On 16/10/2017 14:15, Martin Brown wrote:

My wife has a condition affecting her hearing (frequency selective)
and balance and the consultant said she needed two aids but the NHS
would not comply, one or nowt.

That isn't correct unless it is a postcode lottery.

My father definitely had a pair on the NHS as he was profoundly deaf -
from having spent WWII at firing position on anti-aircraft guns.

My dad had a pair. He was deaf from artillery fire.

Bill

Martin Brown wrote:

On 16/10/2017 13:22, Woody wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
news
On 16/10/2017 10:27, charles wrote:


You could always get hearing aids, but having bought them you
wouldn't be
able to afford the ELSs.

The NHS digital ones are as good as any.

They are but they will only provide one and you cannot buy a second.

My wife has a condition affecting her hearing (frequency selective)
and balance and the consultant said she needed two aids but the NHS
would not comply, one or nowt.

That isn't correct unless it is a postcode lottery.

My father definitely had a pair on the NHS as he was profoundly deaf -
from having spent WWII at firing position on anti-aircraft guns.

I agree. There *may* be places where the NHS authorities try to avoid
providing two but they are in a weak position, two aids being so much
more effective than one. (Obviously not in people with normal hearing
on one side, but this is a rare problem.) If you point out that you
like listening to stereo music, or that directional hearing is important
to you for recreation or crossing the road, it is very difficult for
them to refuse. And in the case of an impasse a formal complaint may
get the decision changed.


--

Roger Hayter

Woody wrote:

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
news
On 16/10/2017 13:22, Woody wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
news On 16/10/2017 10:27, charles wrote:


You could always get hearing aids, but having bought them you
wouldn't be
able to afford the ELSs.

The NHS digital ones are as good as any.

They are but they will only provide one and you cannot buy a
second.

My wife has a condition affecting her hearing (frequency selective)
and balance and the consultant said she needed two aids but the NHS
would not comply, one or nowt.

That isn't correct unless it is a postcode lottery.

My father definitely had a pair on the NHS as he was profoundly
deaf - from having spent WWII at firing position on anti-aircraft
guns.

--

Not sure. My wife is not badly deaf - she has Menieres Disease which
causes frequency selective deafness and gradually gets worse over
time. She started with this about a decade or so ago and it has not
been too bad, but both I and son have noticed over the last year that
things do seem to be getting gradually worse.

MD also causes serious balance issues. As balance is affected by
auditory indicators the consultant said she should have two hearing
aids to maintain auditory sensing, but the NHS said because she is not
profoundly deaf she only qualifies for one aid. When asked if we could
buy the other the answer was no unless she paid full price for them
both, and as she would be paying then any treatment associated with
them would also be chargeable.

That's life I suppose.
I would suggest a formal complaint to the NHS body concerned. This is
an untenable position they are taking. You could get an expert opinion,
or just look it up on the Internet.


--

Roger Hayter

On 16/10/2017 18:13, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Huge
wrote:

If your hearing dulls, as it does with age, the source of your hi-fi
won't make any difference anyway. You'll have lost the 'hi'.

Sadly true. Now I can afford the QUAD ELS's that I've lusted after all
my life, there's no point in buying them.

I was having the same thought the other day about first growth clarets....

On 16/10/2017 17:16, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Bill Wright wrote:
On 16/10/2017 10:38, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article l.net,
Dave Liquorice wrote:
Having the telly on
consuming lots of power just to "listen to the radio" seems a bit
extravagant

And, of course, if just the telly, using it for what it does worst.
Sound. ;-)

All our tellys except one have external audio amps and speakers.
Intolerable otherwise.

Odd isn't it? Would you buy a telly that needed an external monitor to
work reasonably well? Yet many seem happy to pay a fortune for a telly
then have to buy better speakers.

Sound quality just doesn't have the same metrics. Same reason cameras
sell on megapixels and zoom ratio, even though the former wrecks the low
light noise and the latter, the IQ. Much the same for automobiles.

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 16 Oct 2017 14:41:46 +0100, Woody wrote:

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 20:46:59 +0100, Steve Walker wrote:

On 14/10/2017 19:39, Max Demian wrote:
On 14/10/2017 19:07, David wrote:

Tidying(ish) the loft I came across a very nice NAD FM stereo
tuner.

