Occasional Ramblings

We are presently in the middle of the change from terrestial tv to digital with some areas already switched over.

However how many of you know that the goverment also wants to do the same with radio. They have pencilled in the end of 2015 for the switch off of conventional radi0, rendering 150 million or more AM/FM radios, useless.

As an article in the Daily Mail reported "The great AM/FM radio switch-off of 2015, which is being promoted by the Government and enthusiastically supported by the electronics industry, broadcasters and electrical retailers, will cost almost every household in the country hundreds of pounds to buy brand new radios". All of the above obviously have a vested interest in this project going ahead, for their individual personal gain but is digital radio all it is made out to be?

Sound experts agree that the quality of digital is inferior quality to FM, is prone to fading in and out, is unavailable in about ten percent of the country and cannot be picked up on some roads and rural areas. As well as the cost of everyone replacing all their AM/FM radios by 2015, at a time when we are all being told to be more environmentally aware, all the old radios thrown away will have a negative impact in this area. Furthermore digital radios use a third more electricity than conventional radios which means constant recharging or replacing of batteries.

One of the most worrying aspects is the possibility of car radios turning silent at the switch over, although manafacturers are being encouraged to build new cars with digital radios as standard, but there will still be many 'older' cars on our roads when the switch over occurs, leaving drivers without weather and road reports.

You, the public can ensure that this switchover doesn't happen by not being conned by all the hype about digital radio, as this goverment idea is one of their 'aspirations' and so is not set in stone. So much so that the goverment have built in an escape clause. To quote the Daily Mail again, "the switch-off date has to be confirmed two years before it happens and can only be done when 50 per cent of radio listening is done on digital services". With digital sales quite static at present the goverment's aim looks a little overoptimistic.

So if you don't want to have to replace all your radios - including car radios - with all the cost that will involve, it's quite simple, refuse to buy a DAB radio and instead buy one of the AM/FM sets which are available.