New Year radio updates

We begin our first twenty twenty-four entry looking at updated things and one comes out of the airwaves, literally

Much trumpeted from the last half of twenty twenty-three was the announcement the classical pops station, Classic FM established in nineteen ninety-two would be changing the system it uses on Band III Dab radio from the original Dab system to Dab+ which is used by much of continenental europe.

In simple terms it offers high quality sound by using a more efficient coding system which means it can sound clearer and yet use less space than the old method and that was changed from 128 kilobits in Joint Stereo Dab to 64 kilo bites descrete stereo Dab+ on January second.

It does sound clearer but in the awful weather we've been having in the West Midlands over the last few days it showed another advantage which is the old standard would break up with loud "chirping" sound with the slightest signal drop, Dab+ is more resilant just fading before coming back and able to "run on" for longer when faced with intermittant rain fade.

Other stations owned by the same group had upgrades to their sound quality as capacity on the Block that transmits a group together, which is an issue on Dab nationally, had been freed up.

Most modern radios can handle Dab+ such as my Roberts Portable downstairs with its telescopic antenna so it's a win win all around and it's just a pity the BBC don't move over to it too.

We've gained a few more local stations such as one for the Churnet Valley and Moorlands FM covering the Leek area

Radio Pasts into Present

One was reminded this week of the past with a few more things emerging from Mum's room and oddly enough the Womens World Cup in football, a game she was an avid fan and uniquely for the period even played with her brother, now deceased, and the boys he was best friends with.

Back then if you wanted to find out what was on the radio or television you bought a weekly listings magazine you looked up the day and all then then broadcast stations.

Many had very vivid colour front covers and it's fair to say I can recall all of these and more and although today people use on screen guides, internet listings and the like you can still get the Radio Times just with less unique regional editions.

Mum did like the radio, especially local radio and when I was younger I did listen a lot to it at home and in the dorm so again you'd look up the listings for shows at this time of year the details of the evenings Proms concerts on Radio Three of the works performed that night.

Strangly enough I did like shows like Sing Something Simple, Charlie Chesters Soapbox and Richard Baker's 100 Best Tunes apart from much of output of Radio Three for classical and Radio One for current pop music

Apart from having a big mains only stereo with a record player, I did have a variety of portable radios cos the beauty of Radio was you could take it anywhere and be drawn into the programming and in the main they were fairly traditional sets.

Recently I did buy a new one but actually its pedigree is almost as old as me for being based on a nineteen seventies  set by Roberts called the Rambler which was a a relatively short wooden sided portable with a carrying handle designed to give a similar quality as their bigger sets but easier to pack with you.

Very dorm friendly I might add.

The current one keeps much of the looks from the outside but its internal gubbins are very modern which means from the outside a traditional tuning scale that had a pointer that moved showing what you were listing to no longer exists.

Instead with have a display that shows the station name.

When off it shows the time - and the display can be dimmed - and on VHF/FM while tuning the frequency.

It has just VHF/FM where most national and local stations are to be found and VHF band III Digital Audio Broadcasting (aka Dab) where many national stations that aren't on VHF/FM such as BBC Radio Six are.

You can have up to ten presets per waveband.

It has a single speaker but the headphone output is stereo as is the Aux input and Blue Tooth and while there is a version with two speakers I felt the extra 2.3 cms in length wasn't at typical distances going to give much stereo effect given how close each speaker was.

It runs of C cells or mains via a detachable mains unit.

There's just something simple and transporting back into the past of just pressing that on/off button and listening to its full sound.