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All i will say in my case is when i can receive DAB in my part of the woods it would not bother me but at this time it is either AM or FM. on both household and car radios
I see that Norway is ceasing FM radio broadcasts soon (despite considerable disquiet from much of the population) and I would guess that other countries will not be far behind.
As I understand the UK position then its looking like 2020 as the new target date - though there appears to be continual slippage here as a number of other target dates have come and gone.
The situation on LW, MW and especially SW seems less clear still. Google searches result in much conjecture and conflicting opinions.
I am just wondering what the collective wisdom here is - are those of us with analogue radio's in our cars and beautiful vintage models in our homes doomed to throwing them in the bin and forking out for new tech soon?
From a personal perspective I like analogue, it seems more reliable to me. My vintage Grundig Yacht Boy is much more user friendly than the two DAB radios I have.
All i will say in my case is when i can receive DAB in my part of the woods it would not bother me but at this time it is either AM or FM. on both household and car radios
Analogue also consumes significantly less power. I once bought a mobile phone because it had a DAB radio built in; the battery lasted about 30 minutes with the radio playing. A friend had a similar issue when he changed an analogue Bayliss radio for a DAB one.Originally Posted by Velorum
As I understand it - most countries skipped DAB and went straight to DAB+ - we were (surprise surprise) too cheap to do that.
Having said that - more often than not, if I'm listening to the radio, I'd doing it via the internet anyway...
My faithful companion through thick and thin over the last 20 years has been my Sangean ATS909 which is an absolute delight of a radio. I'll be gutted when they finally turn FM off.
Does FM have a future, absolutely. That'll almost certainly mean the government will pull the plug as I expect London has brilliant DAB coverage. Haven't seen a lot of evidence recently that the government care too much about areas outside London.
Last edited by catch21; 3rd September 2017 at 11:29.
I love my Yacht Boy 210 and will also be pretty fed up when FM is no more. I guess I will still be able to use it for SW though but my morning ritual of turning it on to listen to Radio 4 will be gone.
Yes I'll also be pretty cheesed off if my travel radio just becomes a lump of plastic and leather.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
There is a great new business near me that sells and restores old radios in AM and FM, they are doing well and have some fantastic kit in. It seems that there is no rush to switch off the frequency here. I really love looking at the old radios they have.
I only recently bought a DAB for my workshop and to be fair I have become a 6 music convert, love it as I work very long hours into the night on my own, it has become company.
Do you have a link?
Francis Kay Vintage technology.
I am not sure they have a website, as they do the Facebook thing.
Has a EBay shop which is where they do the bulk of there sales, I met the chap when he opened a shop in he local town.
Here is a link to his eBay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RESTORED-R...-/252906369016
That is a thing of beauty ! Reminds me a bit of the old Caravelle my mum had when I was a boy. That was powered by one of those big rectangular Vidor batteries.I love my Yacht Boy 210 and will also be pretty fed up when FM is no more. I guess I will still be able to use it for SW though but my morning ritual of turning it on to listen to Radio 4 will be gone.
Can I ask, the coloured oblongs on the dial, do they slide so you can remember channel/ wavelength settings?
Dave
In the 60's my uncle had one - at the time they were a major investment and I used to dream about owning one. I bought one as soon as I could afford it and I'm now on my third.
Yes, the small plastic markers slide along under the dial so that you can 'bookmark' your favourite station. New radios were supplied with a small bag of these stored in the compartment at the rear. Surprisingly most examples still have a good selection fitted which is surprising being as we are talking about 45 + years of use!
Thanks.
He has some interesting pieces for sale.
Those table top Grundig's looks superb.
DAB is the 'poor man's FM' said a BBC engineer. FM sounds a lot better. My mate has DAB in his VW Tiguan and gives me a headache after a while, it's so tinny sounding... switch back to FM and it's so much better, a much more rounded sound.
It'll be a brave government that switches FM off, there's so many users with them.
This has been my trusty travelling companion for many years and is still going strong.
Some of us have no other option (written whilst listening live to The Proms).
Indeed, it is resilient. Throwing away analogue radio is folly from a national resilience perspective. The emergency need for a near-ubiquitous, comparatively low tech, fallback communications medium is undeniable. Doing away away with it increases infrastructure 'brittleness' and is risky.
It will be a very sad day when I can no longer receive a station on the DAC.90, the tones are lovely.
I made this video to demonstrate a Stirling engine but from comments received I think that the radio has taken centre stage.
