FreeDAB

[biggiedan]

how about in england,,

They are based out of Ireland so i doubt they have any operations in England. With that being said, i wonder how long it will be until a London mux starts up.

[drumandbasshead010]

how about in england,,

They are based out of Ireland so i doubt they have any operations in England. With that being said, i wonder how long it will be until a London mux starts up.

I'm no expert on this and I'm living in the UK - nor have I ever done- but I wouldn't imagine the current pirates have any interest in setting up a mux. The attitude towards DAB isn't very positive from the pirates' perspective from what I can tell.

[drumandbasshead010]

I meant to say I'm not living in the UK.
It also looks like, unless UCB and Maria somehow manage to stay on the RTÉ mux, the FreeDAB mux may be the only DAB mux in the country soon enough. RTÉ are turning off their digital stations and DAB broadcasts in a bid to reducing costs.

[house-every-weekend]

No, the UK pirates don't have any interest in DAB. The reception is poor, the range limited and the bitrates very low, so it sound pants audio quality. There is also no clear spectrum in the DAB band since it is clogged up with legal MUXes only. At least in Ireland there is plenty of clear spectrum, but the question is .... who is listening? Not many know about it in Ireland and why would they when FM is superior in all respects anyway

[Albert H]

London has 5 of the possible 6 "bouquets" in use, so a pirate mux could be possible. My trial sites used a laptop, a few Raspberry Pi with Audio Injector cards, a HackRF One, a filter, a power amplifier (actually an old Band III TV amplifier), and several receivers to take Band II audio off air to stuff into the mux. It's really NOT hard to do these days!

However - the coverage of DAB is sporadic and OFCOM insist on cramming stations in, so their audio quality is abysmal.

I think Stephen Moss was right all those years ago - DAB stands for "Dead And Buried"!

[biggiedan]

Band 3 is from 174 - 239MHz, London wise the frequencies being used are:

U.DAB (Trial London Minimux): 9A - 202.928 MHz
SDL National: 11A - 216.928 MHz
Digital Radio Group (London 3): 11B - 218.640 MHz
D1 National: 11D - 222.064MHz
Switch Digital (London 2): 12A - 223.936 MHz
BBC National DAB: 12B - 225.648 MHz
CE Digital (London 1): 12C - 227.360 MHz

So correct me if I’m wrong, But to me it seems like there is plenty of spectrum available for quite a few different pirate muxes to start up.

[Albert H]

Sadly, it looks like all the Bouquets are now in use - any pirates would have to add their own....

It's the same problem as FM pirates had with digitally tuned radios. Listeners used to discover the pirates as they found something "extra" as they manually tuned between stations. When digital tuning arrived, most people would have their radio programmed to the two or three stations they listened to, and wouldn't ever think of scanning the band for anything else....

Adding an extra Bouquet could be done - you'd need a good site and a fair amount of power - but persuading the clueless listeners to re-scan their DAB radios is unlikely to yield many results. The average punter is scared of the idea of tuning a radio - they might "lose" their regular stations! Remember - 95% of the population is pretty stupid.

[Clutter Free]

FreeDab here in Ireland took its first raid today, unfortunately.

The operator posted on another forum earlier

"Today one of the FreedDAB sites have been hit .this was a heavy handed reckless raid with the removal of our 45 ft tower( legal criminal damage) . Rest assured our second site is standing by and all services will continue soon."

[dancemusicdj]

Sad to hear. Good to hear things will be back on again soon.

[Polecat]

They're not taking it lying down

https://radiotoday.ie/2020/02/freedab-d ... fter-raid/

[biggiedan]

Wondered how long it would take as they are a bit to open for a pirate operation hopefully they will learn from this and get back on the air soon.

[g33ky]

Looks like RTE has finally given up on DAB, wonder if FreeDAB will carry on or not.

https://radiotoday.ie/2021/03/rte-digit ... ue-online/

[alfaeire]

There is some interesting developments happening with freedab.

Im their climber / rigger.

Ill update when I can.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

[dancemusicdj]

There is some interesting developments happening with freedab.

Im their climber / rigger.

Ill update when I can.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

Great to hear. Look forward to hearing of their plans going forward and great to hear they will continue.

[rigmo]

[teckniqs]

I remember seeing that video about a year ago but unfortunately there's still no follow-up video into the antenna.

[TechnicalRacoon]

Why do they give away their location and have a direct phone number to get in contact with them. Seems very unusual to be so open and transparent if your trying to fly under the radar.

Maybe because they are unaware that some rougue is relaying their entirely legal webstream on DAB!

They are the said rouges

I've just revisited their website and it looks like they have updated their site a bit. They now even have a rate card for their mux explaining about what capacity is available, the areas that they broadcast in and their expected predicted coverage plus pricing.

Here is what it will cost to get on DAB in Ireland with FreeDAB

Code: Select all

Location / Bitrate | 128K  | 112K  | 64K
Cork               | €250  | €200  | €150
Dublin             | €250  | €200  | €150
Both locations     | €400  | €350  | €250

Link seems to be down. But yet again I'm quite late to the party but it's interesting to see how much it costs nowadays

[dancemusicdj]

Yes the website is hidden for now as apparently they are applying for a trial license.

[TechnicalRacoon]

Yes the website is hidden for now as apparently they are applying for a trial license.

I can only presume that's a part time licence for DAB I don't really know tbh

[dancemusicdj]

Yes it's a short term license, think it generally runs for a year.