Are BBC blocking DAB in Ireland?

Boscod

I bought a Tesco DAB radio before Christmas and on the first scan could hear all the BBC stations clearly, however on subsequent scans that is no longer the case. I wonder are these being blocked somehow in the system?

4068ac1elhodqr

DAB is handy enough, and much cheaper than it used to be.
Worth getting a combo radio with DAB, DAB+, FM, LW, MW, SW - just to be sure.

I've a cheap as chips, small 1.0w mono one, but is plugged into Celestion 80w stereo powered studio monitors,
UK stations are sometimes possible on the East Coast and signal booster aerials are readily available.

Some stations run at higher standard DAB @160kbps such as Lyric.

SimonMaher

Hi Boscod. No, there is no blocking of BBC stations on DAB here. Atmospheric conditions sometimes mean that DAB signals (like FM) can travel much further than normal. Here in Dublin 24 I can often pick up UK DAB but I'm up pretty high. In the summertime, you should have decent enough reception for days at a time! Accumulator is right too about the signal boosters - if you're determined then it can be done

Has been said before and will be again - it's a real shame that there is no decent DAB infrastructure or plan here. Worst it would give us would be more choice in the broadcast realm and given the numbers path that broadcast radio is on, that would only be a good thing.

Simon

Broadcastonfm

Boscod wrote: »

I bought a Tesco DAB radio before Christmas and on the first scan could hear all the BBC stations clearly, however on subsequent scans that is no longer the case. I wonder are these being blocked somehow in the system?

Absolutely not , uk multiples in particular sell appliances with services that are not available in Ireland and DAB is a good example . Bar RTÉ and a trial in south east (not sure if it's still there) , there is no DAB available here - even RTÉ is limited

As other posters say you may get atmospheric overspills from U.K. on occasion but DAB multiplexes are very geo specific and outside footprint , you'll get very little - not like analogue .

Same RTÉ stations on DAB are on Saorview

david23

Boscod wrote: »

I bought a Tesco DAB radio before Christmas and on the first scan could hear all the BBC stations clearly, however on subsequent scans that is no longer the case. I wonder are these being blocked somehow in the system?

It could be atmospheric conditions, including something specific to DAB known as adjacent channel interference. RTÉ is on Block 12C and the BBC is on 12B, so the signal from the RTÉ multiplex could be knocking out the reception of the BBC multiplex at your location.  

Ireland has been allocated three blocks for national DAB use (12A, 12C & 10A). If RTÉ switched their services to DAB+ (48k HE-AACv2 ) they would only need half of the multiplex, and the remainder could be used to carry most of the BBC's national services (including Radio Ulster). The other two national blocks could be advertised as commercial licences.

Antenna

david23 wrote: »

Ireland has been allocated three blocks for national DAB use (12A, 12C & 10A). If RTÉ switched their services to DAB+ (48k HE-AACv2 ) they would only need half of the multiplex, and the remainder could be used to carry most of the BBC's national services (including Radio Ulster). The other two national blocks could be advertised as commercial licences.

RTE do not carry any BBC TV (or radio) services on Saorview (which has so far unused capacity) why on earth do you think they might do so with DAB??

exaisle

Any reason why you can't access bbc radio via the Internet?

The Parish Priest.

david23 wrote: »

It could be atmospheric conditions, including something specific to DAB known as adjacent channel interference. RTÉ is on Block 12C and the BBC is on 12B, so the signal from the RTÉ multiplex could be knocking out the reception of the BBC multiplex at your location.  

Ireland has been allocated three blocks for national DAB use (12A, 12C & 10A). If RTÉ switched their services to DAB+ (48k HE-AACv2 ) they would only need half of the multiplex, and the remainder could be used to carry most of the BBC's national services (including Radio Ulster). The other two national blocks could be advertised as commercial licences.

Are you on drugs? The Industry would never tolerate terrestrial radio carriage of the bbc national services, look at all the restrictions placed on RTE digital television thanks to lobbying from tv3

Ursus Horribilis

The atmospheric conditions might explain why my DAB radio picked up some stations (not the BBC though) when I first plugged it in. It hasn't picked up a sniff of a signal since then As far as I know, any BBC TV stations we're picking up in Ireland are an overspill from what they're broadcasting to the UK. To listen to the BBC now, I connect a phone or tablet to WiFi and use the bluetooth on the radio. It still falls into the category of faffing around but it's better than nothing .

Harry Palmr

exaisle wrote: »

Any reason why you can't access bbc radio via the Internet?

You can - BBC iplayer.

coylemj

Harry Palmr wrote: »

You can - BBC iplayer.

And a regular internet radio. I can get R2 no bother. On R5 a lot of sports events are blocked 'for licensing reasons'.

Declan A Walsh

You can also pick up all the main BBC radio stations, including 6 Music (or whatever it calls itself), on Virgin Media's digital radio on its most basic digital package (used to be UPC).