All posts by Rog
Below are all of Rog's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
9 out of 10 viewers are far less interested in the study of BBC financing than if the programmes are worth watching or tinsel quizes or yank crap labeled 'drama' where to emphasize the 'f' word is used without regard for whose perhaps watching .
Each year the BBC gets £145.50 from us or we are fined far more - even if we never watch BBC, golden handshakes are still handed out - no doubt Tony Hall will smile as he gets his . Write critisising BBC and one is given a standard rebutle ammounting to 'know your place - you're only a licence payer' try to reach the big cheeeses and you get no further than an advisor . BBC must spend a bomb on the most confusing web site devised to stop phone calls to anyone who counts . However , if they sell off BBC (I mean all the BBC) then we have no pledge to end the compulsory licence and I suspect even more yanky crap or tinsel quizes will be aired between football and equilly boring sport. Arqiva or any other company taking over. The fact is BBC has cocked-up both radio and TV wasted £M's on digitization so we get a poorer signal in many areas and forgotten what good entertainment means.
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Whats all this about 162 kHz ? (France International) perhaps 198 kHz or perhaps RTE Radio 1 on 252 kHz also LW and easily tuned on any AM car audio without any fiddling about if you've taken the trouble to set up the pre-set buttons using the sets instructions . This surely has nothing to do with DAB or DAB+ both proven unpopular and often unusable if the bits are blocked !
Even FM has some problems AM does not have regarding screening - AM gets noisy but does retain some signal DAB goes off FM fades in tunnels or momentarily under bridges or when in hilly areas . Take the 'water' out of AM if it gives you a giggle but after 80 very reliable years of massive popularity it beats the lower garments off 'digital', there are plenty of Continental Medium and Long Wave AM stations - only BBC is snotty about it. Also if you're listening to (presumably) France on 162 - try getting that station in a car on DAB or DAB+ ---- I don't think so ;-(
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When , if stations in Europe can be received with the right dish/direction/lnb and dvb box will we in Britain (Wales, England, Scotland) be able to watch RTE (Eire) stations as RTE viewers can watch BBC and Ultster TV now , If this were a copyright restriction how can it work ok one way but not the other ?
We can easily hear RTE Radio 1 on 252 kHz (LW) and on satelite together with other RTE radio (now moved from 567 kHz Radio Eireaan and 612 kHz RTE Radio 2 to VHF/FM) but Eire TV is blocked . If we (UK) are (still) in the EU is this fair if, with the right satellite equipement, we can watch numerous Frence, Spanish, Dutch stations. Since a boy I've enjoyed what was marked on the wireless dial as Athlone as splendid radio not spoilt by advers but complimentary to them - but I'd love to watch Irish TV here in England, please.
I understand theres a rather expensive way 'round the Sky Ireland viewing card racket but surely this shouldn't be necessary and must be a good move between the UK and Eire governments ?
I have yet to get a realistic answer to this .
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Am I wrong or do DAB receivers - car or home - NOT RECEIVE DAB+ , Seems like spouting about more stations which are unreceivable anyway makes this item more farce than fancy - and even less fact. No doubt , at a price , DAB with DAB+ receivers with or more likely without LW as they're are almost certain with even British or German badging to be made in PRC will be fitted as standard in VW, Porsche, BMW or Morgan etc, and folks will be conned into buying new 'bricks' for their kitchens (like Dave Camoron) which they will after the 'novelty period' simply dust at intervals having tired of station 'block-out' where bit stream rate is too low and got out the older and more reliable FM/AM tranny . I realise the bias shown by this web site for the 'Emperor's new clothes -digital' but couldn't there be a fairer coverage of the system of radio which has served us very reliably for 80 years (AM) and which is capable of world coverage - whereas DAB, DAB+ are neither capable of full international service or even regional service without hundreds of 'mobile phone' masts to replace massive but very few AM/FM towers. No sir DAB , digital radio, is two steps forward - three steps back.
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MikeB seems confused between digital audio and digital transmission a digitally recorded (or re-mastered) CD broadcast on FM or AM is broadcast in analogue whether Frequency Modulation or Amplitude Modulation. As for the implied vast amount of DAB receivers in use the percentage listening to DAB (or DAB+ if/when available in UK) is still only 28% irrespective of transmitter coverage after 10 years!. We are stuck with DAB so the government in its ignorance can flog-off spectrum to phones etc, companies - no other reason as even Ofcom now have to admit the low bit-stream rate makes for poor reproduction when properly monitored which frequency modulation easily beats and even the quality of such as Radio 4 BBC and Radio 1 RTE on long wave match up to. But what of those wanting to listen to European stations, after all we are in the EU are we to become 'little englanders' as regards being isolated into regions with no overseas stations to hear on our heavy battery drain DAB 'bricks' or possibly DAB+ 'bricks' which use considerably more electricity than our AM/FM radios at a time the EU wants to save energy - not waste it. Also remember the BBC and Ofcom flatly refuse to acknowledge the extra cost of equipping and running all the hundreds of digital senders compared with AM/FM giant - but more economical - masts. On the whole DAB and DAB+ stations are far more expensive to run and receive than FM and even such as Radio 4 LW at a time digital quality limits are obvious by demonstration. I live in south Leics and recently work on Droitwich R4 LW has taken it off the air - however, if Droitwich goes off-air I still can hear a lower but acceptable signal from Westerglen in Scotland - try that with DAB or DAB+! most listeners are not busy trying to keep up with the finer points of sampling rates on FM or bit-rates on DAB, they want a decent signal and I reckon with all the claims of digital versus analogue the proof is in the abysmal sales of digital receivers, the failure of DAB the non-show ('cause they are far too expensive anyway) of DRM sets for the very limited amount of DRM (usually 30 minutes) programmes. Mr & Mrs Normal want decent FM and AM (for their local community MW stations) Forget about the analogue switch-off the trade don't want to loose all their listeners and the listeners are not going to be bullied.
