Thursday, 18 January 2007

Christopher England wrote:

Quoting a previous Steve Leyland contribution

:: surely that is just survival of the fittest, and competition at its
:: best?
:
: Not really. Your little rocky station would be bullied off the air by
: all the big boys who want your frequency to use for their stations.

In such a hypothetical free-for-all scenario, my station would be one of the biggest boys.
Our highly experienced rig engineer absolutely could do LOTS of watts!

:: where is the need for regulation?
:
: To stop them bullying you to close down.

Oh yeah? bring it on, n00bs!

:: you'd seriously suggest that buying a DAB radio at the moment is a
:: good idea?
:
: If you want to extend yer access to sport you get yerself Sky. If you
: want to extend yer radio listening choice you get yerself DAB. That's
: the way it is at the moment.

And then replace the receiver in a year or two? No thanks dude, I'll wait for DRM/DAB with AAC+2 integrated sets with AM/MM/LW/SW to become cheap. Early adopters always pay far too much.

:: did the taxi driver who took you back to the adelphi from the police
:: station have a DAB radio in his car or was he listening to FM or hey
:: maybe even AM?
:
: You been watching me, eh? You a stalker are yer, eh? :-)

Just because I have a shrine to you in my bedroom with yer pictures on the wall and listen to recordings of yer old Euronet shows playing whilst I sharpen my knives doesn't make me a stalker does it? I must not obey the voices..... ;-)
:
: I can neither confirm nor deny that there was a need for the services
: of such a car driver type gentleman. However, hypothetically, if
: there had have been then, hypothetically, he would have probably been
: listening to City on FM. I'm guessing.

I rest my case M'Lud. If DAB is so good, how come it is not fitted as standard in car radios, which lets' face it is where a huge percentage of radio listening occurs?

:: I do see your point, but I'd still argue that no big group will ever
:: properly cater for a minority radio audience.
:
: So what's wrong about Chill or Planet Rock, Classic FM, theJazz, XFM,
: Kerrang, Choice, or such like? They are all minority formats (compared
: to the standard 'pop'n'prattle' stylee of the original ILR general
: all-purpose stations), and all owned by the Borg group massive, innit.

Ok what IMHO is wrong is that they're all owned by greedy corporations who care not a jot about output, merely profit. whereas some experienced operators who actually give a shit about catering for the minority listener are not able to have a go due to the ridiculously high fees for going legal.
Instead of breaking my door down and arresting me, Ofcom should have thought outside the box; the legal stations are whining about this pirate, so just maybe he's doing something right?

In article <...>, ... (Dave Martin) wrote:

With so many micro-breweries being installed I doubt it. There's a place near Tring that does them. Apparently the do really well.

Eric

Eric Tesug <...> said:

With so many micro-breweries being installed I doubt it. There's a place

near Tring that does them. Apparently the do really well.

Eric

That'll be the Tring Brewery then!
You're right, over 50 microbreweries started up in the last two years in the UK but that doesn't guarantee a increase in choice for most consumers. Since the scrapping of the 1990 beer orders act, pub chains/brewers no longer have to allow their tenants the right to stock a independent real ale. Very few micro breweries have their own tied estate so have to try and sell them to the free houses and many of these free house are anything but, many took cheap loans from major brewers which then effectively oblige them to buy their beer from them. So will Wells and Young just do what Greene King have done and pass off beers from the own portfolio as guest beers? This may look like an increase in choice but the consumer has no say in what he is being offered and the brewery wont keep two similar beers on the same bar, so you end up with less choice.

dave.

With automatic tuners, I wonder whether there's any chance of a non-anorak hearing anything that is below the autotune sensitivity threshold.

I did a scan in Coventry of medium wave and VHF on the car radio.

The daytime scan on medium now catches only 6 stations: 693/837/909/1053/1215/1359.

The scan on VHF caught 7 BBC stations and 11 commercial stations.

R1/2/3/4/BBC Coventry/BBC WM/BBC Leicester/Mercia/Touch x 2/Classic/Saga x 2/Heart/BRMB/Kerrang/Fossway.

Autoscan on DAB does just a little better.

Do any ordinary people tune nowadays?

Are ordinary people even capable of tuning into a station that has its frequency advertised on a billboard? 

Oddly, my mind seems to be blank when it comes to Radio Mi Amigo transmitting from its own ship.

Did people in the UK hear it? Did it have a strong signal?

Is it possible then on DAB to transmit a single station wihout a mux?

Presumably a computer generates the data which is fed into an FM transmitter on a suitable frequency.

On 18 Jan 2007 10:38:44 +0000, Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> wrote:
Is it possible then on DAB to transmit a single station wihout a mux?

Presumably a computer generates the data which is fed into an FM
transmitter on a suitable frequency.

