radios

[kimg]

i just wondered which radio band wave etc is best, sky apart.

im in 62 and get a fairly good reception on AM and listen to 5live in the car.

for the house i believe a need a 2 band DAB, although technology is ever changing?

grateful for any advice.

kim

[Tim]

You don't say where you are or even whether you are talking about a radio for use in France. One thing I can say is that there is no DAB radio in France.

Help with a little more info and I'm sure we can help in return.

Tim

[Martin963]

If you're talking about British radio,   then apart from in the very north (where you are) LW and MW (ie AM) are the only viable options. 

FM and DAB are limited by the horizon,   and we find that FM has gone once you get a few miles past Boulogne on the way south.  

If you are favourably positioned and can erect a large FM roof aerial you might push reliable reception of UK FM stations out to an area within 30 miles of Calais,   but you may find reception plagued by interference from other FM stations.   DAB will be even less easy as the powers used are lower and the frequency is even less good at travelling long distances.

If you're talking French radio,  then almost all of it is on FM and any old FM set will be fine.    The audio quality of most stations makes a "serious" investment in equipment pointless.

As to French DAB,  it's only been trialled in a few major cities and is now being abandoned in favour of other forms of digital radio (though it will be a while before anything gets past the trial stage and gets rolled out nationwide).    DAB is old technology now,  has a number of failings as currently implemented (mainly the fault of bean counters rather than engineers), and uses a different frequency range to the UK transmissions (even if you were within range of one of the soon-to-be-closed transmitters,  which you aren't!)

Satellite is by far the best,   forget the Sky link though.   You don't need a Sky box to listen to British radio.  Thank goodness!

[Tim]

Thank you (again ) Martin - my error - failed to see the litle '62' in the original post - silly me, but breakfast was waiting.

You've summed up the situation very well. Here in Upper Normandie I can quite often get Wrotham BBC FM although I must admit it's not reliable. I only have a simple halo antenna for FM in the house. With a beam it would, of course, be much better.

I have actually received DAB from the UK south coast but only under 'lift' conditions.

I'd agree that satellite is the best for reliable reception.

Tim

[Martin963]

Yes....   before Rowridge was re-engineered in 1988/9 it was possible to drive about in bits of Normandy listening to Radio 3.   The move to mixed pol required a 9 dB (if memory serves) drop in the southern-firing radiation from Rowridge (the old tx aerial was an omnidirectional multislot cylindrical) and reception in France duly got worse!

[Pierre ZFP]

I'm in 62 as well, about 30 kms from the coast and up high.

I get Radio 4 on long wave (yea! TMS rules!) and Radio 2 on FM most of the time but it drops oout for some other station if the wind is not favourable.

For preference though, I use my no-name sat box, 30 euros from a brico shed, and get every station I could possibly want.

[kimg]

cheers guys

sky it is then

kim