Put into storage during a house move and never taken out again;
I
don't even have an FM aerial although IIRC I have previously
had one
since the 1970s.

If I want to listen to the radio at home then I can use the
Internet
(e.g.
iPlayer) or for many radio stations I can use FreeSat or
FreeView.

So is there any real use for a stereo FM tuner any more apart
from
in a car? Perhaps also when you are camping without a mobile
phone
signal or a TV signal?

Nice pit of kit, but udder on a bull?

It does what is does. Receives FM radio, providing you have an
aerial
up to the job. Freeview requires a proper TV aerial and usually
a TV
set, though there used to be Freeview "set top" boxes with audio
output which could be connected to an audio system. DAB is OK,
if you
have a DAB radio and good enough reception. Who needs 100s of
Internet radio stations?

And there's a place for stand alone FM transistor radios, such
as
bedroom, kitchen or workshop/garage.

If and when FM is turned off, the big losses will be for drivers
whose
cars aren't fitted with DAB (and a replacement may well not look
at
all right in the dash) and stand-alone radios (that are perfect
for
DIY work, 'cos they'll work for months on one set of batteries.

SteveW

Last two cars I've had had DAB. Which I used for about 5 minutes,
before it just died.

Bugger that, still use FM. When that goes, so will listening to
radio
in the car unless DAB is improved radically.

Clearly you live in an area where DAB has not been discovered yet?

Yes, the M5 between Walsall and Worcester. Well known radio black
spot ...

Then you have a fault with your car installation. There is DAB on
Sutton Coldfield, Lickey Hills, Bromsgrove, Malvern and Ridge Hill all
of which should give some cover.



--
Woody

harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com

Woody wrote:

There is DAB on Sutton Coldfield, Lickey Hills, Bromsgrove, Malvern
and Ridge Hill all of which should give some cover.
I'm noticing more coverage blackspots being created than destroyed
lately. Overlapping transmitters creating destructive interference to
the SFN?

e.g. anywhere in about a 5 mile radius of Trowel services which used to
be fine, or a 10 mile radius of Houghton on the Hill (which used to have
a minor blackhole for about 200 yards around the local DAB transmitter).

On 16/10/2017 22:23, Andy Burns wrote:
Woody wrote:

There is DAB on Sutton Coldfield, Lickey Hills, Bromsgrove, Malvern
and Ridge Hill all of which should give some cover.
I'm noticing more coverage blackspots being created than destroyed
lately. Overlapping transmitters creating destructive interference to
the SFN?

e.g. anywhere in about a 5 mile radius of Trowel services which used to
be fine, or a 10 mile radius of Houghton on the Hill (which used to have
a minor blackhole for about 200 yards around the local DAB transmitter).

It was always known that the presence of a DAB transmitter that didn't
include the BBC national SFN would likely cause a coverage hole for that
SFN. The gap between the DAB channels is minuscule so a strong signal
from nearby was likely to wipe out an adjacent signal from further
afield. Obviously receivers vary in their ability to cope. I have two
DAB halfwave dipoles with their outputs combined. They are mounted so as
to receive signals from Clifton (1km away) exactly out of phase. Of
course only a small bandwidth is EXACTLY out of phase, so I have the
dipoles arranged to null out the middle of the strongest mux.

Bill

On 16/10/2017 18:21, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 16/10/17 15:37, Woody wrote:
"Martin Brown" wrote in message
news
On 16/10/2017 13:22, Woody wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
news
The NHS digital ones are as good as any.

They are but they will only provide one and you cannot buy a
second.

My wife has a condition affecting her hearing (frequency selective)
and balance and the consultant said she needed two aids but the NHS
would not comply, one or nowt.

That isn't correct unless it is a postcode lottery.

My father definitely had a pair on the NHS as he was profoundly
deaf - from having spent WWII at firing position on anti-aircraft
guns.

Not sure. My wife is not badly deaf - she has Menieres Disease which
causes frequency selective deafness and gradually gets worse over
time. She started with this about a decade or so ago and it has not
been too bad, but both I and son have noticed over the last year that
things do seem to be getting gradually worse.

MD also causes serious balance issues. As balance is affected by
auditory indicators the consultant said she should have two hearing
aids to maintain auditory sensing, but the NHS said because she is not
profoundly deaf she only qualifies for one aid. When asked if we could
buy the other the answer was no unless she paid full price for them
both, and as she would be paying then any treatment associated with
them would also be chargeable.