It is actually not that simple. You will need a pretty fancy (read powerfull) computer to generate a 1.7 MHz wide OFDM signal. Bear in
mind that the signal actually consists of more than thousand or so different but synchronized QPSK modulated carriers. This kind of modulation also needs linear power amplifiers so you can not simply
use FM amps. A TV transmitter might be possible, but you still need an exciter generating the DAB signal on the correct frequency.

I actually found a reference to a DAB receiver being build with GNU Radio. So in the near future a GNU Radio base DAB transmitter might be an option?

You can not do without a mux, but you need to create your own one. A decent computer should be able to handle this. With all the bits available you will be able to do good quality even with MP2 audio and you can transmit more that one program if you want to.

Mind you, it can be done but it's not cheap and definitely more expensive than FM radio. I think it's better to focus on DRM(+). It's more suited to single program broadcasting and way cheaper. (But you won't have any listeners ... :( )

On 1/18/07, Feico de Boer <...> wrote:

I actually found a reference to a DAB receiver being build with GNU
Radio. So in the near future a GNU Radio base DAB transmitter might be
an option?

Seems like it's already is done. http://www.crc.ca/en/html/mmb/home/ibc2006

Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> said:
Oddly, my mind seems to be blank when it comes to Radio Mi Amigo
transmitting from its own ship.

Did people in the UK hear it? Did it have a strong signal?

There was a couple of episodes of Offshore radio history i missed because for whatever reason i did not know anything about them,

This was one and the other was Radio Atlantis from the Jeanine,

Shame really about the latter as i have found out later it was a very good and entertaining station,

Should i be stripped of my anorak??

Richard

Richard Sharpe <...> said:

 

This was one and the other was Radio Atlantis from the Jeanine,

 

Radio Atlantis was quite good. I received it with a reasonable signal in Birmingham. Quite good during the day, but heavy interference in the evening. I think it was also on shortwave for a time.

Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> said:
Oddly, my mind seems to be blank when it comes to Radio Mi Amigo
transmitting from its own ship.

Did people in the UK hear it? Did it have a strong signal?

The signal was fair from a new 10 kW transmitter but the aerial was not so good and the frequency was wrong, 1100 kHz, being off-channel. A strong heterodyne (whistle) was heard when it startet getting dark...rectified in the end but it took its time. There were more technical and organisational problems and then the anchor chain broke and the thing was over before it could relly start.

Richard Sharpe <...> said:

There was a couple of episodes of Offshore radio history i missed
because for whatever reason i did not know anything about them,

This was one and the other was Radio Atlantis from the Jeanine,

Shame really about the latter as i have found out later it was a very
good and entertaining station,

Should i be stripped of my anorak??

Richard

I think that being stripped of your anorak would be a bit harsh, especially with all those visits to offshore stations to come in the future.

Seriously I am surprised that you missed Atlantis, very much a part of the soundtrack of my last teen year. I still have quite a lot recorded on rapidly deteriorating cassettes. A peculiarly sad thing to do is to listen to them on a summer evening and remember loves and pirate stations lost.

And remember (unless I am wrong) that it is the station that first brought you "Uncle Ray" Anderson...albeit taped shows.

Ted

Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> said:
Oddly, my mind seems to be blank when it comes to Radio Mi Amigo
transmitting from its own ship.

Did people in the UK hear it? Did it have a strong signal?

In North Essex the sideband splatter used to interfere with radio 1 on 275m, cant remember much about it as I was only about 10 at the time.

I do remember the Dutch Caroline service on 319, very fast moving and even though it was in dutch, several Cars down my road used to have it blaring out, possibly because Radio 1 reception was still poor despite the new frequency.

I always found the nightime english service disappointing though it depended who was on air at the time.

Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> said:
With automatic tuners, I wonder whether there's any chance of a
non-anorak hearing anything that is below the autotune sensitivity
threshold.

I did a scan in Coventry of medium wave and VHF on the car radio.

The daytime scan on medium now catches only 6 stations:
693/837/909/1053/1215/1359.

The scan on VHF caught 7 BBC stations and 11 commercial stations.

R1/2/3/4/BBC Coventry/BBC WM/BBC Leicester/Mercia/Touch x 2/Classic/Saga
x 2/Heart/BRMB/Kerrang/Fossway.

Autoscan on DAB does just a little better.

Do any ordinary people tune nowadays?

Are ordinary people even capable of tuning into a station that has its
frequency advertised on a billboard?

The short answer to most of your questions is probably "no". I only get to drive occassionally, and in that case it is a hired vehicle. I always take hired cars fairly promptly to the highest available ground to run the autotuner on FM. I find that the autotuner seldom works (well) on AM, because of the poor quality of car AM radios these days.

I can feel lots of "AM is dead, long live DAB" correspondence hanging in the air.

Surely the selling point of DAB, apart from the alleged sound quality, is exactly that "ordinary" people won't need to "tune", and tuning is probably already something which only exists in the anorak world. I recently recommended Big L to a 37 year old lady of reasonable intelligence, who could not find 1395 AM.

