Omega Owners Forum
Omega Help Area => Omega Electrical and Audio Help => Topic started by: Andy H on 11 August 2009, 14:09:05
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I have been using a single DIN Blaupunkt DAB53 in my 1994 Omega for the last 5 years.
With a Nokia Cark91 phone interface (I fitted it 5 years ago so part no might be wrong) I have hands free phone, bluetooth or in cradle phone charging, 10CD boot changer, cd/mp3 player in head unit, memory card mp3 player, AM/FM/DAB radio. The three features that are most important to me are the phone charging, hands free and DAB radio. I don't have an interface for the MID so the radio display isn't 'integrated' but the design of the head unit (black plastic, no chrome effect bits) means it doesn't look out of place.
Do any of the integrated ICE in Omegas have DAB or scope to add DAB?
Has anyone written a guide to the capabilities of the different head units fitted to Omegas? (preferably with pictures to aid identification)
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I have been using a single DIN Blaupunkt DAB53 in my 1994 Omega for the last 5 years.
With a Nokia Cark91 phone interface (I fitted it 5 years ago so part no might be wrong) I have hands free phone, bluetooth or in cradle phone charging, 10CD boot changer, cd/mp3 player in head unit, memory card mp3 player, AM/FM/DAB radio. The three features that are most important to me are the phone charging, hands free and DAB radio. I don't have an interface for the MID so the radio display isn't 'integrated' but the design of the head unit (black plastic, no chrome effect bits) means it doesn't look out of place.
Do any of the integrated ICE in Omegas have DAB or scope to add DAB?
Has anyone written a guide to the capabilities of the different head units fitted to Omegas? (preferably with pictures to aid identification)
No, and as the Omega was pretty much out of date before DAB hit the uk market properly, its unlikely to find any adaptors to integrate with an OEM head unit.
Pure Highway through an FM modulator is really only way of getting DAB into a standard Omega head unit, but not a patch on what you are currentl running
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Thanks Dave.
Comments I have read from people making extremely negative comments about DAB had me doubting my own experience.
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Thanks Dave.
Comments I have read from people making extremely negative comments about DAB had me doubting my own experience.
most negative comments made in relation to DAB are almost always about poor reception, and 99% of those are also reluctant to fit a decent quality EXTERNAL aerial.
Those that have fitted it properly are generally pretty chuffed with it.
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What would you call a decent external aerial ? I have a highway with its own screen mounted wire aerial and its quality is very intermitent.When it works its great to get planet rock and 5 live sport,but signal is very hit,n,miss.
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What would you call a decent external aerial ? I have a highway with its own screen mounted wire aerial and its quality is very intermitent.When it works its great to get planet rock and 5 live sport,but signal is very hit,n,miss.
A decent aerial is one that is designed to work with DAB equipment and is mounted to the exterior of the car by drilling a hole. Stick on internal aerials are no good. If they were, you guys wouldn`t be moaning about reception.
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I have had success with a glass mount aerial but I was very careful to keep well away from the heated rear screen elements.
If memory serves http://www.panorama.co.uk/uk/products/dab_glass_mount.html is were I got my aerial from.
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Purely out of interest, Panorama's "through the bodywork" mounts work nicely as replacements for the "bee sting" mobile phone antennas which are standard fitment on the Omega. Not sure if they do a DAB antenna with the same mount...
Kevin
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Purely out of interest, Panorama's "through the bodywork" mounts work nicely as replacements for the "bee sting" mobile phone antennas which are standard fitment on the Omega. Not sure if they do a DAB antenna with the same mount...
Kevin
The Pioneer DAB beesting aerial is a stunning performer, although a little on the "chunky" side visually.
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I have had success with a glass mount aerial but I was very careful to keep well away from the heated rear screen elements.
If memory serves http://www.panorama.co.uk/uk/products/dab_glass_mount.html is were I got my aerial from.
My need for Dab was because it's the only way to get Planet Rock 8-).
Commented in another thread, but have fitted a Panorama glass mount aerial at the top of the rear window. The inside connector is in the space where the Brake light is, and the cable runs under the top edge of the roof lining cover down into the glove box.
Pure Highway sits in glovebox fed by a 5V usb power adaptor hard wired to the Cigar Lighter circuit.
Comes on when car started. Set to preset 10. All hidden and works seamlessly. Yes sound is not quite as good as CD/FM,
But travelled 180miles from Nothampton to Northallerton at the weekend with No signal loss or droputs. Try doing that on FM!
Stef
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I have had success with a glass mount aerial but I was very careful to keep well away from the heated rear screen elements.
