2 issues- DAB radio is poor and Ipod playing songs not on it

[I8Binners]

Any ideas guys, the DAB radio just cuts out constantly and I think poor, so poor I either switch to MW or use the IPOD.

And with the IPOD for some reason it shows only 2 books but when I connect it to the PHEV it plays 5 and has the wrong titles. It could be the IPOD but just wondering if anyone has any idea.

thanks in advance

 

[greendwarf]

Any ideas guys, the DAB radio just cuts out constantly and I think poor, so poor I either switch to MW or use the IPOD.

Don't know the answer but I also get "drop-outs" on FM on my non-DAB GxH3, which I don't remember happening with the old Toyota! Could be interference in Sarf Lundun, less efficient aerial or perhaps some sort of glitch from the car's electronics :?

 

[simonrh]

The DAB reception quality and the ipod playback are one of the few things on the MMCS that I think work OK.

Even then i still get:
DAB interface shows I am listening to radio 2 and yet occasionally you realise it is playing radio 1.
Ipod browsing on MMCS is hopeless and clunky.

 

[anko]

DAB interface shows I am listening to radio 2 and yet occasionally you realise it is playing radio 1.

I have the same every now and then.

 

[CJ1045]

UK DAB real coverage is pretty poor. We consistently get dropouts at certain locations.

CJ

 

[maby]

The OP does not say where he is - though his style of writing suggests that he in not in the UK. DAB coverage is quite uneven and, unlike AM or FM, it doesn't cope well with weak signals. The PHEV is the first car we've owned with a DAB radio fitted and, having read comments on other forums relating to DAB in cars, I was expecting it to be poor. Almost all our driving is in Southern England and we've found it to be remarkably good - I don't think we've ever lost reception other than in tunnels.

I believe that a lot of continental Europe is actually on DAB+ whereas the UK is still on the original DAB format - so I assume that the PHEV radio is dual mode - perhaps it is less stable running DAB+?

 

[FrancoPHEV]

I can confirm from living in France and recent trips to Germany that MMCS copes perfectly with DAB+. I just found that I needed to refresh the station list from time to time. Also, 100% agreed that DAB coverage this side of the Channel is infinitely better than back in the UK.

 

[maby]

I can confirm from living in France and recent trips to Germany that MMCS copes perfectly with DAB+. I just found that I needed to refresh the station list from time to time. Also, 100% agreed that DAB coverage this side of the Channel is infinitely better than back in the UK.

That surprises me since France is far more sparsely populated than Britain. We have driven all over France and found that even the FM coverage could be less than perfect in some of the more rural areas round the west and middle.

 

[greendwarf]

I can confirm from living in France and recent trips to Germany that MMCS copes perfectly with DAB+. I just found that I needed to refresh the station list from time to time. Also, 100% agreed that DAB coverage this side of the Channel is infinitely better than back in the UK.

That surprises me since France is far more sparsely populated than Britain. We have driven all over France and found that even the FM coverage could be less than perfect in some of the more rural areas round the west and middle.

Why surprised? Presumably a sparse population means greater distance between transmitters and weak digital signals are easier to "rebuild" than analogue FM so you would notice a drop with the latter in rural France whereas DAB should be maintained. One of the reasons for using FM for local radio was the limited effective transmission distance prevented stations interfering with each other on the same frequency - not a problem with DAB.

 

[maby]

...
Why surprised? Presumably a sparse population means greater distance between transmitters and weak digital signals are easier to "rebuild" than analogue FM so you would notice a drop with the latter in rural France whereas DAB should be maintained. One of the reasons for using FM for local radio was the limited effective transmission distance prevented stations interfering with each other on the same frequency - not a problem with DAB.

That certainly can be true of digital signals, but it is not true of DAB! For weak digital signals to get through you need a lot of redundancy in the protocol to support error detection and correction. I'm a radio amateur and I've seen signals bounced off the moon recreated perfectly when all you could hear over the speaker was hiss - but the data rate is very low and the levels of redundancy in the encoding is very high. DAB is a very basic protocol designed to jam as many channels as possible into a single broadcast frequency and it is not very forgiving.

