DAB radios

[MagsAlan]

The Status aerial on our van has recently given up the ghost. We're not overly bothered about losing the tv aspect as we have both a portable satellite system( which I have yet to learn how to use

) and a pole mounted aerial option for use in the uk and, as more of the country goes digital, we can get radio from the tv should we wish to.
However, we are shortly going to France on holiday and one of the things I have enjoyed in the past is to listen to the French radio channels whilst pottering around at the van, which obviously I wont be able to do via the van radio (we dont take the tv with us).
Am I right in thinking our DAB radio from home wont work over there?

 

[ValA.]

We have a 'Wind-up' radio (Trevor Baylis type) which works fine in our van for occasional French radio listening (and the wind-up also makes sure that it's never left on to annoy your neighbours whilst you're out!). We usually listen to the music channels - RFM, Nostalgie, or Bleu............ (area you're in) which are music channels with some French and some older English pop music from our generation! We like to pick up a littel international news from the short newsbreaks - just enough to keep you interested without you having enough detail to worry about things like the economy, the Health Service, or the 'State of the Nation'! We also, occasionally, when we've got our 'French ears' tuned in, listen to Culture!
Why might your van radio not work?
Having said all that, this year we were able to listen to our Belgian neighbour's radio which was on all day from 7.00 am until 10.30 pm - we moved sites!

 

[MagsAlan]

Hi Val. The van radio wont work because it was (is) connected to the Status aerial. It was the radio not working that alerted us to the fact the aerial was faulty because at the time our tv was using the bollard booster. Our mobile engineer said he could instal a radio aerial for us but it doesnt seem worth it for the 3 weeks or so that we are not in the uk since we either use the tv radio channels or the DAB radio here.
Perhaps i'll take our radio alarm clock with us, just to be sure.
Gosh, my 'french ears' dont tune in well enough to listen to culture, lol its all i can manage to ask for what i want in the shop and understand the reply lol
Just 12 more sleeps to go then its off to Oxford for the night before the ferry the following afternoon.

 

[ValA.]

Sorry, Yes, I should have read your post properly! We took our Status aerial off because we never use a television, and I didn't realise it 'did' radio too! Our wind-up is fine, so I suspect any cheap little radio will do the trick.

 

[MartinLeFour]

Your UK DAB radio won't work over here, it's not tuned right or something, car radios work fine and I can get internet radio fine.

Martin.

 

[MagsAlan]

Thanks for the confirmation Martin.

 

[NickinFrance]

DAB radio in France is very much in it's infancy & only available in a very few areas, it's a different system to UK DAB, so a UK DAB radio won't work here anyway (unlike Digital TV which is the same in both countries).
Normal VHF radios will work for many years to come in France.

 

[Woody3]

DAB radio in France is very much in it's infancy & only available in a very few areas, it's a different system to UK DAB, so a UK DAB radio won't work here anyway (unlike Digital TV which is the same in both countries).
Normal VHF radios will work for many years to come in France.

Not quite. DAB is the same wherever except that DAB in Europe started, stopped, and has no restarted in some places but using DAB+. If your DAB radio is less than about 12-18 months old and is not a cheapy then it may - only may - work, check the manufacturer's web site.
However, as Nick says above, coverage is very limited, and some areas (notably was France first time round) use the frequencies allocated around 1450MHz (or L-band) as against 220MHz used here and in most places. At the end of the day you will be far better off sticking to FM (or MW/LW for that matter in France.)

 

[MagsAlan]

thanks to everyone. Will be taking a 'Normal' radio with us.......6 more sleeps and counting lol

 

[NickinFrance]

Not quite. DAB is the same wherever

The offical French system is DMB-A with some DAB+ (http://www.worlddab.org/country_information/france)

 

[Woody3]

I stand corrected. I am a mobile radio engineer of 40+ years recently getting more involved with radio and TV broadcasting in the UK and despite a lifelong interest in radio I have never heard of DMB. I suppose I should say trust France to be different!

Having said that I notice that there is only one proposed DMB-only station, the 53 others being simulcast. This obviously leaves (a) the option for France to pull DMB and go DAB+ where the rest of Europe/the World seems to be heading and (b) because manufacturers make for a world market these days and chipsets are available, most radios will be DAB/DAB+/DMB compatible (especially those in cars) so there will be no issue of built-in obsolescence. In the UK we are still installing DAB and the majority of portable radios available are not DAB+ or DMB compatible (they are even software doctored so they won't handle bit rates above 192K) so when the UK broadcasters do decide they have to adopt DAB+ to stop the price of digital radios going through the roof because we are the only users, there will be millions of obsolete radios to be scrapped (who mentioned Green?) and a few million more very disgruntled former users!