Mobile Broadband use), which will allow for the audio quality to be improved. In the meantime – enjoy the site and our many news articles and related video’s we have collected about Digital Radio in Australia.
I agree about poor reception with DAB+. It does seem to have been a dog, spruiked highly but in the end failing to deliver. If you have a bedside DAB+ radio you get very poor reception, frequent dropouts such as to make the radio useless unless you add on a thunking big aerial, which rather defeats the purpose of having a bedside radio. At least with AM radio you never lost signal altogether for minutes on end.
I am a regular listener to SEN1116, Macquarie Sports Radio and 3AW on my Alpine DAB Sat Nav head unit. Why do I experience DAB dropouts in the Geelong area? This is so frustrating.
Could someone please tell 2CH that they are broadcasting in DAB+ not DAB? The inferior platform was abandoned for good reason in Australia. All I hear on that station is constant reference to DAB (only)
why is it taking so long for moe vic. to get digital reception.
I get good reception all over Melbourne metro in my car thanks to a good antenna on the roof. Certainly solved tbe problem of tram-line crackle. But what about the tunnels? Get CityLink to install repeaters just as they do for analog.
CAIRNS, Yes I too live here in beautiful PARADISE. I love the SBS Chill Digital TV broadcast Channel 39 & I was hoping I could listen to it through Digital Radio. I was going to purchase a Digital Radio but until there is DAB Digital broadcast for the Far North I just have to keep the TV running all the time.
BTW I do like the Local FM stations too but my favourite is SBS Chill.
Long live high quality SOUND from radio
Regards Phil
Programmes formerly available on ABC Classic FM (e.g.Jazztrack) have been transferred to Digital Radio and are thus no longer accessible to Hobart listeners unless one has a computer and a bluetooth device.Even then the signal is subject to breaking up unless the device is located in one or two prime locations in the house. Theseare not always the ideal sites from which to listen.
Every capital city in Australia has digital radio. Why is Hobart excluded?
Just to reiterate Ken Harris’s comments, I work in Altona North and have a Sony Digital radio, and have exactly the same experience as Ken. Five seconds of reception, followed by 10 seconds of ‘No Signal’ with Digital radio, no issues with FM.
On the other hand, I live in North Melbourne and have no issues with the DAB radio signal there.
I live on Sydney’s lower north shore less than 4km from the CBD. I have bought and tried five digital radios ranging from $40 to $250 and none of them are successful. I mainly use the radio foe around three-hours or so in the morning and get drop outs every day … sometimes three or six time a session, lasting anything from two minutes to 20 minutes. I also get interference from phones being dialled. Never had any of these problems until digital radio came along. Digital radio is nowhere near as good as analogue … in fact, it’s a rort!
Loved dab in melbourne. I decided to move to cairns and i can’t get any digital radio. Even though they sell digital radios in shops. High irony. Get moving on this issue. The far north can benifit from digital radio.
Digital radio is crap ! I live in Nth Altona, a suburb of Melbourne, and the digital radio cannot maintain a constant stream on any digital station, works fine on FM. I now have a Sony Digital radio (paying more for it) after taking the other one that I had bought back to the retailer as I thought that it was faulty. Unfortunately for me it’s got exactly the same problem in that I get 5 seconds of reception then 10 seconds of no signal. Absolutely frustrating and as I said CRAP !!!!!!
Good to see that an introductory comment FINALLY informs us of the REDUCED quality, honestly. Thank goodness. Will DAB+ ever get the bandwidth it should have or will it be too little too late.
However, mostly what we see is stuff along the lines of ;
“Digital radio quality is light years better than AM, and better than FM quality, while using much less bandwidth. ”
from http://steveahern.com.au/Courses/Entries/2010/3/26_Steve_Ahern_explains_Digital_Radio.htmlhttp://steveahern.com.au/Courses/Entries/2010/3/26_Steve_Ahern_explains_Digital_Radio.html
And while, technically speaking this statement is correct, it is in actually fact potentially miss leading.
What is actually says is that DAB+ is better at the same bandwidth. What it does not say, is that this advantage has been reduced to a negative because the DAB+ bandwidth is reduced to more than negate the potential advantage.
If you would like a better impression from a potentially small and un representative group, this post matches and documents my and a few other like minded types experience.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1875424
Best Regards all, Long live high quality SOUND from radio.
Canada gave digital radio away. Could it have been because its population is comparable to Australia’s? Widely dispersed…! For large areas and long distances AM is still satisfactory. Digital has no better coverage than FM and is less stable. In brief, digital is a gimmick to make us spend more money.
DAB+ is totally useless and the stream quality is the worst out of 17 other countries who have digital radio, the best in Australia has a stream of 80kbps, the rest of the world is at a minimum of 120kbps, as far as reception goes, this is poor at best, living just 20km from the cbd in Melbourne, the unreliable stream is poor quality even when devices manage to connect. Very disappointed and intend to investigate who is responsible for such a taxpayer rip off. An utter disgrace is what this service is. Get off your tax payer fattened bums and correct this good technology been done badly rubbish!
When does 93.90 bayfm go digitaland alll Geelong radio stations