Has any else noticed that when the ‘pips’ go on radio 4 at the top of each hour, the DAB on their RF drops out (goes silent) for about 5 seconds, missing the headlines of the news? My car does not do that on FM radio, just DAB.
Anyone got a cure?
this happens to my car on DAB on the hour I must try on FM Cant think why though?
It’s possibly deliberate because DAB radio has a slight delay compared to FM. Perhaps it’s to prevent the “pips” being late.
That’s a thought, but I don’t think it’s the answer because a) a delay would make the problem worse, not better, and b) it’s not a delay, it’s a mute. The sound comes back on about half-way through the headlines: “pip-pip <silence…>said Theresa May in Parliament. Now, sport-” etc.
Incorrect information deleted replaced in post #7
Here’s the most plausible answer I can find.
Radio 4 broadcasts on LW, FM, Satellite, Freeview and DAB. At certain times of day different programs will be broadcast on different mediums. Stick with me here. On DAB these changes are also accompanied by changes in bit rate of the digital signal. Where a program features one person speaking into a microphone it may well be broadcast in mono at a low bit rate. Switch to a drama with music and the bit rate rises and the transmission is in stereo. It may take the receiver a few seconds to adapt to and decode the new digital data stream.
Either that or the gap next to the pips is kept clear for Gladys Knight.
As above. I’ve just been told that the “pips” are generated at the precise time, but being analogue they need to be digitally coded and decoded for DAB causing a delay, which no doubt explains why the news has already started when the signal switches back. That wouldn’t happen on the FM signal. So the only “cure” that I can see is stick to FM, while you can.
I’m sure I read some time ago that the time " pips " were going to be removed from digital broadcasts ( DAB satellite and online services ) because they would not be accurate. The whole idea of the pips is to synchronise timekeeping devices. With the delay of the various digital modes the pips are no longer accurate and therefore have no purpose, hence they are muted on digital platforms, this mute period may however run over a little.
I think that’s what it said and it makes sense to me.
D
That’s what I was told too. And it does make good sense. My guess is that the “pips” will go when the plug is pulled on BBC FM broadcasts.
no pips! wow, what about the bongs of Big Ben?
it is interesting though as you clearly notice the delay in DAB broadcast when it switched to FM as some radios do automatically when the signal is poor.
But on a slightly related note having done a couple of bits on local radio in the morning (phoning in for a moan, you know the sort of thing) you can literally put the phone down to them and then listen to yourself as the “live” breakfast programme is in fact several minutes delayed, now how they manage that around news on the hour etc. I assume they must just time it all so it works. But they must also have their clocks set in the studio so they still give an accurate time check even though its not that time for them!
I have a similar problem here Radio 4 Tweet of the day on dab at 05 55 some bird song does not come through eg high pitch low pitch does, could be me but also certain records certainly Beatles from the 60,s only seem to play either music or speech. Dab is not cracked up to be the best I think.
DAB was initially good quality as there were only a few stations broadcasting at high bit rates. As more and more stations have gone on the platform quality drops to squeeze more in. Her’s what Wikipedia says.
DAB audibly provides worse audio quality than FM in the UK because almost all stereo stations use a bit rate of 128 kbit/s or lower with the MP2 audio codec. Most commercial stations use 112 kbit/s. A bit rate of 256 kbit/s has been judged to provide a high quality stereo broadcast signal. Also, a large and growing number of music stations are only transmitting in mono. Indeed, the bit rates used by the radio stations on other digital platforms, such as cable, terrestrial and satellite are usually higher than on DAB, so the audio quality is also higher. On the other hand, an Ofcom survey, which was undertaken due to many consultation responses citing poor DAB quality, found that 94% of DAB listeners thought DAB was at least as good as FM.
Never mind the quality, feel the width; keep the advertisers happy and hear the cash registers ring.
It is well known that most people have “cloth ears” and do not care in the least about hifi - witness the majority of TVs and “hifi” systems and soundbars currently being bought and fitted randomly into an acoustically poor echoing environment. So the skew of the self-selecting sample of 94% is probably representative of how many have the “CE” symptoms, but then even 6% of them were discerning! The rest of the time most non-drivers will be listening to web stream or personal music etc.
Did they not ask non-DAB listeners why we don’t listen to it?
DAB can be OK in the car where the shortcomings are much less obvious for several reasons, including heavily compressed signals, lo-fi and high ambient noise. DAB was specifically designed for this environment, which is why it fails abysmally on Radio3 etc. And none of us in the UK will be listening to it at over about 100mph when it often fails (car speed actually matters). The one advantage of DAB is that it works well right up to the moment it breaks totally, unlike FM where the quality drops off gradually and the noise rises to eventually swamp the signal.
The commercial content providers are counting on there being more channels to enable them to “target” their audiences more closely with more advert slots. This is the real reason behind DAB - financial pressure on the airwaves squeezing away the possibility of quality.
Do I sound bitter? Yes I am, but there is nothing I can do about it, because the vested interests hold the balance of power.
I’m no expert, but I don’t think it is anything to do with the pips as mine does it on 5Live and 4Extra too and they don’t broadcast the pips. I always thought it was “feature” of DAB broadcasting.
Has this only started recently? I’ve never noticed it. It definitely shouldn’t be happening and if it’s a regular thing that multiple listeners are experiencing then they ought to find what’s wrong and fix it. I listen to DAB at work and sometimes in the car, but haven’t heard any dropouts on the hour.
Regarding the timing of the pips, encoding and decoding DAB does add a time delay (and an unpredictable one at that) but I thought they compensated by running network radio a couple of seconds fast so the pips will come through as close to time as practicable. FM is almost instantaneous so I guess they delay transmitting that for the same couple of seconds to make it correct.