If memory serves http://www.panorama.co.uk/uk/products/dab_glass_mount.html is were I got my aerial from.
My need for Dab was because it's the only way to get Planet Rock 8-).
Commented in another thread, but have fitted a Panorama glass mount aerial at the top of the rear window. The inside connector is in the space where the Brake light is, and the cable runs under the top edge of the roof lining cover down into the glove box.
Pure Highway sits in glovebox fed by a 5V usb power adaptor hard wired to the Cigar Lighter circuit.
Comes on when car started. Set to preset 10. All hidden and works seamlessly. Yes sound is not quite as good as CD/FM,
But travelled 180miles from Nothampton to Northallerton at the weekend with No signal loss or droputs. Try doing that on FM!
Stef
Planet Rock most of the time for me too, getting a bit bored of Alice Cooper now though ::)
The thing that really annoyed me with FM was having to scan past 7 iterations of Radio 3 (without running off the road) & then discovering that all the local stations were transmitting drivel.
The annoying lost opportunity with DAB is that in the UK the traffic announcements (that are already being produced anyway for FM) are not being transmitted on DAB.
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It's a shame we only get the choice between cr@p music and decent-ish sound quality (FM) and decent music with cr@p sound quality (DAB). :(
Kevin
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It's a shame we only get the choice between cr@p music and decent-ish sound quality (FM) and decent music with cr@p sound quality (DAB). :(
Kevin
Whilst I agree with your thoughts on crap content, I cannot agree with the quality issues on DAB.
Fit a proper DAB radio and DAB aerial and sound quality is simply stunning.
:y
If you use an aftermarket bolt on accessory with an aerial sellotaped to the inside of the car, and play this through an FM radio, then yes, sound quality will obviously suffer
::)
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Hmm. Have to say I haven't tried DAB in a car but through a Hi-Fi it doesn't sound that wonderful IMHO.
Not that it matters much with the amount of compression (of dynamic range) most music stations, DAB or FM, employ.
Kevin
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I haven't heard DAB through a HiFi setup, what were the circumstances under which you heard it?
BBC Radio 3 FM seems to be the 'gold standard' in terms of bandwidth, I don't know if Radio 3 DAB is given a comparable bit rate?
With FM it is probably difficult to squeeze a speech only channel down to a tiny bandwidth whereas with DAB the bit rate can be changed from one programme to the next.
With any digital to analogue conversion the black magic seems to be filtering out the digital artifacts. I would hope that the manufacturer of a HiFi DAB tuner would get that right.
The Blaupunkt I have been using seems excellent to me on both FM & DAB but I might not be so impressed if I were listening to it through reference speakers in a sound studio.
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I am a convert to DAB withoubt a doubt in the house, and have a few Roberts portable radios knocking around, and I must say that I am very impressed. I have a small Sony DAB in the bathroom, and quality is only described as adequate at best. But then thats what I would expect. Roberts are reknowned for tuners, and the radio receives with or without the aerial extended, whereas the Sony struggles whatever you do. In the workshop we have a small Hitachi micro system in the corner belting out radio throughout the day, and the quality from the small telescopic aerial can only be described as dire, however when we threw an aerial outside and connected it up it became very listenable indeed.
As far as the car goes, the Blaupunkts are certainly one of the strongest manufacturers of tuners, possibly even the market leaders, yet can be let down on audio quality of the built in amp, so I think the comments made about not wanting to listen to it through reference speakers is an excellent way of describing it.
Here, at our place, there seem to be two schools of thought regarding the DAB systems though. The first is that the better the aerial location with regards to the outside elements, the better the reception is going to be. And the second is that there are some wild differences with build quality and this also has a major effect.
Never looked into radio bandwidths etc, but as far as FM goes, BBC Radio 4 appears to be the strongest signal strength, and Classic FM carries most of the RDS data.
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I haven't heard DAB through a HiFi setup, what were the circumstances under which you heard it?
I've heard a couple of decent hi-fi setups with DAB tuners and external antennae.
BBC Radio 3 FM seems to be the 'gold standard' in terms of bandwidth, I don't know if Radio 3 DAB is given a comparable bit rate?
Well, an FM Stereo station is fixed as far as transmission bandwidth goes. There is only one transmission standard which uses just over 100KHz of bandwidth for a Stereo signal, IIRC (ignoring any other subcarriers such as RDS, etc.). Distribution to the transmission site is another issue, though.
DAB does give the flexibility to assign a variable bit rate (and hence share of the bandwidth) depending on the channel content - not much point in using a lot of bandwidth for a speech-only channel like 5 sports extra!
