El Saif Posted October 31, 2017 Posted October 31, 2017 Canberra has now gone from 18 to 19 DAB+ stations with the addition of Coles Radio this month.
McDigital Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 G'day El Saif, How long has Coles Radio been on for? Apparently a press release that came out TODAY says that it has "Just launched" along with ELF Radio
danTheMan1503560646 Posted December 23, 2017 Posted December 23, 2017 96FM in Perth now appears to be 28kbps!! Wow, they used to be an example for the others when they were at ~120k.
ron12 Posted December 26, 2017 Posted December 26, 2017 On 11/07/2017 at 10:11 AM, Ron12 said: Meanwhile in Melborune, Light FM joins Light Digital on DAB+, however currently it's just a rebroadcast of Light Digital. Light FM on DAB+ is now carrying Light FM's programs. Light Christmas is also on the air for the festive season.
andyr Posted December 27, 2017 Posted December 27, 2017 On 12/7/2016 at 1:03 AM, MLXXX said: I see that several years' worth of posts are missing from the beginning of this thread. For reference, there was a predecessor thread to this one, the last post of which was this: Tonight, in Brisbane, I performed a rescan with my Roberts ecologic 4 DAB+ radio. Below are the service names, together with the nominal bitrate for each service, as displayed by the radio. (I found the three Coles services at 16kbps interesting. I had not heard such low nominal bitrates before on DAB+.) ABC Classic FM - 80kbps I see ABC Classic FM is 80kbps. How does that compare wrt FR, relative to their FM broadcast? Andy
MLXXX Posted December 27, 2017 Posted December 27, 2017 1 hour ago, andyr said: I see ABC Classic FM is 80kbps. How does that compare wrt FR, relative to their FM broadcast? Andy The term Frequency Response is not readily applied to a codec that uses Spectral Band Replication. The ABC uses the codec HE-AAC v1 for the DAB+ broadcast of Classic FM; that is to say a core encoding using AAC, supplemented by bursts of treble using the SBR process. (SBR was developed to improve the subjective sound quality at medium and low bitrates, compared with using plain AAC.) Although the audio stream sample rate for DAB+ broadcasting is nominally 48kbps, only 24kbps is used for the core audio if the SBR option is engaged. So in theory up to the Nyquist limit (12kHz) could be encoded normally for the core AAC audio. In practice it would need to be somewhat less to allow for practical filters. The FM broadcast would use an upper cut-off of 15kHz for the stereo program material in accordance with usual practice. Subjectively The two broadcasts sound quite different in terms of timbre. The frequency response is by no means the same in the mid-range. Also there appear to be differences in the extent of dynamic range compression. At first blush, the DAB+ broadcast sounds superior, with its extended low frequency response, bright sounding treble, and its comparatively very low noise floor. However even very casual comparison with ordinary quality loudspeaker systems can reveal that the extended high frequency response of the DAB+ broadcast is artificial. (I personally find that the sibilants of human speech sound a bit like computer generated speech; and the tone of an opera singer or of a solo violin loses its character for the uppermost frequencies. I much prefer the FM transmission in relation to the higher frequencies.) As for mid and low frequencies, these are compromised in the DAB+ broadcast by the limited bitrate available to encode them. I'd note that 80kbps is only the nominal figure for the bitrate of the ABC Classic FM DAB+ service. From that must be deducted an overhead used for error correction.There is then typically a further amount set aside for text and graphics. When I checked these figures in April 2017 using software that dissected the stream into its components, this is what I found: It appears that at the time I was receiving the nominal 80kbps broadcast, around 7.5kbps was used for overheads involving error correction, around 8.4kbps was used for "Program Associated Data" including in this case text (the weather forecast and station slogan) and an image (a slide showing the ABC logo); and around 64.1kbps was used for the HE-AAC v1 audio. So although the DAB+ version will have the capacity for a more extended high frequency response, that extended capacity relies on the Spectral Band Replication component of the encoding. People will differ in their subjective response to the sound. It certainly is bright, but for some listeners the high frequencies will sound artificial and somewhat bland, and be less satisfying to listen to than the FM version of the broadcast. Opinions expressed about this on DTV Forum some years ago, varied. 1
