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DAB radio failure

On 5 Feb 2012 at 10:14am Southover Queen wrote:

Did anyone else lose DAB signal last night? It was still not working first thing this morning - and that was two different receivers in the top floor of my house where reception is usually acceptable. I've checked the BBC site for problems, but they're insisting there are no problems with any of the transmitters.

(Southover isn't brilliant at the best of times because we're down in a dip, but this was no signal whatsoever...)

On 5 Feb 2012 at 3:28pm Castle Gate wrote:

The principal DAB transmitter received in much of Southover is Newhaven. Lewes as a whole is also covered, more weakly, by signals from Heathfield and Wrothem, though the radio shadow introduced by the hills around The Paddock shields many areas from signals arriving from the north.

The Newhaven BBC transmitter was reported off-air from 12:32 until 14:25 today, Sunday. It is also possible that the transmitter had endured problems before the reported start time, if communications or reporting equipment had failed, though these channels should be checked as often as the transmitter itself.

Check it out here »

On 5 Feb 2012 at 4:21pm Southover Queen wrote:

Thanks CG. I did go online, onto the BBC reporting site this morning, but it denied there were any problems. I'd probably have decided that my radio was on the blink if I'd only tried to tune one in, but I'd tried two and neither worked at all on any station. It also went on considerably longer than they're admitting to - it wasn't working at midnight last night and still out of commission at 0800 this morning. Perhaps my report (and presumably others) led them to notice there was a problem at all.

On 5 Feb 2012 at 4:46pm Brixtonbelle wrote:

Down in Cliffe we lost digsat tv signal from about 1030pm. At 9.30 am this morning our two DAB radios were also affected. Tv back though so don;t know how that works - I would have thought that if the didtal trasnmitter was down it would affect bt tv and radio ???

On 5 Feb 2012 at 5:15pm Castle Gate wrote:

@SQ Glad to help.

@BB It's a worthwhile observation you make, that the digital satellite signals were out last night, too; but satellite television and DAB radio arrive at your home through two completely different paths (geosynchronous Earth satellite for one, local transmitter site for the other) and so the outage was co-incidental. Heavy rain or snow, or dense clouds, often affect present-day satellite signals deleteriously, unfortunately.

On 5 Feb 2012 at 6:15pm Southover Queen wrote:

That's interesting, BB. I think CG is right in that the two things are separate, and the loss of satellite is probably down to the weather. Could your satellite dish have had snow in it, for example? My signal goes down if a branch from next door's tree gets weighed down by heavy rain in the summer!

As for the DAB signal: did you first notice that the DAB radios weren't working at 0930 or had you been listening happily until then?