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What will viacom offer , classic TV of the 60's and 70's I wonder - we should be so lucky! No chance of Gold on Freeview or , in areas where two BBC1 ITV1 sub -regions mean Virgin can supply wrong transmitter (i.e. here in Hinckley/Bosworth we get Sutton Coldfield yet 'politically' Leics is in East Midlands so should get - but can't - Waltham so local news items happening in Hinckley/Bosworth can't be seen on Freeview TV in Hinckley/Bosworth. We never asked to split the Midlands in half - Whitehall southerners did that, but we on the artificial 'border' are badly served and were prior to 'Freeview' when the poor signal from Waltham was never receivable , however its ok via a dish and Sky , Virgin cock-up cable by only giving us Waltham NOT Sutton Coldfield and Freeview only Sutton' not Waltham (E.Midlands) surely in this day and age these anomolies could be eliminated so that instead of adding more crapovision (itv be etc) to Freeview the folks in charge first deal with the existing difficulties.
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Most of Hinckley in S.W.Leicestershire has never been able to pick up a useable signal from Waltham(either analogue or digital) infact digital is far worse than the old analogue yet both BBC and ITV claim otherwise and refuse to help. If there are specific news items in Hinckley the teams come out from Nottingham do the interviews and camera shots - yet we can't watch the result .
Don't respond we get it on Virgin Cable (fed from Leicester) or Sky Satellite - the map is for terrestrial coverage from the actual Waltham mast - Freeview
I have asked BBC, ITV, Ofcom and the local Borough Council several times why we cant get a local relay but they both answer that as we have since the 1950's got our terrestrial TV from a strong signal from Sutton Coldfield (earlier ITV-ATV from Lichfield) then we are properly served as Midlands , pity about the so-called 'East Midlands'. So may I suggest you at UK FREE TV go back to the compilers of the east midlands/Waltham transmitter coverage map and ask them to perhaps do a survey based not on fiction but real fact!
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Just imagine what income ITV would get if it listened to viewers begging them to bring back such popular regulars as 'Heartbeat' and 'The Royal' instead of such programmes about bloody days of Englands history , 'The Great Fire' and badly concocted serials as Collision and Scorpion . ITV has only to ask itself why viewers keep requesting 1960's set dramas and those like Downton Abbey to understand family drama is not simply Coronation st and Emerdale but is still exciting if it has no foul language or regular sugestion of hellish life and apaling death. It's Mother, Dad and kids sitting together enjoying the same weekly stories of family life as it was some years back - and watching the adverts together too. We know that 'Auntie' BBC now makes 45 and 50 minutes dramas easily adapted to view on ITV and Yesterday however the standards of production and what is acceptable viewing have degenerated so badly I'm surprised some actors are risking their images with the public f'ing and blinding to suit poor story lines when at least Alf Garnett made us laugh and 'The Dutchess of Duke St' used "bleeeedin hell' as an absolute expletive in a cooking mistake - but never anything stronger - The real reason ITV is making more money (undeservidly) is that the government /ofcom lets them use more screen time on adverts - downside being we get so fed-up waiting for the programme to continue we switch over and ITV loose their audience to such as Gold - who ironically then show too many ads so we get a lousy service from them too. We poor British viewers pay a compulsory licence , often subs to Sky or Virgin THEN pay more for the products in the shops because advertising costs are passed onto us - if the government had any idea of the real world at least the licence would be abolished.
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It is unrealistic to speculate on the possible end of analogue radio (AM and FM) as DAB and DAB+ have singularly failed in UK and the digital lobby still refuse to actually tell us what DAB costs both in reception and transmission. We can sparate satellite and cable transmission/reception from this folly because even BT can't crunch the numbers to make digital TV box reception a practical aim. As for WiFi 'hot spots' which rely on uncensored ISPs - what about car reception.Even if the average listener is happy being reduced to UK only and UK re-broadcast transmissions to a 'brick' that uses batteries like no normal transistor radio ever did - this after decades of world reception (Short Wave seems to be conveniently ignored from this conversation stream). If, as it seems the in thing is to push along a dead elephant (DAB and DAB+) rather than a ride on a race horse then unless real costs of digital are honestly published together with an unbiased list of pros and cons (which will show to true real disadvantages of DAB or DAB+ then how can anyone purporting to be 'in the trade' (unless agitating the excrement) sugest a less radio for more money plan ?
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Saturday 24 May 2014 11:00PM
So where's the law which gives householders the right to opt-out of this 'Big Brother' (I mean the genuine 1984 George Orwell version - not young big headed prats in a brain-dead TV show) idea of monitoring and dictating our lives by internet. The Internet was first mis-used by sickos - now it seems with the blessing of sicko parliament at whitehall our privacy rights remaining are being compromised too. If anyone calls at my home wanting to install sensors, monitors, programmers they are hereby warned they will be given a two word (verb and indefinate article) command no computer will recognise - but they will .........................