The problem is, it's reckoned that with the ancient MPEG 1 Layer 2 coding used by DAB in the UK you need 225 KBits/sec bit rate to equal FM quality, and that takes more than twice the bandwidth of an FM station to transmit digitally - so, as it stands, DAB is less efficient in the first place. Then consider that even the main BBC channels are only transmitting at 128-192 Kbits and this is where the quality suffers.
With any digital to analogue conversion the black magic seems to be filtering out the digital artifacts. I would hope that the manufacturer of a HiFi DAB tuner would get that right.
The D to A conversion is actually pretty easy, especially with modern DACs that need very little filtering after them due to the digital filtering built in. It's the compression algorithm where you throw away large chunks of detail from the signal to cut the bandwidth. Compare DAB, MP3, MiniDisk, etc. (All marketed as "CD quality" at some point ;D) with a format like CD, where there is no compression and the difference is like night and day IMHO.
The Blaupunkt I have been using seems excellent to me on both FM & DAB but I might not be so impressed if I were listening to it through reference speakers in a sound studio.
This is it. For casual listening it's probably acceptable. It's just the opportunity for serious listening, which, IMHO, exists with FM alongside causal "sit in the corner and make a noise" use, is denied by DAB.
It's also a shame that DAB+ is being shunned in the UK because that could have gone some way to redressing the issues by including better audio codecs and error correction. In the rush to push DAB a lot of radios that don't support DAB+ have been sold so this is now a non-starter.
I'm afraid I will be sticking with my "£15 from a junk sale" FM tuner 'til the bitter end. Even then, I have the same radio stations available over DVB and satellite TV at a higher or comparable bit rate to DAB. I can also listen to internet radio stations if I really feel the need to listen to low bit-rate digital audio. ;)
Given that I'd need to put up another antenna for DAB (I agree that a decent antenna is a must for DAB or FM alike) I can't see myself bothering.
I have a small Sony DAB in the bathroom...
Sssh! "You know who" might be listening! ;)
The first is that the better the aerial location with regards to the outside elements, the better the reception is going to be.
Agreed. this is true with anything, FM, DAB, etc.. It's just with DAB the sound quality is capped at a lower level by the compression algorithm.
And the second is that there are some wild differences with build quality and this also has a major effect.
Well, I'm sure there are good receivers and bad. Once they have the S/N margin that they need to receive a digital signal error-free that shouldn't really come into play in terms of sound quality, although in a car environment it also has to cope with interference and multipath, of course.
Kevin
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MM obviously getting into a DAB vs FM etc.
I had Revox B261 FM reference tuner with an amplified 7 element FM antenna on a roof pole. This was to get Jazz FM at the time from London. In Northampton that put me way outside normal area for reception, so mostly mono, stereo with a bit of hiss on a good day. Then it changed to Smooth FM and they lowered the output.
I now have a Marantz st7001 (Denon clone) Also had a Sony 777ES which was a tad better but unit color was yuk.
While absolute sound quality is not as good on Dab, it is hiss free. External Dab antenna. Brilliant.
And Planet rock as well as Jazz fm. Never listened to so much radio.
Which brings me to the point. It isn't the medium, its about the music. If these stations weren't on Dab I would suffer listening via the satellite receiver, now that is carp.
And the Pure Highway I cant really fault, even with its built in FM transmitter. Just "tune" the amp and speakers to match.
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Does the Highway have a phono output or are you restricted to using the FM modulator?
I spent yesterday salvaging the Blaupunkt DAB53 from my 1994 Omega & reinstalling the VDO system I fitted when I first bought the car. I traded in the 1994 for a 2003 facelift Omega with a Bose system today. After a traumatic day yesterday I am not in a hurry to re install the Blaupunkt & the Highway looks like a cheap way of getting DAB to tide me over.
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Does the Highway have a phono output or are you restricted to using the FM modulator?
I spent yesterday salvaging the Blaupunkt DAB53 from my 1994 Omega & reinstalling the VDO system I fitted when I first bought the car. I traded in the 1994 for a 2003 facelift Omega with a Bose system today. After a traumatic day yesterday I am not in a hurry to re install the Blaupunkt & the Highway looks like a cheap way of getting DAB to tide me over.
Highway has 3.5mm stereo jack. But if used with earphones - it uses the earphone lead as an aerial - I am fairly sure this disables the external aerial input. >:( (I wanted to use a separate FM modulator).
I will check tomorrow.
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Does the Highway have a phono output or are you restricted to using the FM modulator?
