Re: DAB - missed the boat
DAB and DAB+ certainly solved a massive issue for me regarding radio.
All FM, AM etc were just full of stations that played music at you. 24/7! Euch!
With DAB has come not only LBC but also Talkradio. AM had talksport which talked about decent stuff (i.e not about kicking a ball) but only after midnight. I used to listen to James Whale, Mike Dikin all sots at midnight as a kid falling asleep to their humor and all sorts of strange whacky callers. Good times.
My local BBC station were also ok, no music at all. All local talk, local news views reviews. Lovely stuff. I loved driving the hour to work listening to the breakfast shows, then drive time on the way back.
Then the rot set in and they started playing music, but fortunately not before 10am and not during drive time so that was ok but during the day I frequently had to mute the station to save myself from having to listen to somebody whaling and whining into a microphone about some silly little "sung about it a million times over 100 years" subject, typically love or sex or a breakup or how she is a "naughty girl" or "what if I was a boy" or other crap like that. Occasionally a nice electronic 80's track would come on from A-ha or Roxette, that was fine.
Then after covid lockdowns, they went full on music. But by then I went full on DAB, talk radio rules and is sorely undeserved by only 2 decent stations, even if they did get boring talking about covid all the time but I eventually got used to that. Radio 4, well that can do. Now we also have Times radio, sounds ok, interesting subjects a bit like R4, not really into the callers more into the programmes.
But, DAB is poor with signal.
DAB is mono, so when I do hear A-ha, why would I bother?
DAB+ could have saved it all but criminally has been abused just like DAB. Now you have stereo, but the bandwidth is still too low (even for AAC). Coverage is a joke in places I holiday in. And the streaming apps that I could use to listen also are unable to work outdoors on the road for much the same reasons why the DAB signal is weak.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
