new DAB pocket radio story

[john d hamilton]

A week ago I bought a Phillips pocket DAB radio DA1103/05, Ł39 from a Comet
store in London. It seemed quite good to me, and is small and neat, but
everytime I did a 'local' scan of the stations; it *wiped off* all the
stations that I had previously *preset*. I quite often need to do a scan
since the reception quality is very different between the front and the rear
of my house.

I took it back to Comet, the girl there became very 'fish' faced, but gave
me another one. I said i would like to test it and she said you cannot pick
up any stations in this store. So I went to the next door shop where I
could sit down, and found that this replacement set had exactly the same
problem.

I took it back and she then tried to set up the presets herself, at the
counter in the store where we were before. ( Making a lie of what she said
about not having reception in the store). But she didn't know how to do it
and declined my offer of showing her how to. Any way even more fish faced,
she then gave me a refund for the Ł39.

I later rang Phillips technical help and they said they had not encountered
this particular problem with this radio and would ring me back. They
didn't, so I rang them again, but I got the distinct impression that they
really were not that interested in any of this, and got no further ahead.

Thinking I would buy another one, I rang the nearest John Lewis Store; but
it looks like although they do sell Phillips radios they do not sell this
'particular' pocket model. The model is DA1103/5 and the software version on
it is: V.1.3.2. I think it might be a very 'recent' version since it
offers 30 presets as opposed to the generally advertised 20 presets
available.

Since John Lewis said they could not even 'order' me one of these radios,
i'm wondering if they have been having trouble with them?

So my quandry now is whether to try to locate another one, or switch to
another pocket DAB radio? Is there another pocket radio that people would
recommend; or should I best pursue another one of these Phillips? Thanks
for any advice.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <gcq1r4$u0l$1@registered.motzarella.org>,
john d hamilton <bluestar@mail.invalid> wrote:

A week ago I bought a Phillips pocket DAB radio DA1103/05, Ł39 from a
Comet store in London. It seemed quite good to me, and is small and
neat, but everytime I did a 'local' scan of the stations; it *wiped
off* all the stations that I had previously *preset*. I quite often
need to do a scan since the reception quality is very different between
the front and the rear of my house.

Surely all you need to do is take it outside so it captures all the
available muxes?

I'm not surprised it wipes the store when you re-scan - you'd normally
only need to do this if you move to a different part of the country.

--
*How do they get the deer to cross at that yellow road sign?

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[Mark Carver]

john d hamilton wrote:

A week ago I bought a Phillips pocket DAB radio DA1103/05, Ł39 from a Comet
store in London. It seemed quite good to me, and is small and neat, but
everytime I did a 'local' scan of the stations; it *wiped off* all the
stations that I had previously *preset*. I quite often need to do a scan
since the reception quality is very different between the front and the rear
of my house.

Rescaning in the same locality is pointless. Take it to a local point of good
reception, and scan there. For instance all BBC national radio stations
operate on exactly the same frequency in the UK in what's called an SFN, so
rescanning will bring back exactly the same transmission if receivable.

The only time you need to rescan a DAB receiver in the UK, is to receive new
local stations when you enter a new area, or to receive a newly launched station.


--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

 

[Whiskers]

["Followup-To:" header set to 24hoursupport.helpdesk.]
On 2008-10-11, john d hamilton <bluestar@mail.invalid> wrote:

A week ago I bought a Phillips pocket DAB radio DA1103/05, ÂŁ39 from a Comet
store in London. It seemed quite good to me, and is small and neat, but
everytime I did a 'local' scan of the stations; it *wiped off* all the
stations that I had previously *preset*. I quite often need to do a scan
since the reception quality is very different between the front and the rear
of my house.

[...]

Losing pre-sets on scanning may be a 'feature' of that particular model -
which seems remarkably cheap for the features claimed.

It wouldn't have occurred to me to re-scan in an attempt to overcome poor
reception; just go to a spot where the reception is as good as you can get
in your area (a local park, perhaps?) and scan - thereafter, if you can't
receive a particular station in a particular spot re-scanning isn't going
to help. I've never found it necessary to re-scan even when going to a
different part of the country, as far as national stations are concerned.

Pocket receivers often have rather poor aerials and don't work well
indoors or where the signal is weak - which DAB is in some places.