I spent yesterday salvaging the Blaupunkt DAB53 from my 1994 Omega & reinstalling the VDO system I fitted when I first bought the car. I traded in the 1994 for a 2003 facelift Omega with a Bose system today. After a traumatic day yesterday I am not in a hurry to re install the Blaupunkt & the Highway looks like a cheap way of getting DAB to tide me over.
Highway has 3.5mm stereo jack. But if used with earphones - it uses the earphone lead as an aerial - I am fairly sure this disables the external aerial input. >:( (I wanted to use a separate FM modulator).
I will check tomorrow.
I wonder if it is a logic switch or a simple auxilary contact on the earphone socket?
I want to give the Bose system a chance to win me over before I condemn it but....
What genius decided to install a double DIN unit with a 4 cd cassette in the lower half? The cassette won't come out with the gear shifter in Park, you cant get the shifter out of Park without the ignition on. ::)
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this is the correct way to recieve DAB in the car
use an external antenna
I never have any reception issues like i did with FM
Fm has more depth and does not have the compressed sound that DAB has, that said there is no planet rock on Fm
(http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg174/r0x0rz1337/DSC00419.jpg)
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I have come across a few compression method and to be honest MP3 does not impress - I feel that ATRAC is better for a similar bit rate.
Anyway sound qualities.
Best I have heard is DVD-Audio, followed by SACD, then some DVD PCM tracks, then a really good CD or LP.
For quality the surround sound systems are so variable anway here goes the next set.
BD Dolby Digital (pretty high bit rate)
HiFi audio on some VCRs (but not surround)
DTS
DD 5.1
NICAM
Bottom of CD and LP sound
Minidisk
top DTTV & DSTV sound
Good Cassette
normal DTTV & DSTV sound
normal MP3
poor DTTV & DSTV sound
Poor cassette
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Put FM near good cassette :-[
VCR HiFi - ie decent decks like my 1989 Sony
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this is the correct way to recieve DAB in the car
use an external antenna
I never have any reception issues like i did with FM
Fm has more depth and does not have the compressed sound that DAB has, that said there is no planet rock on Fm
(http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg174/r0x0rz1337/DSC00419.jpg)
Can i ask what make of aerial that is?
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I have come across a few compression method and to be honest MP3 does not impress - I feel that ATRAC is better for a similar bit rate.
Anyway sound qualities.
Best I have heard is DVD-Audio, followed by SACD, then some DVD PCM tracks, then a really good CD or LP.
For quality the surround sound systems are so variable anway here goes the next set.
BD Dolby Digital (pretty high bit rate)
HiFi audio on some VCRs (but not surround)
DTS
DD 5.1
NICAM
Bottom of CD and LP sound
Minidisk
top DTTV & DSTV sound
Good Cassette
normal DTTV & DSTV sound
normal MP3
poor DTTV & DSTV sound
Poor cassette
I think I would have reversed the Minidisc and MP3, but totally agree with your top 5
Oh, and you missed out Sony Minidisc LP with predictive compression which must go firmly at the bottom
;)
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Oh, and you missed out Sony Minidisc LP with predictive compression which must go firmly at the bottom
;)
DAB, strangely! ::)
;)
Kevin
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Actually I have a Minidisc Walkman and the quality is pretty good, I prefer the normal compression to the compression Sonic Stage uses but it sounds better than these little mp3 players.
HOWEVER Sennheiser PX100s are in use.
My MD car head unit sounds better than my CD changer with mp3 - I think I used 192 or 256 when I compressed them. The CD-DA does sound better than MD. Most of my CDs are simply copies of my own audio CDs.
DAB - haven't heard it in ages but poor quality must be a battle between MW and Amstrad CD HiFI I once heard in the entrance to a Laskys.
I am not bothering with ultimate poor spund such as dictaphones or the linear VCR sound. Beta was of course at both ends with the slowest tape speed and the fastest helical scan speed. The HiFi VCRs were probably the best analogue audio recorders for home use so far.
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this is the correct way to recieve DAB in the car
use an external antenna
I never have any reception issues like i did with FM
Fm has more depth and does not have the compressed sound that DAB has, that said there is no planet rock on Fm
(http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg174/r0x0rz1337/DSC00419.jpg)
Can i ask what make of aerial that is?
its a JVC hal3 dab only antenna
works very well and gets all the stations i get at home on my dab tuner and folded dipole
Doug
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I have come across a few compression method and to be honest MP3 does not impress - I feel that ATRAC is better for a similar bit rate.
Anyway sound qualities.
