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Well...its a long story, but it starts when Vauxhall, in their great wisdom, decided to sell the new Astra with an option of a DAB radio.
Typical UK...no one brought it as an option...hence Vauxhall had a few in the warehouse.
So...they put one into an Astra SXi, renamed it an Astra Digital, and sent one to every Vauxhall dealer...me included.
It's worked on me, cos now I've had one for a few days....
I A M H O O K E D
Its a complex thing tho...not for the 5 minute learning curve. But as I have NO KNOWLEDGE of the official wordings or tech speak, it MIGHT tempt some of you to go get a DAB.
I dont mean one in your car...I mean one anywhereThe car story is just cos its how I got hooked.
Right. You still have AM and FM. Then the option screen goves you DAB too. If you select it, the radio spools up a list of what seem to be called "Ensembles" Effectively....and its a guess, each radio station has to decide which ensemble is gonna broadcast their stuff. It;s like choosing a tariff for your mobile phone.
So it showed up BBC National as one of them. When I chose that, I got all the stuff you'd expect....Radio 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
Next "ensemble" or "band" or whatever the thing is called, was Digital 1 and had stuff like Talk Sport, Classic FM, Planet Rock ....and a weird one called D1 Temp (more later)
As I drove this car around I grabbed other "networks" or "ensembles" or whatever thay are called......READING....lots for LONDON (some contained Kiss, Heart, Capital Gold etc)
I can program 9 of my favourites from ANY ensemble to the 9 button on my unit. When I then select those, it switches "ensembles" first and then grabs the station...it can take a few seconds, so BE PATIENT. Sometimes it shows the frequency "code" (once again dunno the terminology, but its looks like Hexidecimal) as a letter and number, or two letters before finding the radio station.
So far so good...but REMEMBER I DO NOT KNOW THE CORRECT WORDS FOR THE STUFF I'M EXPLAINING>>>>>just what I see on the screen. Its the basics.
Once on a radio station, I can grab the Info for that station. Most stations give their web site and some their phone number, and very cooly, Planet Rock gives the DJ and the track playing and the next track that's lined up
and the quality?
It really IS superb. OK...loose the signal and you're stuffed...but it holds the signal pretty well, and then just suddenly goes "squelchy" and goes. Thats life. You move...you loose signal and gain a new one. But it does seem to remember the ones its had before...so I am quite "populated" now!
On to the stations.....they have control over lots of new space...lots of bandwidth, or airtime. How much?
Well enough that one station plays total silence so you can test just HOW quiet digital silence is
and one....my personal favourite...is called D! Temp.
Its on the digital 1 "waveband" or "ensemble" or "network" and it plays the sounds of birds singing, the wind blowing, animals scuffling around and the odd dog barking.....24 hours a day....7 days a week.
It is just plain wierd!!
DAB...dont hesitate. If you think Freeview is good.....this is better
Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
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