After more than 50 years FM radio, a new sound broadcasting technology will be introduced with the new digital broadcasting DAB.
- DAB offers a hearing enjoyment in (nearly) CD-quality, which is also interesting for HiFI-enthusiasts.
- DAB offers his biggest advantage with the mobile reception. The annoying rustle and the disturbances due to other stations are part of the past now. The searching and switching to another frequency during the drive falls away. That is because at DAB all transmitters work on the same frequency. You get into the car, switch on the radio, choose your preferred channel and hear this one with the preferred volume and with the best quality.
- In addition to this wide range of broadcasting programs, the DAB-system becomes attractive because of the data services. What is possible with FM-RDS only partially, can now be used in full extent. In this way supplementary- and information data can be sent to every radio program. For example, the titles which are played, names of the interprets, information about the CD, program scheme, pictures of the studio and so on. This possibility is offered by the PAD program associated data. This is supplementary information to the program just listened to. Besides this possibility you can also have NPAD (non-program associated data). This is data, that is not associated with the program listened to, but it informs you about traffic, events in the province, weather forecast news and so on. The biggest innovation consists of sending a program independent data channel, on which informations about e.g. weather, news and traffic are transmitted.
- Right in the middle of enumerating advantages and because the environmental protection is very important for us, it is necessary to mention that with DAB eight programs (16! in DAB+) are transmitted with only one transmitter. This uses up less electrical energy, because large transmitter works are not necessary. Of course this saves energy, but also money. Moreover, the channel needs only 1,5 MHz wave band for transmitting all programs and data. In contrast to this, for eight FM-programs, without the possibility of data transmission, you’ll need 2,1 MHz wave band. If you take a look on the energy balance, a DAB-network at a full supply of our country, needs only 1/4 of the energy in comparison with an evenly matched FM-network.