Best I have heard is DVD-Audio, followed by SACD, then some DVD PCM tracks, then a really good CD or LP.
For quality the surround sound systems are so variable anway here goes the next set.
BD Dolby Digital (pretty high bit rate)
HiFi audio on some VCRs (but not surround)
DTS
DD 5.1
NICAM
Bottom of CD and LP sound
Minidisk
top DTTV & DSTV sound
Good Cassette
normal DTTV & DSTV sound
normal MP3
poor DTTV & DSTV sound
Poor cassette
I think I would have reversed the Minidisc and MP3, but totally agree with your top 5
Oh, and you missed out Sony Minidisc LP with predictive compression which must go firmly at the bottom
;)
I notice no hdcd in there
im guessing i was the only one to buy a machine :y
doug
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I have come across a few compression method and to be honest MP3 does not impress - I feel that ATRAC is better for a similar bit rate.
Anyway sound qualities.
Best I have heard is DVD-Audio, followed by SACD, then some DVD PCM tracks, then a really good CD or LP.
For quality the surround sound systems are so variable anway here goes the next set.
BD Dolby Digital (pretty high bit rate)
HiFi audio on some VCRs (but not surround)
DTS
DD 5.1
NICAM
Bottom of CD and LP sound
Minidisk
top DTTV & DSTV sound
Good Cassette
normal DTTV & DSTV sound
normal MP3
poor DTTV & DSTV sound
Poor cassette
I think I would have reversed the Minidisc and MP3, but totally agree with your top 5
Oh, and you missed out Sony Minidisc LP with predictive compression which must go firmly at the bottom
;)
I notice no hdcd in there
im guessing i was the only one to buy a machine :y
doug
Never seen one.
What is funny is that my DVD player was popular as a CD transport, but it could blow any CD player away by changing the disc type - Pioneer DV575
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Actually I have a Minidisc Walkman and the quality is pretty good, I prefer the normal compression to the compression Sonic Stage uses but it sounds better than these little mp3 players.
HOWEVER Sennheiser PX100s are in use.
My MD car head unit sounds better than my CD changer with mp3 - I think I used 192 or 256 when I compressed them. The CD-DA does sound better than MD. Most of my CDs are simply copies of my own audio CDs.
DAB - haven't heard it in ages but poor quality must be a battle between MW and Amstrad CD HiFI I once heard in the entrance to a Laskys.
I am not bothering with ultimate poor spund such as dictaphones or the linear VCR sound. Beta was of course at both ends with the slowest tape speed and the fastest helical scan speed. The HiFi VCRs were probably the best analogue audio recorders for home use so far.
are the px100 headphones anygood?
If i go out on my bike i take my sen hd25s as they are the smallest headphones i have but i would like something sensible when im out and about but i dont want to listen to crap
i use my hd25s for dj work and beyeydynamic dt770 at home as cheap headphones annoy me
Doug
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this is the correct way to recieve DAB in the car
use an external antenna
I never have any reception issues like i did with FM
Fm has more depth and does not have the compressed sound that DAB has, that said there is no planet rock on Fm
(http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg174/r0x0rz1337/DSC00419.jpg)
Can i ask what make of aerial that is?
its a JVC hal3 dab only antenna
works very well and gets all the stations i get at home on my dab tuner and folded dipole
Doug
What is all this Hal3, Hal2 Hal1 etc :-/ :-/ Could some one tell me please :)
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Hmm maybe you guys call it differently but I didn't se anywhere on your list DAT's.
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Hmm maybe you guys call it differently but I didn't se anywhere on your list DAT's.
Very few people here in the UK have any experience of DAT as it was a format that never really took off.
The quality wasn`t bad, but it was let down by mechanisms that kept chewing the tapes, meaning that customers lost faith in it right from the start.
;)
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this is the correct way to recieve DAB in the car
use an external antenna
I never have any reception issues like i did with FM
Fm has more depth and does not have the compressed sound that DAB has, that said there is no planet rock on Fm
(http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg174/r0x0rz1337/DSC00419.jpg)
Can i ask what make of aerial that is?
its a JVC hal3 dab only antenna
works very well and gets all the stations i get at home on my dab tuner and folded dipole
Doug
What is all this Hal3, Hal2 Hal1 etc :-/ :-/ Could some one tell me please :)
the jvc hal range is hal 1 is the stick on sindscreen dab antenna
dab2 is dab and fm and dab3 is dab only bolt through the roof
Doug
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Thanks Doug :y
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The Sennheiser PX range are all pretty good and also good value for money