Digital Radio 'widget' - another chunk of fools gold from the politicians?

Stephen Byers was interviewed on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 in March this year during a discussion on the planned switchover to digital radio broadcasting in the UK. In response to comments that the switchover - planned for 2015, which will see national radio stations removed from FM coverage - would cause an enormous number of radios (well over 100 million) to need to be replaced, including  those in vehicles, Mr Byers said that he understood that a 'widget' would be made available to convert car radios to be able to accept the DAB digital signal. We subsequently heard other government spokespersons talking of a "converter" for cars to make them DAB compatible.

Indeed, the government's Digital Britain report, published in June 2009, says it is working with manufacturers to offer DAB radios for under £20, and also pledged to work with the automotive industry to get digital radio receivers into cars by using some form of low-cost converter or specialist technology.

According to the report, "The government proposes, with the industry, the supply chain and consumers the process of Digital Upgrade so that all our national broadcast radio stations are DAB only from the end of 2015. To that end, the government is looking to the BBC to extend national DAB coverage so that it is at least comparable to FM radio coverage; and to the supply chain to deliver a range of DAB radios at the key sub-£20 price points that makes swap-out economic."

Sub-£20 radio upgrades for cars. We don't think so.

We're intrigued to see what this 'widget' or 'low-cost converter' is going to be. DAB digital radio receivers are fundamentally different to the receiver in an AM/FM radio, of the kind you typically have in your car today. The concept that you'll be able to buy something that seamlessly makes it able to receive DAB signals - as technologically clever as our electronics manufacturers may be - is akin to suggesting it would be practical to move the Alps to Greece to cool the country in summer.

A whole new receiver you fix to the windscreen, maybe, but then that's already here. It might well drop in price from its current £65-70, but we already have the sat-nav stuck to the windscreen. I've not seen so many random things 'bolted' or stuck on cars these days since "Kevin Loves Tracy" dangly dice in the seventies.

There is also an issue with the antenna. DAB reception requires a different type of car aerial to FM. Electronics and car manufacturers - having immediately noted this is a stumbling block in introducing DAB to existing cars - tried the route of using an internal antenna. Unfortunately the performance of these varies from mediocre to hopeless, depending on the area you're driving in and the output of the DAB transmitter in the area (a crucial factor).

DAB radios have been relatively expensive, particularly for the car, but it's all about scale of production. Fine, you'd say, once the world switches across, the cost of the sets will become peanuts. Yes, usually that would be true, except the world isn't switching across. DAB has only been taken up with any real vigour in a few countries. The USA, for example, is focussed more on satellite radio. Without the scale of production and worldwide take-up of DAB, electronics manufacturers and the car makers will find it difficult to offer digital radio receivers at prices to rival current AM/FM units. However, that may be relatively insignificant for new cars (the cost will get lost in the ticket price, though you will be paying for it) - the issue is what we do with all the cars on the road now.

The provision for good quality DAB reception in cars is far from simple. Unlike FM, which may become noisy at times as the signal strength fades because of buildings or moving beyond the transmitter area, DAB is like a switch and either works or doesn't - there's no 'in between'. In a moving vehicle, radio reception can be tricky and you need a system that has a degree of flexibility built in - it may degrade, become noisy, but FM only disappears when you move well outside the transmitter area, and, thanks to RDS, the radio will usually have found you a closer transmitter before the sound has become too bad. DAB is much less accommodating and can result in a lot of noisy switching of the signal.

Of course, you could just go on listening to local radio stations and forget the Nationals - the government say that more local stations will be encouraged onto the airwaves on FM. This could also be very good news for the local stations in terms of advertising revenue, as they could well find themselves with good numbers of extra listeners who would normally have tuned in to BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 or 4. So, perhaps it's not such a bad thing. Then again, if fewer and fewer people are then listening to the national stations, will we need them? Listeners to Radio 3 in the home will be shouting YES - here the digital signal quality will shine through. But whether Stephen Byers' dulcet tones on Radio 2 or 4 will sound any more appealing in digital is questionable.

Going from cassette to CD was a vast improvement and who would want to go back (I'll not get into the discussion about LPs as it was never a great seller in cars). The concept of CD-quality radio reception is fine, welcomed, but how we go about it needs a lot more and better informed discussion than seems to be the case right now. Thankfully it's still 5 years away and a lot can happen in that time - the country might still be technically broke then, but technology will have moved on and we may well have better and more affordable options. [KOB]