FM / DAB Aerials

[joe384]

Just been looking at some TV outlets as I have just run some WF100 to a room I am turning into a study/office, I noticed the ones with an extra FM/DAB connector.

I also remembered I have a connector for an external aerial on my HiFi setup.

If I wanted to use this would a need a seperate aerial for these signals or would a Freeview aerial be able to do this?

Looking on the internet seems most Freeview aerials are not designed for DAB/FM but may by chance get a better reception than an indoor DAB aerial.

Is it even worth it?

I assume if you had 2 Aerials you could combine the signal to send it all down the same coax?

Thanks

 

[opps]

They are different frequencies so my lay understanding is that it might not be a problem, unless one of the signals is "too strong".

I suspect that @Lucid will be able to give you a definitive answer though.

 

[Wayners]

Get dab through WiFi for the better sound quality is worth considering. Just thought I'd say.

 

[opps]

Get dab through WiFi for the better sound quality is worth considering. Just thought I'd say.

Don't you mean listen to the radio over the internet, rather than DAB over wifi?

Most of my radio consumption during the day is radio via the internet (through my phone) and a bluetooth speaker but I only listen to R4 and R4extra.

 

[joe384]

Yes I think I am probably worrying about something I will probably never use! Looks like you really need 2 Aerials.

 

[JohnD]

FM sound is really, really good. It can be the best you can get, about the same as a CD or DVD

DAB is very poor. Compressed, and transmiiitted at low bit rates (especially on speech channels).

Not very easy to hear. The poor speakers on most DAB radios don't help.

Internet radio is better than DAB, but phone speakers are not hifi

 

[Wayners]

@opps
Yeah. What I ment.
Guess I only listen to uk broadcasts on phone app having given up on dab although dab+ is better but still not great vs FM or Internet.

 

[Lucid]

Just by virtue of being outside and up high then "some bit of metal" will pick up some kind of radio reception, but the results still vary a lot.

Aerials and TV did some tests with FM, DAB and TV aerials for FM and DAB reception. The table on their Web page for this shows that Log Periodic- and contract- TV aerials don't pick up much. Bigger Yagi types do better. But the best results are with proper FM and DAB aerials. That shouldn't really come as much of a surprise. FM and DAB are in the VHF spectrum whereas our digital TV service is in the UHF range. As @opps wrote, they're different frequencies.

ATV radio reception aerials

FM and DAB frequencies overlap though. DAB is in the middle of the FM range. A dipole FM aerial does alright for DAB too which is useful.

Avoid those halo-type circular FM aerials. They're useless. Too little metal pointing at the transmitter. If you're after a half-wave FM dipole then message me. I can do you a deal.

The aerial socket with TV and FM/DAB is a frequency filter. It splits a mixed signal. An inverse of this is called a combiner. It does what it says on the tin. Since the TV and FM/DAB signals are different frequency ranges they they can be sent down the same coax just as you suspected. Some aerial distribution amps have this built-in. There are inputs for UHF (TV) and VHF (FM/DAB) which then gets combined.

For a simpler solution then a simple combiner at the aerial point does the same job and needs no power.

 

[winston1]

FM and DAB frequencies overlap though. DAB is in the middle of the FM range. A dipole FM aerial does alright for DAB too which is useful.

I'm sure you don't mean that. You are too knowledgeable to mean that.

FM 87.5 to 108MHz. DAB 174 to 230MHz. No overlap at all.

FM dipoles are often horizontal which is no good for DAB.

 

[opps]

Just by virtue of being outside and up high then "some bit of metal" will pick up some kind of radio reception, but the results still vary a lot.

Aerials and TV did some tests with FM, DAB and TV aerials for FM and DAB reception. The table on their Web page for this shows that Log Periodic- and contract- TV aerials don't pick up much. Bigger Yagi types do better. But the best results are with proper FM and DAB aerials. That shouldn't really come as much of a surprise. FM and DAB are in the VHF spectrum whereas our digital TV service is in the UHF range. As @opps wrote, they're different frequencies.

ATV radio reception aerials

FM and DAB frequencies overlap though. DAB is in the middle of the FM range. A dipole FM aerial does alright for DAB too which is useful.

Avoid those halo-type circular FM aerials. They're useless. Too little metal pointing at the transmitter. If you're after a half-wave FM dipole then message me. I can do you a deal.

The aerial socket with TV and FM/DAB is a frequency filter. It splits a mixed signal. An inverse of this is called a combiner. It does what it says on the tin. Since the TV and FM/DAB signals are different frequency ranges they they can be sent down the same coax just as you suspected. Some aerial distribution amps have this built-in. There are inputs for UHF (TV) and VHF (FM/DAB) which then gets combined.

For a simpler solution then a simple combiner at the aerial point does the same job and needs no power.

Yagi Uda... Mr Yagi shafted Mr Uda- the guy that did the work. It was a (seemingly) shocking example of a lecturer abusing his position.

 

[Lucid]

I'm sure you don't mean that. You are too knowledgeable to mean that.

FM 87.5 to 108MHz. DAB 174 to 230MHz. No overlap at all.

Sorry. I was bored. Wanted to see if anyone was paying attention.

I do stand by what I said about vertical dipoles working okay for DAB though. Horizontal - sure, that's going to be different. That's why I linked to the ATV page with their table of test results.

 

[Lucid]

Yagi Uda... Mr Yagi shafted Mr Uda- the guy that did the work. It was a (seemingly) shocking example of a lecturer abusing his position.

Took a leaf out of the Thomas Edison book of plagiarism.

Edison: "I invented the light bulb"

Humphrey Davy, Thomas Swann, Warren de La Rue: "Oh really?"

To be fair, I'm not sure Edison ever made the claim to have invented the idea from scratch. That was the fault of short-cuts in education teaching kids something that wasn't factually correct because it was simpler than the more complex story. Edison was responsible for making the incandescent electric light a commercially viable product, and then he patented the crap out of it to get rich.

In relation to the Yagi-Uda story, it's said that Yagi always acknowledged that the work was done by Uda. He didn't change the patent filing though. The rest is history.

 

[opps]

Took a leaf out of the Thomas Edison book of plagiarism.

Edison: "I invented the light bulb"

Humphrey Davy, Thomas Swann, Warren de La Rue: "Oh really?"

To be fair, I'm not sure Edison ever made the claim to have invented the idea from scratch. That was the fault of short-cuts in education teaching kids something that wasn't factually correct because it was simpler than the more complex story. Edison was responsible for making the incandescent electric light a commercially viable product, and then he patented the crap out of it to get rich.

In relation to the Yagi-Uda story, it's said that Yagi always acknowledged that the work was done by Uda. He didn't change the patent filing though. The rest is history.

Fair play, but it isn't known as the Uda Yagi...

Sources elsewhere suggest that Yagi's command of English being superior to Uda's resulted in Yagi being able to dine out on it rather than Uda.