Until the whole country can get dab reliably I would hope fm stays!
The government can make money by auctioning off bits of radio spectrum. As it looks like Brexit is going to cost us countless billions I expect they'll be eyeing up a sale of at least a chunk of the analogue radio spectrum sooner rather than later.
Some really delightful radios on here. I particularly like Velorum's Yachyboy. But Sony, Sangean, Grundig et al are all rather wonderful, but lack the charm of a seventies Grundig. I understand Eton are good for the money, too. I think some other Chinese radios will be coming along as we speak.
In terms of broadcasts, I listen to only Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. DAB comes into play when R4 is playing a crap drama and BBC WS are doing some sports programme. Hopefully, then, R4Extra has a comedy thing going on... Sometimes all three of them are simultaneously crap, unfortunately.
I don't take a radio when I travel. I catch up with BBC World News, Al Jazeera (which I rate) and other English language TV broadcasts available in hotels. I try the local news services, too, but my linguistic skills, or lack of, let me down.
I bought this little Panasonic RF-12 back in 1984 with my first monthly salary after university.
The size of a credit card, it's traveled the world many times over and still works as well today as it did in 1984.
I thought that the Government had to maintain a universal radio service, to inform us during times of war.
It's likely that internet service will be curtailed during any conflict, to limit the spread of fake news / propaganda.
Sometimes, simple is best.
Last edited by W124; 4th September 2017 at 01:23.
I had one of these many years ago and it was a really prized possession, lovely rich sound, all the stations you could shake a stick at and the absolute business in it's day! Happy memory, thanks for posting!I love my Yacht Boy 210 and will also be pretty fed up when FM is no more. I guess I will still be able to use it for SW though but my morning ritual of turning it on to listen to Radio 4 will be gone.
Great post and I love that stuff by Alci Acosta!
Well the only likely conflict is with Nuclear powers - so I'm not sure you want to be around to receive any information after it ends.
I thought it was impossible to live in Europe and be out of reach of LW or MW.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Here's my 'portable': -
16 yo and still going strong. It's been everywhere I have over that time.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Indeed. There are of course many emergency situations short of war where a comparatively simple, reliable, near-ubiquitous communications system is of great value. The fact that it is rarely needed in the UK does not reduce the importance of it when considering total risk.
Last edited by markrlondon; 4th September 2017 at 15:28.
MP3 vs CD vs Vinyl? Someone will be telling us LW has 'more soul' next
Your mate's Tiguan probably has a typically cheap VAG stereo - My Octavia used to do that to me, but my Golf R's sounds as good as the Mazda's did, maybe better if I'm honest, but it's hard to be sure without a back to back comparison.
It's certainly not tinny like the Octavia's was (one of the few things I didn't like about the Skoda).
M.
Every time that we have a significant earthquake here the mobile phone network goes down. Guess how we communicate with family, friends and colleagues.
As well as the Sangean this is the bathroom Sony:
which is a D-cell powered monster
and this little beaut is the kitchen one:
which punches well above its miniscule weight.
Excellent thread!
I couldn't resist this 1980's Soviet era Selena when I saw the eBay listing.
Fully refurbished.
These have a good reputation for quality.
Can anyone tell me why we're supposed to go DAB? Is it cheaper for the providers? I can understand the usability concept, i.e. just pushing a button rather than 'searching' for a station, but otherwise I don't get it.
I personally never use it as, even in London, I can't get it in my kitchen (not as a consistent signal anyway so I just stick to FM), which is where I spend most of my time listening to the radio.
Its seems to me as though its sold to everyone on the basis that its better quality.
It is further promoted I believe by some stations only operating digitally.
However, I think that its a way of squeezing more station broadcast into a narrower range of frequencies thus freeing up more space that can be sold to other commercial interests.
My reflection on the changes of format I have seen in a number of mediums over the years is that they rarely result in something better. They are either a way of operators or manufacturers cutting costs or finding a way to sell you something you already have in another form. Clever lobbying and other methods get the politicians on side when needed.
I have a Pure DAB in my Engineering Workshop and on days like today when the weather is a bit variable it keeps cutting out on 6 music, which is annoying but I get very patchy mobile phone signal or no phone signal in there which is handy.
Remember the fun of trying to get a clear signal MW to listen to the radio when younger, and then suddenly losing it when a decent song came on. Remember my first FM radio, it was ace. In fairness it still is.
I had that in my watch list and nearly bought it. Be interested in hearing what you think of it.I couldn't resist this 1980's Soviet era Selena when I saw the eBay listing.