Some DAB receivers offer two sorts of scan: one to re-create the entire
station list, the other merely to add any new stations (and possibly
remove any no longer found). The latter sort of scan shouldn't upset your
pre-sets, but the former might well do so - although I agree that it would
be better not to if the pre-set stations are found by the new scan.

My only experience of pocket DAB receivers is a Sony XDR-M1 I've had for a
few years, which works well. I've also had good experience with Roberts
portables, although I haven't tried their pocket model.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

 

[philo]

"john d hamilton" <bluestar@mail.invalid> wrote in message
news:gcq1r4$u0l$1@registered.motzarella.org...

A week ago I bought a Phillips pocket DAB radio DA1103/05, Ł39 from a
Comet
store in London. It seemed quite good to me, and is small and neat, but
everytime I did a 'local' scan of the stations; it *wiped off* all the
stations that I had previously *preset*. I quite often need to do a scan
since the reception quality is very different between the front and the
rear
of my house.

I took it back to Comet, the girl there became very 'fish' faced, but gave
me another one. I said i would like to test it and she said you cannot
pick
up any stations in this store. So I went to the next door shop where I
could sit down, and found that this replacement set had exactly the same
problem.

I took it back and she then tried to set up the presets herself, at the
counter in the store where we were before. ( Making a lie of what she said
about not having reception in the store). But she didn't know how to do it
and declined my offer of showing her how to. Any way even more fish faced,
she then gave me a refund for the Ł39.

I later rang Phillips technical help and they said they had not
encountered
this particular problem with this radio and would ring me back. They
didn't, so I rang them again, but I got the distinct impression that they
really were not that interested in any of this, and got no further ahead.

Thinking I would buy another one, I rang the nearest John Lewis Store; but
it looks like although they do sell Phillips radios they do not sell this
'particular' pocket model. The model is DA1103/5 and the software version
on
it is: V.1.3.2. I think it might be a very 'recent' version since it
offers 30 presets as opposed to the generally advertised 20 presets
available.

Since John Lewis said they could not even 'order' me one of these radios,
i'm wondering if they have been having trouble with them?

So my quandry now is whether to try to locate another one, or switch to
another pocket DAB radio? Is there another pocket radio that people would
recommend; or should I best pursue another one of these Phillips?
Thanks
for any advice.

No sense in getting the same radio again...
time to look into something that does what you want

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I think I know what's going on here.

Barring the (real) possibility that the set is incorrectly designed, or that
the instructions are incorrect (also highly likely), you were _not_ scanning
the stations. Rather, you were _reprogramming_ the unit.

There is no inherent law of nature that requires the scanned stations to
overwrite the manually programmed settings. For example, when I press SEEK
or SCAN on my car radio, it has no effect on the memory presets.

So...

Either the set has only an "auto program" function (which you are mistaking
for a scan), or you are selecting the "auto program" function (rather than a
simple scan).

It's not surprise that the salesperson was so ignorant of electronics that
she swapped the unit rather than trying to resolve the problem.

 

[john d hamilton]

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:9fadnRrgQZcFJG3VnZ2dnUVZ_tTinZ2d@comcast.com...

I think I know what's going on here.

Barring the (real) possibility that the set is incorrectly designed, or
that
the instructions are incorrect (also highly likely), you were _not_
scanning
the stations. Rather, you were _reprogramming_ the unit.

There is no inherent law of nature that requires the scanned stations to
overwrite the manually programmed settings. For example, when I press SEEK
or SCAN on my car radio, it has no effect on the memory presets.

So...

Either the set has only an "auto program" function (which you are
mistaking
for a scan), or you are selecting the "auto program" function (rather than
a
simple scan).

Well Done again William....actually i pressed the option, wait for
it...........*Local Scan*.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

"john d hamilton" <bluestar@mail.invalid> wrote in message
news:gcqdt8$m5i$1@registered.motzarella.org...

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:9fadnRrgQZcFJG3VnZ2dnUVZ_tTinZ2d@comcast.com...

I think I know what's going on here.

Barring the (real) possibility that the set is incorrectly designed, or
that the instructions are incorrect (also highly likely), you were _not_
scanning the stations. Rather, you were _reprogramming_ the unit.

There is no inherent law of nature that requires the scanned stations to
overwrite the manually programmed settings. For example, when I press
SEEK or SCAN on my car radio, it has no effect on the memory presets.