That's life I suppose.

No, thats 'socialism'.

It is a jobsworth somewhere "saving" money. Penny wise pound foolish.

If you want to make waves involving your MP and the charity that looks
after the interests of people with Menieres will probably move things
along. I'm a bit surprised a consultant cannot force the issue himself.

I know junior doctors struggle to get audiology to do anything helpful
when they have inpatients with severe hearing difficulties and need to
do physiotherapy (my mum ran into that problem). I resolved it by
calling in a personal favour from a consultant audiologist.

Either to take what he public services offer, or you pay taxes *and* pay
for private treatenent or education or WHY.

A huge number of parents can't afford full private education, but could
afford to pay for better education . But 'one size fits all' political
correctness wont allow e.g. a voucher system tradeable at ANY school.
likewise in teh NHS., the moment you go private in a given area you lose
the right to state treatment.

Not quite. Before the NHS offered digital hearing aids my father had a
pair privately (since otherwise he could hear nothing intelligible with
analogue - he could lip read pretty well though if you were facing him).

When NHS offered digital he went along with nothing and came out with a
pair of the latest generation. After that the improvements in successive
NHS digital aids pretty much kept pace with his failing hearing.

NHS aids are bigger than the private models but the signal processing is
sufficiently good that they are not noticeably inferior any more.

I suggest you get one ear done and 'lose' the aid and then say actually
this time we would like it for the other ear...

Very pragmatic and in this case I agree.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 16/10/2017 20:57, Roger Hayter wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:

On 16/10/2017 13:22, Woody wrote:
"Bill Wright" wrote in message
news On 16/10/2017 10:27, charles wrote:


You could always get hearing aids, but having bought them you
wouldn't be
able to afford the ELSs.

The NHS digital ones are as good as any.

They are but they will only provide one and you cannot buy a second.

My wife has a condition affecting her hearing (frequency selective)
and balance and the consultant said she needed two aids but the NHS
would not comply, one or nowt.

That isn't correct unless it is a postcode lottery.

My father definitely had a pair on the NHS as he was profoundly deaf -
from having spent WWII at firing position on anti-aircraft guns.

I agree. There *may* be places where the NHS authorities try to avoid
providing two but they are in a weak position, two aids being so much
more effective than one. (Obviously not in people with normal hearing
on one side, but this is a rare problem.) If you point out that you
like listening to stereo music, or that directional hearing is important
to you for recreation or crossing the road, it is very difficult for
them to refuse. And in the case of an impasse a formal complaint may
get the decision changed.

Balance is a *lot* more serious. Falls are a major source of expensive
broken bones in the elderly (especially women). I'd make waves.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
Bill Wright wrote:
On 16/10/2017 12:01, charles wrote:
In article , Bill Wright
wrote:
On 16/10/2017 10:27, charles wrote:


You could always get hearing aids, but having bought them you wouldn't
be able to afford the ELSs.

The NHS digital ones are as good as any.

possibly, but I was told they couldn't help me.

I'm sceptical of the whole industry. But what could be special about
your lug holes that could defeat the NHS yet be fixable by a private
firm, when it only comes down to frequency response after all?

possibly, but I don't know for certain, because I have a 60db notch at
4.5kHz in both ears.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

On 16/10/2017 14:41, Woody wrote:
"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
news

Bugger that, still use FM. When that goes, so will listening to
radio in
the car unless DAB is improved radically.

Clearly you live in an area where DAB has not been discovered yet?

Outside of London and the Home Counties there are wide areas where DAB
reception is at best patchy and at worst non-existent. When you do get a
DAB signal it is fit only for listening in a car with engine noise.

The only thing DAB does better is the silent gaps between performances.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:
Outside of London and the Home Counties there are wide areas where DAB
reception is at best patchy and at worst non-existent. When you do get a
DAB signal it is fit only for listening in a car with engine noise.

And the same applies to FM. And AM too. No RF coverage is ever perfect
everywhere.

However, I'd expect a car DAB radio to also have FM. Giving you the choice.

And as I keep on saying, the factory fit aerial may not be state of the
art for DAB. And the same applies to FM. With car aerials, looks seem to
be more important than performance.