Fully refurbished.
These have a good reputation for quality.
I'll let you know when it arrives.
I would have preferred one with the signal strength indicator as fitted to the earlier models, for no better reason than it looks cool, but went for this one as its refurbished with a warranty.
Heres a YouTube clip on one of the earlier variants
Correct, it frees up more bandwidth so the Home Office can sell more space. I stick with FM. The only decent station on DAB quality wise is Radio 3. The BBC dropped the bit rate on that once and after a lot of complaints had to raise it back to 192.
I'm certainly no expert but as I understood it, the more stations that are crammed into the DAB bandwidth, the worse the sound quality. That's exacerbated by the fact that the DAB itself is really old technology working on ancient codecs (MP2 from memory). Don't get me wrong, I love the content on DAB it's just it sounds worse than a decent FM station.
We probably need to ditch DAB altogether and move straight to streaming but there's probably a massive amount of infrastructure needed before that could happen.
I think Norway are on a more recent implementation of DAB (DAB+ is it?) which gets round a lot of the bandwidth issues.
Good grief that brings back memories! I remember the little button you pressed to check the battery level - happy memories of a simpler time! Thanks for that.I love my Yacht Boy 210 and will also be pretty fed up when FM is no more. I guess I will still be able to use it for SW though but my morning ritual of turning it on to listen to Radio 4 will be gone.
Mark C
Thanks!
Getting harder to find in pristine condition the way you could a while back. I took a punt on a second one recently, however found that the battery compartment had missing connectors and a few bits here and there were worn when it arrived. It worked OK from the mains though. I toyed with having it refurbished for a while but decided to give this a miss as I don't really need another one of these at the end of the day. Its now on eBay!
I'm in Putney/Wimbledon area of London and the DAB reception is bloody awful.
I think and hope my dad has one of those as his garage radio. I always liked the sound of it when I was helping him in there. Brings back fond memoriesI love my Yacht Boy 210 and will also be pretty fed up when FM is no more. I guess I will still be able to use it for SW though but my morning ritual of turning it on to listen to Radio 4 will be gone.
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Before watches, radios were a collecting interest. I got rid of most but kept a few and it would be a shame not to be able to use them.
My boyhood memories are listening to commentaries of the Red Devils playing in exotic far away places like against Red Star Belgrade. The sound was so incredibly atmospheric: Charlton, Best, Law.
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Last edited by BillyCasper; 8th September 2017 at 15:41.
This, this and this, as I understand it.
But the quality isn't there due to seemingly excessive compression.
And this.
Interesting. And very British, to be stuck on someone now absurdly outdated.
Deleted
Last edited by Analogue; 15th September 2017 at 03:31.
I used to be a Roberts collector and have had most of the FM models at some point. I still have 10 of them dotted around the house and with other family members and they range from shed grade to mint, the best being one of the last R707 produced which has the correct (and rare) mains adaptor and which I had professionally restored. It was the flagship of the range and produces a fantastic sound that comes close to most Hackers of the period.
I have one DAB which is a Pure Evoke.I can't tell the difference between FM and DAB with the Evoke and having digital tuning it holds the signal much better the any of the Roberts, which I'm constantly re-tuning throughout the day.
What I can't do with the Evoke is dismantle, clean or repair it. It's just a tool that works and has no aesthetic qualities. If it breaks I'll just buy another one. With the Roberts I can always find a way to keep them going and it would be a serious blow if they became obsolete.
It arrived today and unfortunately I was rather disappointed. it worked OK from the mains (lovely tone actually) but it wouldn't work at all from battery power. I had asked the dealer on eBay to confirm what type of batteries it took and be messaged to say that these were C cells. Having bought a new pack I found that it actually took D cells. Fortunately I had some new ones in the house so fitted these. No luck. Looking more closely at the battery compartment the springs looked in poor condition, bent out of shape and corroded. I promptly logged it as not as described on the eBay system and packed it off back to the dealer.
All is not lost on the vintage transistor buying front though as I spotted this Hacker Sovereign this afternoon:
I'm hoping that its a good one. I've wanted a Hacker for a while due to their reputation for very high quality and performance. Also, they where manufactured just down the road from where I live.
This is the dealer:
https://www.classicradioshop.info/radio-s-in-stock-9/
Last edited by Velorum; 13th September 2017 at 22:29.
Disappointing about the Velorum but the Hacker looks nice, I've bookmarked that page for the future.
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