So...

Either the set has only an "auto program" function (which you are
mistaking for a scan), or you are selecting the "auto program" function
(rather than a simple scan).

Well Done again, William... Actually, I pressed the option, wait for it...
*Local Scan*.

"Now I'm a dab at penny readings."
"They are not remarkably entertaining."

Coruscating logic cannot retroactively override poor product design.

Spock said "'Fascinating' I reserved for the unexpected." This is indeed
fascinating.

I found the owner's manual here...

http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/en/gb/consumer/cc/_onlineStoreStatus_true/_productid_DA1103_05_GB_CONSUMER/_retailStoreStatus_true/_stores_true/Portable-Radio+DA1103-05

"Batteries contain chemical substances, so they should be disposed of
properly."
So do chocolate cakes. There is only one way to dispose of chocolate cakes
properly.

After wading through the warnings (see above) about how I might electrocute
the dog if I pressed the wrong button, etc, I found that the only way one
can store (or clear) a station is by pressing the Preset button. There's
nothing in the instructions about any automatic storage. Nor does it seem
possible to preset more than one station at time. Once you've

I'm stumped. Wish I could see the thing. Unless you're doing something
Really Weird, it looks as if there's some Really Bad Code in the system
controller. I would go to the Philips site and let them know you're mad as
hell, and you're not going to this any more!

PS: "Local" Scan? How is it different from a "Full" scan? Do they mean
scanning all the blocks? What makes any particular block "local"? Inquiring
minds want to know!

 

[Brian Gaff]

I've noticed that say, if you change areas you can lose presets on many dab
radios. Its a difficult one, as they are not really lying about it, they are
just not saying the software has a drawback if you rescan you have to re
store the presets.

I was thinking when you first said it was a pocket model that there have
been poor reception problems with dab. Most people are familiar with the
boiling mud effect you can get if signal is low, but some sets do rescan if
they get very low signals that this can confuse the heck out of users.

Dab is a bit of a flop for quality and coverage in my view.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff - briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"john d hamilton" <bluestar@mail.invalid> wrote in message
news:gcq1r4$u0l$1@registered.motzarella.org...

A week ago I bought a Phillips pocket DAB radio DA1103/05, Ł39 from a
Comet store in London. It seemed quite good to me, and is small and neat,
but everytime I did a 'local' scan of the stations; it *wiped off* all the
stations that I had previously *preset*. I quite often need to do a scan
since the reception quality is very different between the front and the
rear of my house.

I took it back to Comet, the girl there became very 'fish' faced, but gave
me another one. I said i would like to test it and she said you cannot
pick up any stations in this store. So I went to the next door shop where
I could sit down, and found that this replacement set had exactly the same
problem.

I took it back and she then tried to set up the presets herself, at the
counter in the store where we were before. ( Making a lie of what she said
about not having reception in the store). But she didn't know how to do it
and declined my offer of showing her how to. Any way even more fish faced,
she then gave me a refund for the Ł39.

I later rang Phillips technical help and they said they had not
encountered this particular problem with this radio and would ring me
back. They didn't, so I rang them again, but I got the distinct
impression that they really were not that interested in any of this, and
got no further ahead.

Thinking I would buy another one, I rang the nearest John Lewis Store; but
it looks like although they do sell Phillips radios they do not sell this
'particular' pocket model. The model is DA1103/5 and the software version
on it is: V.1.3.2. I think it might be a very 'recent' version since it
offers 30 presets as opposed to the generally advertised 20 presets
available.

Since John Lewis said they could not even 'order' me one of these radios,
i'm wondering if they have been having trouble with them?

So my quandry now is whether to try to locate another one, or switch to
another pocket DAB radio? Is there another pocket radio that people would
recommend; or should I best pursue another one of these Phillips?
Thanks for any advice.

 

[drewdawg]

"john d hamilton" <bluestar@mail.invalid> wrote in message
news:gcq1r4$u0l$1@registered.motzarella.org...

A week ago I bought a Phillips pocket DAB radio DA1103/05, Ł39 from a
Comet
store in London. It seemed quite good to me, and is small and neat, but
everytime I did a 'local' scan of the stations; it *wiped off* all the
stations that I had previously *preset*. I quite often need to do a scan
since the reception quality is very different between the front and the
rear
of my house.