 

[anko]

I am definitely no expert in this, but I think two different ways of recreating the signal are possible:

One involves redundancy or retransmission of lost data packages to replace lost bits and such. This need for extra bits or retransmission of bits would indeed reduce the bandwidth, but it would be rather stable.

The other approach would be (in layman terms):

The data stream consists only of binary 0's (signal level X) and 1's (signal level X + 1). Every signal level received lower than X + 0.4 is considered a binary 0 where a signal level received above X + 0.6 is considered a binary 1. When signal levels between X + 0.4 and X + 0.6 are received, the receiver stops guessing whether it was a 0 or a 1 and playback is temporarily interrupted. This approach would not impact bandwidth, but stability would be less.

From what I understand, DAB uses the latter. But I may be completely wrong here.

 

[greendwarf]

...
Why surprised? Presumably a sparse population means greater distance between transmitters and weak digital signals are easier to "rebuild" than analogue FM so you would notice a drop with the latter in rural France whereas DAB should be maintained. One of the reasons for using FM for local radio was the limited effective transmission distance prevented stations interfering with each other on the same frequency - not a problem with DAB.

That certainly can be true of digital signals, but it is not true of DAB! For weak digital signals to get through you need a lot of redundancy in the protocol to support error detection and correction. I'm a radio amateur and I've seen signals bounced off the moon recreated perfectly when all you could hear over the speaker was hiss - but the data rate is very low and the levels of redundancy in the encoding is very high. DAB is a very basic protocol designed to jam as many channels as possible into a single broadcast frequency and it is not very forgiving.

Which, therefore, suggests that they have piggy backed DAB transmitters onto mobile 'phone masts but not upgraded the FM network in France.

 

[I8Binners]

Thanks for all the replies, I can confirm I am from the UK (Grimsby), I find the DAB issue intermittant and it drives me insane when it starts cutting out every 30 seconds

 

[Titan]

Thanks for all the replies, I can confirm I am from the UK (Grimsby), I find the DAB issue intermittant and it drives me insane when it starts cutting out every 30 seconds

I'm in UK as well and have given up on DAB, switching to FM instead. The constant cutting out of stations drove me nuts.

 

[jmcdh]

Same problem with my iPod Touch 4th Gen - wouldn't load at all so cleared 50gb of music off it and just use it for podcasts. Problem remains and if I look at tracks on display still shows tracks deleted off iPod ! It's as if the s\w isn't rereading the actual tracks on the iPod and freezes when it can't find a track it thinks is there. In for 1st service on 16th so will see what dealer says. Phone interface crap as well but hoping the have an update for that as I'm on hands free s\w version 16

 

[pheverish]

There is an update available to hands free s/w version 18. You will have to ask for it. This sorted out my ipod classic issues.

 

[jaapv]

Same problem with my iPod Touch 4th Gen - wouldn't load at all so cleared 50gb of music off it and just use it for podcasts. Problem remains and if I look at tracks on display still shows tracks deleted off iPod ! It's as if the s\w isn't rereading the actual tracks on the iPod and freezes when it can't find a track it thinks is there. In for 1st service on 16th so will see what dealer says. Phone interface crap as well but hoping the have an update for that as I'm on hands free s\w version 16

"Deleting" files from flash memory will not remove them and some software will continue to find them. To get rid of them you need to format the memory of your iPod with overwrite. Not having an iPod I do not know whether the gadget offers this option.

 

[george]

I do not have DAB on my PHEV. While listening no station on FM or MW I can hear the radio frequency noise emitted by the inverters of the motors. In B0 this noise disappears if I do not accelarate or brake.
Obviously this same radio frequency noise can disrupt the reception of weak signals.
So do the experiment of B0, no acceleration, to see if the reception is recovered. if this happens just "coast" as long as possible....
Let me know.

 

[gwatpe]

I made a comment on another thread about the RFI that comes from the electric transmission. Makes listening to AM radio in AUS futile. FM is OK in the cities and bigger towns. Don't have DAB radio available, or even digital radio where I live. Lucky the ROCK on the SDcard is not affected.