DAB reception rubbish

[davesw1]

Anyone else get "no signal" about every 5 minutes when listening to dab?

I had work done on the car and bmw they put it through car wash and returned it without my Bee sting aerial. I had to chase And they posted one out to me. Are they all standard or could they have sent the wrong one. Wondering if the dab even uses bee sting

 

[MikeS]

I guess it depends in part where you are! Mine works as well as any car DAB - most;y good but not as good as FM.

 

[jadnashuanh]

The thing with digital is that it is either perfect or horrible...and, the switch from one to the other is abrupt. Either the receiver can decipher the digital data stream or it can't, and there's only so much that can be done with error correction if it misses a few bits. Once that is exceeded, it's done until it can reestablish the data sequence. There is essentially no graceful degradation.

 

[davesw1]

well in London, it seems to be totally useless, if you are driving along and get a full minute without it breaking up its a bonus

 

[psquare]

I'm actually in London with my i3 at the moment and listened to BBC R6 on DAB this morning without any hitches. I guess it depends on the area you're in.

Anyway, as people have already pointed out, DAB flakiness is an inherent problem with reception of digital broadcasts whilst on the move.

 

[Lincsat]

I've had 2 previous vehicles with DAB. The 1st had an active "Bee sting" type antenna and was the best by far. My previous had a cheap and nasty metal strip stuck to the windscreen and was poor but about the same as the I3

 

[davesw1]

Just wondering if they could have sent me the wrong beesting back when they left it off the car during work.

 

[davesw1]

its in for other work, they said all the aerials are the same and that it could be due to me having a phone charger in the car??? interference! erm right - basically saying they don't have an answer.

 

[jadnashuanh]

FWIW, some switching power supplies are REALLY noisy electrically. If your phone allows connection and charging via USB, just plug it into the car's USB port...that should eliminate that as a problem.

 

[Lincsat]

I've had 2 previous vehicles with DAB. The 1st had an active "Bee sting" type antenna and was the best by far. My previous had a cheap and nasty metal strip stuck to the windscreen and was poor but about the same as the I3

Been listening to the new D2 tests and I can say the reception is much better than with the D1 mux in and around Lincoln. I don't know if it's higher power or just less co-channel interference as it's using fewer transmitters.