I'm not sure if the DA1103/05 has this feature but my Zenith DTT901

(American HDTV receiver) has both an "Auto Tune" and an "EZ add" scan
function.

Auto Tune does what you described in wiping the presets clean and setting
all channels receivable in that scan.

EZ add leaves the presets as they are and adds to them channels received in
that scan.

For my unit I can scan channels with my aerial facing west (Baltimore) and
add channels while its facing north (Philadelphia).

Not all receivers do this (my Sylvania doesn't) so there may be a DAB out
there with this handy feature.

Good luck. ;-)

 

[Whiskers]

On 2008-10-11, ian field <gangprobing.alien@ntlworld.com> wrote:

[...]

I read somewhere that some Scandinavian countries have scrapped DAB because
reception is so unreliable.

Not what <http://www.worlddab.org/> seem to think.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <C69Ik.46571$I31.46303@newsfe24.ams2>,
ian field <gangprobing.alien@ntlworld.com> wrote:

I read somewhere that some Scandinavian countries have scrapped DAB
because reception is so unreliable.

It's not been terribly popular anywhere as it offers little over FM for
the majority of listeners. Indeed in the UK the bit rate is so low the
quality can be poorer - on most stations. The other thing is battery life
is poor on a portable receiver.

It does work pretty well for mobile reception, though, like in a car, in
reasonable signal areas - but very few makers offered DAB as OEM. And
aftermarket units are expensive - as are decent aerials.

--
*It's not hard to meet expenses... they're everywhere.

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[Andy Cuffe]

On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:57:54 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
<grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

I'm stumped. Wish I could see the thing. Unless you're doing something
Really Weird, it looks as if there's some Really Bad Code in the system
controller. I would go to the Philips site and let them know you're mad as
hell, and you're not going to this any more!

PS: "Local" Scan? How is it different from a "Full" scan? Do they mean
scanning all the blocks? What makes any particular block "local"? Inquiring
minds want to know!

Bad designs like this seem to be normal these days. If it works at
all, they consider it finished and move on to the next product. I
doubt Philips will care since they probably had nothing to do with the
actual design of the radio.
Andy Cuffe

acuffe@gmail.com

 

[Ken]

On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:43:58 +0100, "ian field"
<gangprobing.alien@ntlworld.com> wrote:

I read somewhere that some Scandinavian countries have
scrapped DAB because reception is so unreliable.

Not true. Old DAB is too inefficient.
I think DAB+ will be the future here.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <mc63f4t262ve962v0l4vt8rvh5n4mi9ar1@4ax.com>,
Ken <ken_3@telia.com> wrote:

I read somewhere that some Scandinavian countries have
scrapped DAB because reception is so unreliable.

Not true. Old DAB is too inefficient.
I think DAB+ will be the future here.

I wouldn't be too sure. DAB+ may have a more modern codec etc but isn't
compatible with the present system. I think consumer resistance will make
it a dead duck. There is little demand for high quality radio - and for
those that really want it in the UK they already can get most of the same
stations on FreeView or Satellite.

--
*No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes *

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[Whiskers]

On 2008-10-12, Dave Plowman (News) <dave@davenoise.co.uk> wrote:

In article <mc63f4t262ve962v0l4vt8rvh5n4mi9ar1@4ax.com>,
Ken <ken_3@telia.com> wrote:
I read somewhere that some Scandinavian countries have
scrapped DAB because reception is so unreliable.

Not true. Old DAB is too inefficient.
I think DAB+ will be the future here.

I wouldn't be too sure. DAB+ may have a more modern codec etc but isn't
compatible with the present system. I think consumer resistance will make
it a dead duck. There is little demand for high quality radio - and for
those that really want it in the UK they already can get most of the same
stations on FreeView or Satellite.

As I understand it, transmitters can carry both DAB and DAB+, and some
receivers can cope with both. But there is now a significant number of
receivers which can only manage 'original' DAB, and broadcasters are
likely to be reluctant to broadcast their content using both standards at
once, or to broadcast only in DAB+ while few people can listen to it.
Listers would be pretty peeved if required to scrap all the new DAB
receivers we've bought by the million over the last five years or so.

