All posts by J Peter Wilson
Below are all of J Peter Wilson's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
This Yorkshire multiplex is now CLOSED. Some of the services have been reallocated to the existing Bradford, Humberside, Leeds, North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire local multiplexes. UCB 2 Inspirational will join the Digital 2 national multiplex when it launches in Spring 2016.
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In Bridlington I receive excellent reception of stations broadcasting from the new D2 multiplex both on the JVC car radio and our Pure Evoke Flow and our Roberts Play radios at home. The Evoke Flow shows 75-90% signal strength for D2 as compared to 100% for the BBC, D1 and Humberside multiplexes. Our nearest D2 transmitter is at High Hunsley while the other three multiplexes have a transmitter at Buckton Barn which is just north of Bridlington.
Unfortunately the postcode checker at www.getdigitalradio.com for YO15/YO16 shows no reception of the D2 multiplex which is clearly not true.
Please can you add the SDL National/D2 multiplex to your DAB listing and remove the Yorkshire multiplex which no longer exists.
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The current TV licence fee' should be replaced with a two part system:
1. A Basic TV/Radio subscription fee' for just BBC 1, BBC 2, their children's services & BBC News/Parliament TV channels and all BBC radio (including BBC World Service) which would be collected via the council tax as is done in some other European countries. The cost of the Basic TV/Radio subscription fee' should be set by Ofcom for the government every five years.
2. An optional BBC Digital subscription fee' would be required for iPlayer, website access, phone apps and any further TV channels that it wishes to run such as a first run drama channel. This new BBC Digital subscription fee' should be set by the BBC directly. As they would be competing with the likes of Netflix and Sky/Now TV they would need to offer value for money or may well decide to offer different subscription choices including an extra charge for their quality/premium channels.
In addition by passing all the regulation of the BBC to Ofcom instead of the existing BBC Trust then this allows the UK Parliament and Scottish Parliament to act as an extra safeguard to the BBC's independence from direct political interference by Ministers while enabling elected representatives to have a view on the operation of the BBC as a public service broadcaster on behalf of their constituents and council tax payers.
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I suggest that in order to check the actual coverage of SDL National that you do a full auto-tune on your DAB radios. The Postcode Checker on the Digital Radio UK site says that we should NOT receive this SDL National multiplex in our part of the East Riding of Yorkshire BUT after re-setting the Pure and Roberts DAB/DAB+/FM radios they are all receiving the SDL stations including the new station added last week 'Union JACK'.
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Brian: For those of us living in East Yorkshire the coverage of the Humberside local mux has vastly improved with the change of frequency to 10D at the beginning of September 2016 and the increase from just 3 transmission sites to 10 namely Bridlington/Buckton Barn, Cave Wold, Coskills Farm, Driffield, Garrowby Hill, Grimsby, Patrington, Rawcliffe, Sculcoates & Scunthorpe VHF.
In addition I hope that here in the East Riding that we will be able to receive KCFM from Hull as it has applied to join the Lincolnshire mux (KCFM is currently not on DAB) when the Lincs mux adds a new transmission site at High Hunsley sometime in October 2016.
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In Bridlington in East Yorkshire I have found KCFM (on 99.8 FM in Hull) coming in loud and clear from the new Lincolnshire multiplex High Hunsley transmitter with 100% signal on our Pure Evoke Flow upstairs in our home and between 70-90% signal on the ground floor on the Roberts Play and Pure Evoke-1XT. Please update your multiplex information.
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Thanks for this added feature.
Please note that now that High Hunsley is broadcasting the Humberside local mux (10D), the Licolnshire local mux (12A) and SDL National (11A) that the number of DAB/DAB+ stations that we can receive on the East Yorkshire Coast within the YO15/YO16 postcodes has increased to 58 stations.
The SDL National stations come at 75-90% signal strength and the two local muxes are 100% as rated on my Pure Evoke Flow within our home, apart from next to the metal lined chimney for the central heating boiler. Good reception also on our Roberts Play and on the JVC car radio.
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I have read Aidan Drury's post about DAB reception in and around King's Lynn.
I have just looked up DAB transmitters that serve King's Lynn in the new Radio Listener's Guide 2017 (www.radioguide.co.uk) and I see that there is a 0.600 kW transmitter for BBC National (12B) for King's Lynn, a 0.030 kW transmitter in West Lynn for Digital 1 (11D) but no transmitter for Digital 2/SDL National (11A).
The reason for these differences of these national DAB multiplexes is that the BBC has to cover up to around 98% of the UK population due to its Charter and the fact that we nearly all pay a TV Licence Fee. On the other hand commercial radio is a business and therefore has to pay its way. Therefore stations on Digital 1 are paying for around 160 transmitters to reach around 90% of the UK population and the stations on Digital 2/SDL National have made the business decision to cover 75% of the population from just 45 transmitters at a much lower cost.
The commercial radio and listener-supported radio stations on these two multiplexes have to balance their books so they have to make decisions that enable them to run their operations by either being on Digital 1 or Digital 2.
My tip is that when I move house I take a radio with me to check the reception.
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fred: Commercial radio is a business and therefore has to pay its way. Therefore stations on Digital 1 are paying for around 160 transmitters to reach around 90% of the UK population, including where you live in Cornwall, and the stations on Digital 2/SDL National have made the business decision to cover 75% of the population from just 45 transmitters at a much lower cost.
The commercial radio and listener-supported radio stations on these two multiplexes have to balance their books so they have to make decisions that enable them to run their operations by either being on Digital 1 or Digital 2.
All the existing stations on Digital 2/SDL would have to agree to pay more for their transmission cost to reach Cornwall. Alternatively you might get some of the stations to place their service on the Cornwall local multiplex as the Wireless Group have done on the Aberdeen local multiplex with talkRADIO, talkSPORT 2 & Virgin Radio. Otherwise wait until a small-scale multiplex is available near to where you live and see if any of the stations that you like can be added as Angel Digital and Chris country have done in other parts of the UK.
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Sunday 1 November 2015 3:23PM
For our access to catch-up TV we have a Roku Streaming Box + Panasonic TX-L26X10B LCD TV + Panasonic DMR-EZ49VEB Recorder.
The Roku Box - www.roku.com/en-gb/how-it-works - gives us free access to all four UK catch-up services and a whole range of over 1700 channels including The Economist Radio, Time Magazine, NOW TV, Fox News, Netflix, Sainsbury Movie Channel, Sky Sports, Jerusalem Channel, YouTube etc.
It should be noted that the NOW TV Box is based on Roku technology but the NOW TV Box comes with fewer channels.
We have found that the Roku Box has enabled us to add to our choice of viewing without having to invest in a new TV when our current Freeview model is working well.