--
*White with a hint of M42*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Tue, 17 Oct 2017 03:23:48 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

On 16/10/2017 22:23, Andy Burns wrote:
Woody wrote:

There is DAB on Sutton Coldfield, Lickey Hills, Bromsgrove, Malvern
and Ridge Hill all of which should give some cover.
I'm noticing more coverage blackspots being created than destroyed
lately. Overlapping transmitters creating destructive interference to
the SFN?

e.g. anywhere in about a 5 mile radius of Trowel services which used to
be fine, or a 10 mile radius of Houghton on the Hill (which used to
have a minor blackhole for about 200 yards around the local DAB
transmitter).

It was always known that the presence of a DAB transmitter that didn't
include the BBC national SFN would likely cause a coverage hole for that
SFN. The gap between the DAB channels is minuscule so a strong signal
from nearby was likely to wipe out an adjacent signal from further
afield. Obviously receivers vary in their ability to cope. I have two
DAB halfwave dipoles with their outputs combined. They are mounted so as
to receive signals from Clifton (1km away) exactly out of phase. Of
course only a small bandwidth is EXACTLY out of phase, so I have the
dipoles arranged to null out the middle of the strongest mux.

When I was a teenager, we lived in line of sight half a mile from a BBC
mast in Brighton. The BBC signal was so strong that the TV wouldn't work
on BBC. We used to unplug the antenna cable, and plug it in again for ITV.

In the end I made an inline attenuator tuned to the BBC signal.



--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

Bill Wright wrote:

It was always known that the presence of a DAB transmitter that didn't
include the BBC national SFN would likely cause a coverage hole for that
SFN.

Yes, I used to get that near Copt Oak before it carried the national
mux, and as I mentioned near Houghton on the Hill, so that's a known
effect, I don't think Houghton has started carrying the BBC mux, but
coverage is basically unlistenable for miles along the A47 East of
Leicester now.

The gap between the DAB channels is minuscule so a strong signal
from nearby was likely to wipe out an adjacent signal from further
afield. Obviously receivers vary in their ability to cope. I have two
DAB halfwave dipoles with their outputs combined. They are mounted so as
to receive signals from Clifton (1km away) exactly out of phase. Of
course only a small bandwidth is EXACTLY out of phase, so I have the
dipoles arranged to null out the middle of the strongest mux.

In article , Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:
In article , Martin Brown
wrote:
Outside of London and the Home Counties there are wide areas where DAB
reception is at best patchy and at worst non-existent. When you do get
a DAB signal it is fit only for listening in a car with engine noise.

And the same applies to FM. And AM too. No RF coverage is ever perfect
everywhere.

However, I'd expect a car DAB radio to also have FM. Giving you the
choice.

mine automatically goes to FM if DAB drops out.

And as I keep on saying, the factory fit aerial may not be state of the
art for DAB. And the same applies to FM. With car aerials, looks seem to
be more important than performance.

as the letter BBC EID once received from BL said: "The stylist choses the
location for the aerial"

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

On 17/10/2017 10:43, charles wrote:

possibly, but I don't know for certain, because I have a 60db notch at
4.5kHz in both ears.


There must be something special about that frequency. Don't they
generate it to help people with tinnitus, or something?

Bill

On 17/10/2017 10:57, Martin Brown wrote:

Outside of London and the Home Counties there are wide areas where DAB
reception is at best patchy and at worst non-existent. When you do get a
DAB signal it is fit only for listening in a car with engine noise.

Are you comparing like with like? Do you have a good DAB aerial and a
good tuner?

Bill

On 17/10/2017 12:01, Bob Eager wrote:

In the end I made an inline attenuator tuned to the BBC signal.
Are you sure you're called Eager and not Egen?

Oh and if it was tuned it would be a filter not an attenuator.

Bill

In article , Huge
scribeth thus
On 2017-10-16, Norman Wells wrote:
On 16/10/2017 03:45, Bill Wright wrote:
On 16/10/2017 00:28, wrote:

We use the freeview signal a lot as FM reception around here isn't
that good,** our TV allows you to turn the screen off completely so I
would not think there is that much in it.

It's neither 'ere nor there in the grand scheme of things, anyway. I
just don't worry about that sort of thing. I think one thing that goes
wrong in people's heads when they retire is that they start to worry
about tiny things, so I resist it.

If your hearing dulls, as it does with age, the source of your hi-fi
won't make any difference anyway. You'll have lost the 'hi'.