While 'audiophiles' might be prepared to buy new equipment to get 'better'
sound reproduction, most people just want something 'good enough' - which
DAB manifestly is. I'm listening to Radio 4 as I type: "Varied Speech" at
"128kbps Stereo" which sounds fine to me (on a Roberts MP23). Radio 3
probably justifies the 192kbps Stereo it gets, but most stations are Mono
and many only get 80kbps and don't seem any the worse for it. I just
don't expect, or even want, a 'concert hall experience' in my kitchen or
bedroom, or even the living-room, and certainly not in the car.

BBC podcasts and streams all seem to be at 64kbps.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I wouldn't be too sure. DAB+ may have a more-modern
codec etc, but isn't compatible with the present system.
I think consumer resistance will make it a dead duck.
There is little demand for high-quality radio...

In the US, digital radio is transmitted in-band, on both the FM (VHF) _and_
AM (MW) bands. I don't much care for the sound of it -- even at 96kbps, it
sounds rather flat, squashed, and airless -- but it works without requiring
a new band. And the sound quality of the BBC and other auxiliary "talk"
channels is acceptable.

Sony has an HD digital tuner (XDR-F1HD) using Philips chips that has simply
incredible performance. In terms of sensitivity, separation, and distortion,
it blows away (by a wide margin) the best conventional tuners costing
thousands of dollars -- and it retails for $100. (That's not a mistype.) I
got mine for $50, using an iBiquity.rebate. (iBiquity is the company that
developed this system. It's called "HD", which is supposed to mean "hybrid
digital" (as the digital data are transmitted along with the analog), but
the name conveniently suggests "high definition", which the sound
most-definitely is not.)

You can see my review ("HD is lossy compression -- what did you expect?") --
and others -- here:

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B00168Q248/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_next_3?%5Fencoding=UTF8&pageNumber=3&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

There has been talk about opening a VHF band with truly uncompromised
digital transmission. But it's unlikely this will ever occur, as people will
not be willing to replace existing tuners and receivers.

 

[Ken]

On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:01:49 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
<dave@davenoise.co.uk> wrote:

I read somewhere that some Scandinavian countries have
scrapped DAB because reception is so unreliable.

Not true. Old DAB is too inefficient.
I think DAB+ will be the future here.

I wouldn't be too sure. DAB+ may have a more modern codec etc but isn't
compatible with the present system. I think consumer resistance will make
it a dead duck. There is little demand for high quality radio - and for
those that really want it in the UK they already can get most of the same
stations on FreeView or Satellite.

We would never start using the old DAB in Sweden and Finland,
that's for sure. DAB+ or something more modern is the future.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <btq3f4hgqibhef4lbqvr1goc38tcaeglt3@4ax.com>,
Ken <ken_3@telia.com> wrote:

I wouldn't be too sure. DAB+ may have a more modern codec etc but
isn't compatible with the present system. I think consumer resistance
will make it a dead duck. There is little demand for high quality
radio - and for those that really want it in the UK they already can
get most of the same stations on FreeView or Satellite.

We would never start using the old DAB in Sweden and Finland,
that's for sure. DAB+ or something more modern is the future.

Easy to be wise with hindsight. I first heard demonstrations of the
present UK DAB system in the '80s, and transmissions started shortly
afterwards. There will always be better technology just round the corner.

--
*Speak softly and carry a cellular phone *

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

 

[DAB sounds worse than FM]

"Whiskers" <catwheezel@operamail.com> wrote in message
news:slrngf2a0q.gib.catwheezel@ID-107770.user.individual.net

On 2008-10-11, ian field <gangprobing.alien@ntlworld.com> wrote:

[...]

I read somewhere that some Scandinavian countries have scrapped DAB
because reception is so unreliable.

Not what <http://www.worlddab.org/> seem to think.

WorldDMB are liars.

For example, if you go to the WorldDMB home page and hover your mouse
over the word "DAB+", it says that the system is backwardly compatible
with DAB. But the opposite is in fact true, and I've asked WorldDMB to
tell the truth and correct their website, but they've done nothing.

The President of WorldDMB is Quetin Howard, the ex-chief exec (before
being sacked) of Digital One, who lied on BBC TV:

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/articles/President-of-WorldDMB-was-dishonest-about-DAB+-on-BBC-TV.php

and he basically lies whenever he feels like it.



--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

The adoption of DAB was the most incompetent technical
decision ever made in the history of UK broadcasting:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/dab/incompetent_adoption_of_dab.htm