Virgin Media/UPC discontinuing analogue FM?

captnfantastic

I had an engineer out to repair an outside fault on an existing old Cablelink -> UPC -> Virgin Media setup. He said the FM analogue was being retired and put in a terminal connector without the familiar FM socket. After he left I soon had the thing recabled, however I was wondering if he could be correct in his assertion? For info I am on the Digital TV package.

I would be sorry to loose this service as I have a nice Denon tuner which plays UK radio well.

mike2084

Hope not, I've been using it since I came to Dublin.

MHP

That would make me very unhappy. I, too, am using a Denon receiver with the analogue FM feed. I don't fancy having to use internet radio.

Andy454

There is a larger selection of radio stations in the radio section of the epg.

If you have a fibre optic cable between the cable box and the amplifier the sound is far superiour to the old analogue FM service.

Old upc boxes can still tune to the radio services so you may not need to locate the tv next to the radio...

JDxtra

Yes, I think Virgin are right to discontinue this. Some subscribers clearly value the service, however most will listen via their digital box (or online streaming).

captnfantastic

Andy, I haven't quite followed your statement

Andy454 wrote: »

Old upc boxes can still tune to the radio services so you may not need to locate the tv next to the radio...

Currently I have the tuner (and HiFi) in a separate room to the TV with an RF cable into the "FM socket" in the terminal. If they drop the service then the signal will be dead. My only option would then appear to be to wire Audio leads all the way from the digibox (under the telly) to the Amp (bypassing the tuner). I would then have to "tune" using the telly and presumably wouldn't be able to leave my better-half watching the telly while I listen to the "radio". No?

steveon

captnfantastic wrote: »

Andy, I haven't quite followed your statement



Currently I have the tuner (and HiFi) in a separate room to the TV with an RF cable into the "FM socket" in the terminal. If they drop the service then the signal will be dead. My only option would then appear to be to wire Audio leads all the way from the digibox (under the telly) to the Amp (bypassing the tuner). I would then have to "tune" using the telly and presumably wouldn't be able to leave my better-half watching the telly while I listen to the "radio". No?

You can always put an fm aerial outside ur house and run a cable to ur amp and receive the fm stations...

coylemj

steveon wrote: »

You can always put an fm aerial outside ur house and run a cable to ur amp and receive the fm stations...

You won't get the BBC stations from NI unless you live at a good altitude and even then, when you try to tune to the BBC R2 signal from Divis on 90.1 Mhz, you'll pick up Spirit FM instead.

dub45

JDxtra wrote: »

Yes, I think Virgin are right to discontinue this. Some subscribers clearly value the service, however most will listen via their digital box (or online streaming).

The quality of bbc online streaming has deteriorated since earlier this year.

I am baffled as to why you think Virgin are right discontinue this service? it is not affecting anyone who doesn't listen to it and it would seriously affect those with fm tuners.

Wabbit Ears

Analogue FM and TV use up huge bandwidth. Virgin need to be removing get them to carry additional broadband and HD channels. TBH it's amazing that they still carry these all things considered.

Wabbit Ears

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

Analogue FM and TV use up huge bandwidth. Virgin need to be removing get them to carry additional broadband and HD channels. TBH it's amazing that they still carry these all things considered.

Analogue FM uses bandwidth that isn't really suitable for reuse elsewhere. It's only a small 20 MHz carrier, the equivalent of a single WiFi carrier. DOCSIS upstream frequencies peak at 85 MHz so they couldn't even use it for broadband.

The equipment is probably quite old though.