DAB Car Radio   by Steve Peppers

in Autos / Car Audio and Video    (submitted 2012-02-14)

Radio will never be the same again. How we receive music and radio shows is transforming and the change-over will not be unlike the analogue TV replacement, which started in 2009, when the UK government began turning off the analogue TV signal.

The target date set for the switch over is 2015. The national radio broadcasters in FM will have gone the same way as TV and if you want to continue to listen to your car radio, you need to make the change to digital.

So how do you make these changes? Well you could simply swap your current car radio for a new, shiny DAB car radio. All you would need to do is have an external aerial fitted to your car to receive the DAB signal. The added benefit of this type of system is that a lot of them enable you to plug an MP3 player or iPod into the unit. The unit then sends a signal out to your existing FM radio so you can hear what is playing on your MP3 player.

Alternatively, you could buy an external DAB box, which sends the new digital signal to your old analogue radio (FM/AM/MW), via an external aerial. The box is not dissimilar to the measurements of a sat-nav box and sits on the dashboard in the same way.

One word of warning though; a cheap aerial will create a bad reception, no matter how much you spend on the DAB box itself. In order to get a strong signal wherever in the country you are, you need a decent aerial. So look out for a good quality aerial when purchasing a unit.

You may be wondering what the advantages of DAB radio are. Well for one, the sound will be more superior, with the old white noise problem being eradicated and the radio broadcasts generally being in a whole new class.

Another feature will be all the facts that will be shown on the radio, due to the amount of data that can be sent digitally. For example, the name of a recording and who recorded it can be displayed.

There is already a great variety of radio stations out there which broadcast digitally. Many of which you can't get using a traditional radio as they don't broadcast in FM. This will give you a great driving experience and stop you getting board on those longer journeys.

About the Author

Steve Peppers has been in the audio trade for years and is an expert in car audio. He regularly sees new products coming in and evaluates them all in detail. To see his reviews head over to his DAB Car Radio website today.