Ted

Christopher England <...> said:
Quoting a previous Steve Leyland contribution:-

~

: (TIME TEPRETURE AND TITLE MERCHANTS DOINT
: BOTHER )

I wonder what this bit means in english?

"Yes indeedy, 15 big minutes past the hour of 5, it's 15 chilly degrees
out there in Blogo town, and here's a track entitled 'Oh Baby let's
boogie' here on Blogo FM."

For further examples listen to Ian Damon on Big L.

~
--
* Christopher England just said that *

Damn! I guess that rules me out. Would it be OK if I said the "big boss hour of 5 o'clock"????

Ted

Quoting a previous Steve Leyland contribution:-

~

Our highly experienced rig engineer absolutely could do LOTS of watts!

Not with an axe in his head, though. In the world of a free-for-all, he who wields the axe wins.

~

I must not
obey the voices….. ;-)

Give in to them. It's the best way. Kill! Kill! Do it now!

~

If DAB is so good, how come it is not fitted as
standard in car radios, which lets' face it is where a huge percentage
of radio listening occurs?

Well, if said aforementioned driver had wanted to listen to something a bit more adventurous than mainstream radio, I'm guessing he'd have wopped in a modern and trendy DAB radio. Sadly, not many people care or want extended choice on their radio, innit, they opt for taking control by selecting their own music.

~

: So what's wrong about Chill or Planet Rock, Classic FM, theJazz, XFM,
: Kerrang, Choice, or such like? They are all minority formats (compared
: to the standard 'pop'n'prattle' stylee of the original ILR general
: all-purpose stations), and all owned by the Borg group massive, innit.

Ok what IMHO is wrong is that they're all owned by greedy corporations
who care not a jot about output, merely profit.

But the output of said aforementioned radio stations is well crucial and brill. I mean, Planet Rock has Nick Abbot on it, right. Well, it also has Alice Cooper for breakfast, and the legendary Rick Wakeman (the guy we're told by IOMIB is going to be on Caroline 279 from the Isle of Man CFA boat), and Gary Moore, and the rock god DJ Nicky Horne.

If GCap didn't care a jot about output, why would they be paying these 'names' to do live non-voicetracked shows when they could have opted for a badly voicetracked or non-stop music output?

Ah. But, you opt to not listen to Planet Rock, innit, so you don't know, do yer, eh? Eh? Eh?

Quoting a previous Eric Wiltsher contribution:-

~

But for stills I'm now drawn to the ever so nice Picassa suit.

Ah, I've got a couple of other folk anoraking about it. What do you like about it?

Oh, and speaking of software people use, anybody using Open Office?

Quoting a previous Geoff contribution:-

~

Why? What is it about Macs that you don't like, the operating system,
the hardware, the image etc.

Can you really trust a computer that has a mouse with just one clicky bit instead of a left and a right clicky bit and a scrolly thing?

Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> said:
Oddly, my mind seems to be blank when it comes to Radio Mi Amigo
transmitting from its own ship.

Did people in the UK hear it? Did it have a strong signal?

Radio Mi Amigo from the m.v'Magdalena' hit the air July 1979,following big bust up between messers O'Rahily and Tack.Mi Amigo staff(or crew from a tender) left the m.v. 'Mi Amigo' with a parting gift of sand in the Generator fuel header tank in September(?) 1978 which gave Radio Caroline all sorts of problems that winter;not least of all the vessel sinking to it's gunwhales(pro.gunn-ells) in a North East storm 10 in January of 1979. The m.v. 'Magdalena' was a tween deck coaster acquired from F.T.Everard and sons Ltd of Greenhithe Kent previously named 'Centricity'.Fitted out in Piraeus Greece with 10 kw RCA transmitter fed into a 'T' aeriel,broadcast off channel 1107khz with a major buzz.It only lasted a few weeks with some old m.v.'Mi Amigo' staff;Ferry Eden for example.Came to grief with in-fighting and finally ran aground on the Thornton Bank off River Scheldt,then finished off by Belgian Marine Police a few weeks later who cut the anchor chain and towed the vessel in.Out of it came the land based pirate from Brussels Radio Maeva.
 Radio Paradijs from the m.v 'Magda Maria' is the one that many people missed-commenced broadcasts in July 1980 with tapes of Nova 88 from Dublin then moved onto dutch UMM-PAAH-music-then got busted in a tremendous act of piracy by Dutch Marines after a couple of weeks. Just for the record:The Radio Atlantis ship is probably the only ship in the world that never displayed it's correct name; JANIENE:it displayed various versions of the name but NEVER the correct one!
 Its been very windy today;must now take my anorak off.Pip! Pip!
Jim.

Christopher England <...> said:

Oh, and speaking of software people use, anybody using Open Office?

Yes... Tried it a couple of year's ago, wasn't too keen. Then got to use it (via Linspire Linux) on a daily basis at a station by the seaside, started warming to it. Have it installed on main office PC.

Nice alternative to the other one.
—
Charlie