Dab Radios (a bit boatyard)

[jakeroyd]

I bought a new portable Sony DAB radio to use on the boat.
It's great , gets all the programmes I want in really excellent quality.

However , it's Achilles heel is battery life.
It takes 4 AA cells which provide , I kid you not , about 4 hours listening time.

My old boat radio would go all season on a set of AAA's

I understand it's a weakness of all DAB radios but do the learned forum members know why?
It's full of intergrated circuits just like an analogue radio so why do they use so much power.

I only use it from it' mains power supply in the kitchen now not on the boat.

 

[jakeroyd]

Dam Apple spell checker , I meant a bit boaty

 

[nigelmercier]

Can't you run it on a 12V adaptor?

 

[Sandyman]

Thought DAB was something of a flop yet the Beeb keeps advertising it as the way to go. Guess the Government
want to flog off the frequencies and are using your License fee's to tell you to go digital.

 

[nigelmercier]

DAB is fine for a car/boat/kitchen. But the quality doesn't come close to FM via a Hi-Fi unit.

 

[Hugh Foulis]

My next "luxury" (ie want it rather than need it) for the boat is a DAB radio. I am thinking of one similar to the one for the car like the Pure Highway. Collects digital signal and re broadcasts to your existing FM. In fact I think you can get a spare set of antenna, power cord and windscreen bracket so that you can swap between car and boat. Trouble is they are £70.

HF

 

[causeway]

I keep a computer on the boat and a usb tv dongle does dab. cost about a tenner and it can pick up air band, ais and much more. good value. like my geeky bits

6 music and 4 extra are the best bits of dab imo.

fidelity is carp compared to fm all the same.

 

[elton]

In their haste to extract licence money from broadcasters, the last government adopted DAB for the UK. It's vastly inferior to the DAB+ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting#DAB.2B) used by many other countries. DAB cannot be upgraded to DAB+. DAB radios use a lot of power because it takes a lot of computing power to decode the signal. Nothing can be done about that.

 

[neil1967]

Causeway - are you saying you use a DAB USB stick to receive live AIS data and then feed that infomation to some form of display - either a separate chart plotter, or a laptop based chart plotter? That sounds pretty useful to me - if so, can you advise how you do it?

Neil

 

[savageseadog]

I bought a new portable Sony DAB radio to use on the boat.
It's great , gets all the programmes I want in really excellent quality.

However , it's Achilles heel is battery life.
It takes 4 AA cells which provide , I kid you not , about 4 hours listening time.

My old boat radio would go all season on a set of AAA's

I understand it's a weakness of all DAB radios but do the learned forum members know why?
It's full of intergrated circuits just like an analogue radio so why do they use so much power.

I only use it from it' mains power supply in the kitchen now not on the boat.

What you have in your radio is essentially a computer that turns the digital signals of DAB and turns them into audio. The process inolves large numbers of digital operations at high speed, faster and intensive = more current. Every time a digital bit in the circuitry is changed from 0 to 1 or the other way round a small pulse of current is taken from the supply, the faster and more times that happens then the circuitry takes more current. It's possible to reduce current by using lower chip voltages, lower chip voltages = less power. and using refinements to the semiconductor circuitry such as making it smaller, smaller junction = less curent. I've no idea what the state of development is with DAB circuitry but progress will be gradual.

 

[nigelmercier]

the last government adopted DAB for the UK. It's vastly inferior to the DAB+ ...

I think the DAB+ changeover was planned for 2015, Ofcom are testing in some areas. Don't buy a DAB radio that does not support WorldDMB Profile 1 and that therefore cannot handle DAB+

 

[[70521]]

DAB does no work well in our house, perhaps the walls are too thick for the signal to get through all I hear is people, I am a Radio 4 fan, taking with a half filled Godlfish Bowl over their head.

P.S. It is turned off between 7.00pm and 7.20pm after the murder of Nigel Pargetter by the production team.

 

[causeway]

Causeway - are you saying you use a DAB USB stick to receive live AIS data and then feed that infomation to some form of display - either a separate chart plotter, or a laptop based chart plotter? That sounds pretty useful to me - if so, can you advise how you do it?

Neil

http://hamblog.dl4mn.de/2011/01/16/hallo-welt/

instead of funcube dongle you use the cheap one with zdiag software (sp?)to install the right drivers, not the ones which come with the dongle. on my phone here atm so it's a bit of a ballacks to explain.

the dongles work pretty well on marine band but high intensity signals locally can over power them.

with the right aerials you can pick up noaa weather satellite apt images...

sorry for the drift...

 

[NickRobinson]

I bought a DAB for R4 extra and to have a portable in bed and the cockpit that I could turn off without moving.
Battery life is an issue but this one also runs on a usb supply for nearly no current
Its got a record function and an MP3 function if you insert a SD card- you can record the forecast and listen at leisure.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PPA001-Po...290885714522?pt=AU_Radios&hash=item43ba23c25a

(No connection etc.)

Nick

 

[elton]

I bought a DAB for R4 extra and to have a portable in bed and the cockpit that I could turn off without moving.
Battery life is an issue but this one also runs on a usb supply for nearly no current
Its got a record function and an MP3 function if you insert a SD card- you can record the forecast and listen at leisure.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PPA001-Po...290885714522?pt=AU_Radios&hash=item43ba23c25a

(No connection etc.)

Nick

You seem to be suggesting it uses less power from a USB source than it does from batteries. If so, I don't believe it.

 

[NickRobinson]

You seem to be suggesting it uses less power from a USB source than it does from batteries. If so, I don't believe it.

No, I meant compared to the fixed car-type radio cassette player. The BEP doesn't register any current-

N

 

[elton]

I think the DAB+ changeover was planned for 2015, Ofcom are testing in some areas. Don't buy a DAB radio that does not support WorldDMB Profile 1 and that therefore cannot handle DAB+

I've heard nothing about a proposed changeover from DAB to DAB+. What's your source? The millions of DAB radios already in use would cease to function.

 

[Rigger Mortice]

We have a Roberts Ecologic1 DAB radio. Excellent battery life, excellent reception. It uses rechargeables which can be recharged without needing to remove them from the radio. Highly recommended for the boat

 

[elton]

No, I meant compared to the fixed car-type radio cassette player. The BEP doesn't register any current-

N

Compared to a car stereo I imagine it does use less power, but compared to a portable FM radio it will use considerably more. It's a poor comparison because there've never been constraints on the power consumption of car stereos because it's assumed they'll be powered from the vehicle supply while the engine's running.

Plenty of sources demonstrate how greedy DAB radios are. eg:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/03/ask-leo-dab-radios

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting#Power_requirements

 

[elton]

We have a Roberts Ecologic1 DAB radio. Excellent battery life, excellent reception. It uses rechargeables which can be recharged without needing to remove them from the radio. Highly recommended for the boat

Doesn't get a particularly glowing report from The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/06/review_radio_dab_fm_roberts_ecologic_1/

Charging the four NiMH rechargeable batteries the radio is designed to be powered by takes seven hours, which seems rather long, especially when standalone chargers can do it much more quickly. The batteries don't charge while the radio is being used.