andyr Posted December 27, 2017 Posted December 27, 2017 10 hours ago, MLXXX said: The term Frequency Response is not readily applied to a codec that uses Spectral Band Replication. The ABC uses the codec HE-AAC v1 for the DAB+ broadcast of Classic FM; that is to say a core encoding using AAC, supplemented by bursts of treble using the SBR process. (SBR was developed to improve the subjective sound quality at medium and low bitrates, compared with using plain AAC.) Although the audio stream sample rate for DAB+ broadcasting is nominally 48kbps, only 24kbps is used for the core audio if the SBR option is engaged. So in theory up to the Nyquist limit (12kHz) could be encoded normally for the core AAC audio. In practice it would need to be somewhat less to allow for practical filters. The FM broadcast would use an upper cut-off of 15kHz for the stereo program material in accordance with usual practice. Subjectively The two broadcasts sound quite different in terms of timbre. The frequency response is by no means the same in the mid-range. Also there appear to be differences in the extent of dynamic range compression. At first blush, the DAB+ broadcast sounds superior, with its extended low frequency response, bright sounding treble, and its comparatively very low noise floor. However even very casual comparison with ordinary quality loudspeaker systems can reveal that the extended high frequency response of the DAB+ broadcast is artificial. (I personally find that the sibilants of human speech sound a bit like computer generated speech; and the tone of an opera singer or of a solo violin loses its character for the uppermost frequencies. I much prefer the FM transmission in relation to the higher frequencies.) As for mid and low frequencies, these are compromised in the DAB+ broadcast by the limited bitrate available to encode them. I'd note that 80kbps is only the nominal figure for the bitrate of the ABC Classic FM DAB+ service. From that must be deducted an overhead used for error correction.There is then typically a further amount set aside for text and graphics. When I checked these figures in April 2017 using software that dissected the stream into its components, this is what I found: So although the DAB+ version will have the capacity for a more extended high frequency response, that extended capacity relies on the Spectral Band Replication component of the encoding. People will differ in their subjective response to the sound. It certainly is bright, but for some listeners the high frequencies will sound artificial and somewhat bland, and be less satisfying to listen to than the FM version of the broadcast. Opinions expressed about this on DTV Forum some years ago, varied. Thanks very much, MLXXX, for the detailed response. I am in the process of getting the DAB+ module in my Sangean tuner replaced - so will shortly be able to listen to both and make up my own mind. Andy
El Saif Posted January 2, 2018 Posted January 2, 2018 (edited) There are the Sydney DAB+ stations as at 30 December 2017 2CH 1170 2Day FM 2GB 2MFM 2OOO 2RPH 2SER 2SM 2UE LIFE ABC Clas ABC Jazz ABC NEWS ABC SYD ABCCntry ABCExtra ABCGstd ABCNewsR ABCRNat Arabic24 BUDDHA Christms Coles CW Remix Dance Double J EASYHITS ELFRadio Extra FBi Fine Mus FUN Gorilla Hope InspireD Kids KIIS1065 Koffee Koori MMM MOD MMMCLASS MMMGREAT Nova 969 NTS OLDSKOOL PopDesi SBS 1 SBS 2 SBS 3 SBS 4 SBSChill SBSPAsia SkySprt1 SkySprt2 SkyTbred smoothFM TACO The 80s The 90s The Edge Triple M triplej Unearth WSFM1017 Zed ZOO Edited January 2, 2018 by El Saif
McDigital Posted January 2, 2018 Posted January 2, 2018 G'day El Saif, What does Taco play? Not Mexican music by any chance? And who owns it?
El Saif Posted January 2, 2018 Posted January 2, 2018 TACO is owned by SCA. TACO is currently dead air.
McDigital Posted January 4, 2018 Posted January 4, 2018 (edited) G'day El Saif, Interesting, I wonder why they'd put something like that up with a name like that? Last time something weird like that happened in Melbourne, it was a station named "Black Forest" which played "A Walk in the Black forest" on repeat. the station became Greek dance station (originally from 1656 AM) Rythmos While I'm at it, I've just read that Canberra DAB radios receiving ABC and SBS stations will need a rescan after 8pm on Monday, otherwise it'll be silent (I gather no reception, maybe they're moving things around) Edited January 4, 2018 by McDigital
El Saif Posted January 7, 2018 Posted January 7, 2018 McDigital, thanks for that. Currently, there are 39 DAB+ stations in Canberra with many duplications. Tonight, the number of these stations is expected to collapse as some of these duplicated stations cease. BTW, on the weekend there was a DAB+ station broadcasting in Canberra called Revheads Radio for SummerNats. It was simulcast with a very low power FM station broadcasting at the SummerNats venue.