Sadly true. Now I can afford the QUAD ELS's that I've lusted after all
my life, there's no point in buying them.


Don't let a few years of age put of those
--
Tony Sayer

In article , Steve Walker steve@walker-
family.me.uk scribeth thus
On 14/10/2017 19:39, Max Demian wrote:
On 14/10/2017 19:07, David wrote:

Tidying(ish) the loft I came across a very nice NAD FM stereo tuner.

Put into storage during a house move and never taken out again; I don't
even have an FM aerial although IIRC I have previously had one since the
1970s.

If I want to listen to the radio at home then I can use the Internet
(e.g.
iPlayer) or for many radio stations I can use FreeSat or FreeView.

So is there any real use for a stereo FM tuner any more apart from in a
car? Perhaps also when you are camping without a mobile phone signal or a
TV signal?

Nice pit of kit, but udder on a bull?

It does what is does. Receives FM radio, providing you have an aerial up
to the job. Freeview requires a proper TV aerial and usually a TV set,
though there used to be Freeview "set top" boxes with audio output which
could be connected to an audio system. DAB is OK, if you have a DAB
radio and good enough reception. Who needs 100s of Internet radio stations?

And there's a place for stand alone FM transistor radios, such as
bedroom, kitchen or workshop/garage.

If and when FM is turned off, the big losses will be for drivers whose
cars aren't fitted with DAB (and a replacement may well not look at all
right in the dash) and stand-alone radios (that are perfect for DIY
work, 'cos they'll work for months on one set of batteries.

SteveW

Depends which bit of Ofcom you read there is no plan to switch FM
totally off.

Main reason they can't sell the FM band to anyone!
--
Tony Sayer

On Tue, 17 Oct 2017 15:44:59 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

On 17/10/2017 12:01, Bob Eager wrote:

In the end I made an inline attenuator tuned to the BBC signal.
Are you sure you're called Eager and not Egen?

Oh and if it was tuned it would be a filter not an attenuator.

Well, I guess it was a notch filter then. It attenuated at one frequency
(roughly).
--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
Sadly true. Now I can afford the QUAD ELS's that I've lusted after all
my life, there's no point in buying them.


Don't let a few years of age put of those

Quite. It's not the top couple of octaves that make a decent speaker
anyway - as they are easy to reproduce. It's the other 7 more likely to
tell a good from bad one.

--
*It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 17/10/2017 23:03, Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 17 Oct 2017 15:44:59 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

On 17/10/2017 12:01, Bob Eager wrote:

In the end I made an inline attenuator tuned to the BBC signal.
Are you sure you're called Eager and not Egen?

Oh and if it was tuned it would be a filter not an attenuator.

Well, I guess it was a notch filter then. It attenuated at one frequency
(roughly).


In very high field strength areas a snag can occur when attenuating (by
attenuator or filter) an over-strong signal on the downlead. If there's
much pick-up after the attenuator (the internal screening of some TV
sets is poor) the signal from that might be of comparable strength to
the output of the attenuator. If there's no significant difference in
path length between the two the result might be a steep notch in the
response caused by the phase relationship leading to cancellation. If
there is significant difference the result with analogue used to be
close ghosting on one side or the other. For digital reception the
result was likely to be worsened BER.

Did you get my clever 'Egen' joke?

Bill

On Wed, 18 Oct 2017 02:14:30 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

On 17/10/2017 23:03, Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 17 Oct 2017 15:44:59 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

On 17/10/2017 12:01, Bob Eager wrote:

In the end I made an inline attenuator tuned to the BBC signal.
Are you sure you're called Eager and not Egen?

Oh and if it was tuned it would be a filter not an attenuator.

Well, I guess it was a notch filter then. It attenuated at one
frequency (roughly).

In very high field strength areas a snag can occur when attenuating (by
attenuator or filter) an over-strong signal on the downlead. If there's
much pick-up after the attenuator (the internal screening of some TV
sets is poor) the signal from that might be of comparable strength to
the output of the attenuator. If there's no significant difference in
path length between the two the result might be a steep notch in the
response caused by the phase relationship leading to cancellation. If
there is significant difference the result with analogue used to be
close ghosting on one side or the other. For digital reception the
result was likely to be worsened BER.

