DAB+ stations showing on my Ye Olde Ancient DAB radio

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  • When I noticed a station I was pretty sure had moved from a DAB to DAB+ multiplex on my old radio, I did a Full Rescan and a Prune and it wasn't only still there but more DAB+ stations are now listing in the Station List.

    They don't tune in, of course, but it's still bizarre.

    All I can assume is that the Station List for some of the DAB+ stations is (mistakenly?) hosted on a main DAB multiplex. It's not the full list of DAB+ stations so it's only showing stations from one of the DAB+ multiplexes. There's a DAB+ in the car, so I know what's available here.

    Unless some engineer made a mistake, or my DAB radio implements something in a non-standard way I can't see the logic of showing stations you can't receive? Maybe they reckon it will encourage people to upgrade?

  • DAB+ services co-exist with original DAB, they just need additional codecs to work. So they will be listed on old DAB radios.

    Originally DAB+ was classed as data by Ofcom so each DAB ensemble (multiplex) had to keep DAB+ services within the allowed data percentage. That regulation has now been relaxed. DAB+ services didn't need to be on a unique ensemble, although some of the new ultra local ensembles may launch as DAB+ only.

  • Odd that it's only just showing up now for me, I'm pretty sure there has been DAB+ available here for quite some time, but this Ye Olde DAB radio has never listed them before.

    Only recently got a DAB+ tuner so I wasn't sure what was receivable here.

  • The number of DAB+ stations has increased quite a lot over the last few weeks with Digital One now using the format and SDL increasing the number of DAB+ services. The BBC ensemble and Bauer locals still haven't made the leap to DAB+.

    Maybe you didn't notice the few original DAB+ services on SDL or perhaps you aren't / weren't in an SDL coverage area.

  • The old set isn't picking up Sound Digital, it has always picked up Digital One.

    I wasn't aware Digital One had switched partly to DAB+.

    Given D1 was "full", what stations did they "close" to fit the DAB+ ones in? Or, probably easier to answer, how many did they "close"?

    As DAB+ is much more efficient I probably haven't had my number of stations drastically reduced. I certainly don't notice much change in the numbers, although the lineup has changed again.

    The car radio picks up Sound Digital, but it is rather intermittent, so there is a transmitter somewhere for it locally.

  • It's weird how the brain works. I knew the Sound Digital multiplex was DAB and DAB+, I remember reading it, but for some reason at no point (I recall) did my mind realise:

    a) if coverage comes to my area my old DAB radio could potentially receive it

    b) that the way DAB/DAB+ worked meant that the existing multiplexes could host both

    8o:D

  • The old set isn't picking up Sound Digital, it has always picked up Digital One.

    I wasn't aware Digital One had switched partly to DAB+.

    Given D1 was "full", what stations did they "close" to fit the DAB+ ones in? Or, probably easier to answer, how many did they "close"?

    As DAB+ is much more efficient I probably haven't had my number of stations drastically reduced. I certainly don't notice much change in the numbers, although the lineup has changed again.

    The car radio picks up Sound Digital, but it is rather intermittent, so there is a transmitter somewhere for it locally.

    http://www.wohnort.org/DAB/uknat.html#D1

    That might help. Wohnort is always useful if you are wanting to track changes on the DAB ensembles.

  • http://www.wohnort.org/DAB/uknat.html#D1

    That might help. Wohnort is always useful if you are wanting to track changes on the DAB ensembles.

    Very interesting. Thanks.

    There's a big gap between 2007 lineup and August 2019 lineup, so I can't be sure if any other services were axed prior to Aug '19.

    However since Aug'19 Capital Xtra and then later RadioX were removed from DAB to make room for DAB+ services on D1.

    I was under the impression that D1 was full with DAB services at one point so to have the 5 DAB+ services (plus room to spare) listed in Aug'19 then at least two Old DAB streams must have been axed, or bitrates reduced on existing ones.

  • They retain the most significant changes on the graphical layout and it covers the period when packet data was used to provide TV services to some mobile phones etc. Some of the services transferred to SDL when it started and you will see those on the SDL listing.

    All of the changes will be in the update log http://www.wohnort.org/DAB/ but it's worldwide so will take a bit of searching. Older changes will be in the archive section.

    Recently some services have transferred from DAB mono to DAB+ stereo which makes room for extra services.

  • They retain the most significant changes on the graphical layout and it covers the period when packet data was used to provide TV services to some mobile phones etc. Some of the services transferred to SDL when it started and you will see those on the SDL listing.

    That makes sense.


    Also, I'd forgotten about the Mobile TV services being via DAB frequencies.

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