R3 sound quality in Scotland

[Guest]

Do any of you listen to R3, north of Dundee? I would be grateful for your comments on the quality of the received sound, from FM, freeview, and Sounds on line.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Do any of you listen to R3, north of Dundee? I would be grateful for your comments on the quality of the received sound, from FM, freeview, and Sounds on line.

I was listening on FM air In Devon and the sound quality was poor - distorted. It’s a phenomenon associated with high pressure . I also wonder whether they e reduced the signal strength. It might also be that my external FM aerial has been damaged.

[Beresford]

I would be grateful for your comments on the quality of the received sound, from FM, freeview, and Sounds on line.

Last I heard was that R3 had been removed from Freeview in Scotland.

[Dave2002]

Do any of you listen to R3, north of Dundee? I would be grateful for your comments on the quality of the received sound, from FM, freeview, and Sounds on line.

We are way north of Dundee. Via BBC sounds it's usually not too bad, though I'd need to make an effort to listen carefully. FM is often poor or unavailable - which it needn't be. DAB sometimes sounds really terrible - which has made me suspect the feed into the distribution network, rather than the network itself.

However, mostly our listening patterns have changed over the last few years. Almost all of our radio and TV is now by online distribution. Satellite TV is possible, but generally nowadays online is good enough for TV, and if we want high quality sound we'd probably listen to CDs.

[smittims]

Sorry I can't help with Scotland, but I have found FM reception can vary remarkably over quite short distances. Last year we enlarged our house and my FM receiver is in a different room in the 'new' art of the house. FM reception was getting worse and worse over many years , but in the new room it's almost as good as DAB.

Remember Brian Johnston used to say 'try turning the radio round ...'?

I find Long Wave is better these days . I use it for Radio 4. I have an idea it uses less electricity than DAB.

[Dave2002]

I find Long Wave is better these days . I use it for Radio 4. I have an idea it uses less electricity than DAB.

Possibly, but the amp and loudspeaker in your set will probably be dominant factors.

If all you have to worry about is the electricity for your radio you're doing fine!

[smittims]

Thanks, Dave.You have brightened my day!

[jayne lee wilson]

I was listening on FM air In Devon and the sound quality was poor - distorted. It’s a phenomenon associated with high pressure . I also wonder whether they e reduced the signal strength. It might also be that my external FM aerial has been damaged.

This should be visually observable, surely?
But what matters most is the size of the aerial itself, to some extent the design as well. I have an 8-element Triax for FM (which, because of its vertical/horizontal polarised combined design worked very well for DAB with viterbi error rates of 0 or 1) until I abandoned that poor-sounding betrayal of a carrier. Anyone ever hear DAB at 256kbps stereo? Not bad at all then...if only we'd had that early on, with future-proofing for DAB+...still, the streams now rule the world for sound.

A storm, then a Magpie, reduced the Triax to 7.5, but with no audible effect on reception; nor did high pressure ever affect it either. It is always wise to disconnect it during a thunderstorm though!
Originally I had a 4-element, this was good but prone to increase in white noise on wider-dynamic range FM, when this was still less compressed on evening relays with Optimod switched off. 60 km distant from Holme Moss, weather effects were rare, birdies very quaint vagrants. But with the Triax, even a Leak Troughline was fully quieted (if not exactly "quiet" itself....

With portables or Table Radios, well-extended telescopic aerials usually give superior results to bits of wire (even if they're over the curtain rail....)..

[Old Grumpy]

Last I heard was that R3 had been removed from Freeview in Scotland.

All output will be going to online only according to the DG:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/dec/07/bbc-will-go-online-only-by-2030s-says-director-general

[Dave2002]

All output will be going to online only according to the DG:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...rector-general

How is that going to work for mobile users?

[Dave2002]

This should be visually observable, surely?
But what matters most is the size of the aerial itself, to some extent the design as well. I have an 8-element Triax for FM (which, because of its vertical/horizontal polarised combined design worked very well for DAB with viterbi error rates of 0 or 1) until I abandoned that poor-sounding betrayal of a carrier. Anyone ever hear DAB at 256kbps stereo? Not bad at all then...if only we'd had that early on, with future-proofing for DAB+...still, the streams now rule the world for sound.

A storm, then a Magpie, reduced the Triax to 7.5, but with no audible effect on reception; nor did high pressure ever affect it either. It is always wise to disconnect it during a thunderstorm though!
Originally I had a 4-element, this was good but prone to increase in white noise on wider-dynamic range FM, when this was still less compressed on evening relays with Optimod switched off. 60 km distant from Holme Moss, weather effects were rare, birdies very quaint vagrants. But with the Triax, even a Leak Troughline was fully quieted (if not exactly "quiet" itself....

With portables or Table Radios, well-extended telescopic aerials usually give superior results to bits of wire (even if they're over the curtain rail....)..

Are you still using aerials connected to either FM or even DAB? I always liked the sound from our FM tuner (JVC TX55) in house-2, but when we moved and I wanted an aerial for FM and also DAB the cost seemed prohibitive, so never bothered. I never got hiss free reception on FM after that. Someone living way up north - though perhaps south of where I am now - sent me a recording made from his FM tuner, which was surprisingly good - with virtually no audible hiss. However that was years ago, before the BBC wanted to shut off FM, and it may be that good FM is now effectively impossible. Occasionally I have thought of resurrecting the old kit, and maybe getting an aerial or two put up, but the cost and effort now seem to be a significant deterrent.

We have given up on broadcast TV more or less completely - could never get it to work here - though I know some people have had installers who made it work.

[jayne lee wilson]

I've always used FM for Radio 4, especially my date-radio of Any-Q and Any-A on Friday/Saturday, and the newscasts.

I abandoned DAB around 2004 or 2005.
Back in 2003, I realised a dream of getting a Magnum Dynalab Tuner (the MD-100) which still could sound wonderful for The Proms and live relays then as Optimod wasn't employed 24/7. But once that happened, I kept the MD on as a reference for the Radio 3 HD Stream, as despite the compressed dynamics, it could offer fine sound otherwise - and still does (in terms of naturalness, timbre etc.), so long as the aerial is good enough. A lovely piece of kit, I'm too fond of it not to use it, at least for Radio 4. For Radio 3 it's always the 320kbps stream (still a rare level for web-radio anywhere); I wouldn't buy (or resurrect) an FM tuner, let alone a large roof array, now though.

TV is either satellite or streaming...

[Dave2002]

One thing I don't know is whether the on demand replays are better or worse than the live output. I listened to the Strauss Tod und Verklarung twice tonight, once as it happened, and then later. If the data was exactly the same then it should have sounded very similar, but it's possible that the on demand servers do something to the data stream which reduces the quality somehow. I have a very slight suspicion that there is a quality loss - but it's very hard to be sure. After all I don't know the particular form of on demand data management which the BBC is using for R3 or any of its output. There's quite a range of possibilities.

[Old Grumpy]

How is that going to work for mobile users?

5G? (you gotta, aintcha?)

[Dave2002]

5G? (you gotta, aintcha?)

I couldn't even get a signal earlier today, and I doubt that 5G was available anywhere within several miles.

I assume your laughing face is agreeing with my observations.