This was long ago and analogue. All I can say is that it worked. I used
it for some years before we got a better telly!

Did you get my clever 'Egen' joke?

Yes. I used to work in an electronics shop, too...!

--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 18/10/2017 10:53, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 18 Oct 2017 02:14:30 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

On 17/10/2017 23:03, Bob Eager wrote:

This was long ago and analogue. All I can say is that it worked.

That's all that matters.

Bill

In article , Bill Wright
scribeth thus
On 16/10/2017 22:23, Andy Burns wrote:
Woody wrote:

There is DAB on Sutton Coldfield, Lickey Hills, Bromsgrove, Malvern
and Ridge Hill all of which should give some cover.
I'm noticing more coverage blackspots being created than destroyed
lately. Overlapping transmitters creating destructive interference to
the SFN?

e.g. anywhere in about a 5 mile radius of Trowel services which used to
be fine, or a 10 mile radius of Houghton on the Hill (which used to have
a minor blackhole for about 200 yards around the local DAB transmitter).

It was always known that the presence of a DAB transmitter that didn't
include the BBC national SFN would likely cause a coverage hole for that
SFN. The gap between the DAB channels is minuscule so a strong signal
from nearby was likely to wipe out an adjacent signal from further
afield. Obviously receivers vary in their ability to cope.

Bandwidth reduced a bit

Was told that by a man from Ofcom a while ago, seems that most all DAB
receivers have very wide band and wide open front ends so a more power
full local MUX can cause problems with less powerful ones in terms of
field strength...
--
Tony Sayer

When I was a teenager, we lived in line of sight half a mile from a BBC
mast in Brighton. The BBC signal was so strong that the TV wouldn't work
on BBC. We used to unplug the antenna cable, and plug it in again for ITV.

In the end I made an inline attenuator tuned to the BBC signal.




In the bad olde days of 405 line telly we used to rig a single dipole
for BBC 1, 405 line channel 2 in the days when the Cambridge gasworks
transmitter was in use and either a 8 element on Mendelsham channel 11
or a five element on Sandy heath Chanel 6


Almost anywhere in town the cable was taken from the band 3 aerial
through an empty diplexer box to the TV the cable from the band 1 aerial
was in place but left unconnected at either end. This was to save the
cost of a diplexer and the cost of an attenuator as overloading was a
problem in some parts.

Amazingly the band 3 receiver aerial worked very well at band 1
frequencies!. All channels in band 1 and 3 were horizontally polarized.

--
Tony Sayer

On 17/10/2017 12:01, Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 17 Oct 2017 03:23:48 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

On 16/10/2017 22:23, Andy Burns wrote:
Woody wrote:

There is DAB on Sutton Coldfield, Lickey Hills, Bromsgrove, Malvern
and Ridge Hill all of which should give some cover.
I'm noticing more coverage blackspots being created than destroyed
lately. Overlapping transmitters creating destructive interference to
the SFN?

e.g. anywhere in about a 5 mile radius of Trowel services which used to
be fine, or a 10 mile radius of Houghton on the Hill (which used to
have a minor blackhole for about 200 yards around the local DAB
transmitter).

It was always known that the presence of a DAB transmitter that didn't
include the BBC national SFN would likely cause a coverage hole for that
SFN. The gap between the DAB channels is minuscule so a strong signal
from nearby was likely to wipe out an adjacent signal from further
afield. Obviously receivers vary in their ability to cope. I have two
DAB halfwave dipoles with their outputs combined. They are mounted so as
to receive signals from Clifton (1km away) exactly out of phase. Of
course only a small bandwidth is EXACTLY out of phase, so I have the
dipoles arranged to null out the middle of the strongest mux.

When I was a teenager, we lived in line of sight half a mile from a BBC
mast in Brighton. The BBC signal was so strong that the TV wouldn't work
on BBC. We used to unplug the antenna cable, and plug it in again for ITV.

In the end I made an inline attenuator tuned to the BBC signal.




Where I grew up in South Wales, the Wenvoe transmitter was in clear
view about 2 miles away, but we never had any problems, unless you
wanted to watch English programs and needed a 2nd aeriel pointing
at the Mendips.

On 17/10/2017 10:57, Martin Brown wrote:
Outside of London and the Home Counties there are wide areas where DAB
reception is at best patchy and at worst non-existent.

Like West Sussex south of Billinghurst.