aussievintage Posted January 8, 2018 Posted January 8, 2018 On 1/4/2018 at 8:13 PM, McDigital said: Last time something weird like that happened in Melbourne, it was a station named "Black Forest" which played "A Walk in the Black forest" on repeat. the station became Greek dance station (originally from 1656 AM) Rythmos Love the Goodies reference 1
JSmith Posted January 8, 2018 Posted January 8, 2018 On 02/01/2018 at 3:27 PM, McDigital said: What does Taco play? I think it's just this on repeat atm; JSmith
ron12 Posted March 17, 2018 Posted March 17, 2018 ABC Extra has been replaced by ABC KIDS listen. Here in Melbourne, JOY FM 94.9, an LGBT community station serving inner Melbourne, is now on DAB+ (JOY).
El Saif Posted March 17, 2018 Posted March 17, 2018 Ron, the same thing has happened in Canberra. ABC EXTRA has become ABC KIDS listen.
McDigital Posted March 19, 2018 Posted March 19, 2018 G'day, I've seen a press release saying Hobart has officially launched this week, it seems only the ABC and SBS stations are on though
El Saif Posted June 10, 2018 Posted June 10, 2018 On 3 June 2018, there were 60 DAB+ stations in Sydney, viz.
ron12 Posted June 29, 2018 Posted June 29, 2018 Kinderling Kids Radio has been playing an announcement that from July 1, you may need to rescan your radio in order to keep on receiving Kinderling Kigs Radio. The new version of the station is on the air, currently called KRTEST. It has the same bitrate and is relaying Kinderling Kids Radio, but at lower volume, which shouldn't happen given that with digital, you should be able to just copy the numbers so that the volume should be identical.. This is in Melbourne. Presumably the same thing is happening in other cities where you can get Kinderling Kids Radio.
ron12 Posted June 30, 2018 Posted June 30, 2018 KRTest has become the new Kinderling Kids radio and the volume is OK now. Meanwhile, there's a new station. The old Kinderling has become Urban Hits. It currently features an audio loop telling people to rescan their radio to hear Kinderling Kits Radio, and that Urban Hits will launch tomorrow.
El Saif Posted December 19, 2019 Posted December 19, 2019 There are now 30 DAB+ stations in the ACT with the addition of Club Lime Radio. See: https://radioinfo.com.au/news/canberra-gets-club-lime-radio Though we are in the middle of a heatwave, Snow FM is still broadcasting. ELF Radio is broadcasting Christmas songs. There are still no Canberra Community Radio stations broadcasting DAB+ in Canberra.
El Saif Posted November 28, 2020 Posted November 28, 2020 Canberra DAB+ Stations as at 28 November 2020. I found 35 stations in total. ABC CANBERRA ABC Classic ABC Country ABC Grandstand ABC Jazz ABC KIDS listen ABC NEWS ABCRadioNational Chill Double J SBS Arabic24 SBS PopAsia SBS PopDesi SBS Radio 1 SBS Radio 2 SBS Radio 3 triple J Unearthed 1RPH 1WAY 2CA 2CC 2XX Artsound Club Lime Radio CMS Radio Coles Radio Elf Radio Hit104.7 HIT Buddha Kix Country MIX106.3 My Canberra Snow DAB+ The Edge
ron12 Posted March 19, 2021 Posted March 19, 2021 What's the deal with TAB Live in Melbourne? This used to carry the audio of the Sky Racing channel that's on Foxtel, but now it just has beautiful music at a low bitrate, and has been broadcasting this for months.
El Saif Posted April 25, 2021 Posted April 25, 2021 SCA appears to have stopped ELF Radio and HIT Buddha DAB+ broadcasts to Canberra. Instead, Canberra now receives Australia Today which consists of a loop of Steve Price and Test which is only noise. Canberra DAB+ Stations as at 25 April 2021 I found 35 stations in total: ABC CANBERRA ABC Classic ABC Country ABC Grandstand ABC Jazz ABC KIDS listen ABC NEWS ABCRadioNational Chill Double J SBS Arabic24 SBS PopAsia SBS PopDesi SBS Radio 1 SBS Radio 2 SBS Radio 3 triple J Unearthed 1RPH 1WAY 2CA DAB+ 2CC DAB+ 2XX Artsound Australia Today Club Lime Radio CMS Radio Digital Coles Radio Hit104.7 Kix Country MIX106.3 My Canberra Snow DAB+ Test The Edge
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