New industry group, digitalradio.ie, welcomes publin DAB trials
Tuesday, 1 May 2007
On Wednesday, 2 May Digitalradio.ie welcomed the arrival of public DAB digital radio trials in Ireland. DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) is a new type of radio technology. New DAB digital radio sets are required to listen to the public DAB trials.
Digitalradio.ie is a new industry group that has been set up to explore the development and promotion of digital radio in Ireland. The current members, who are all involved in the present trial, are: 98FM, Digital Audio Productions, FM104, Newstalk 106-108 FM, Phantom 105.2, Q102, RTÉ Radio, SPIN 1038, and Today FM.
Since early March a trial digital radio service with 11 stations: six existing national stations and five Dublin stations, has been live and on air in the Greater Dublin and North East area, serving 36% of Ireland's population. Digitalradio.ie is now inviting members of the public to tune into the trials and plans to conduct a user survey during the trial period.
This is the beginning of a collaborative effort by the radio sector to fully examine digital radio. The group will also be inviting all Irish radio broadcasters, including those outside the trial area, to join digitalradio.ie so that awareness of this exciting new technology is shared by all in the industry.
What is Digital Radio?
Digital Radio means more stations, more choice and more content for listeners.
New DAB digital radios feature sleek design and are available in a huge variety of types (nearly 300)
Easy to use
Push button stations - no twiddling
Pause & rewind on some radios, soon digital radios will also have a record function
Clearer sound
Most DAB digital radios also receive FM
Radio stations currently available on the DAB test signal are:
98FM
FM104
Newstalk 106-108 FM
Phantom 105.2
Q02
RTÉ 2fm
RTÉ lyric fm
RTÉ Radio 1
RTÉ Radió na Gaeltachta
SPIN 1038
Today FM
There will be a range of new DAB-only services on trial in the very near future. Anyone living in the test area who owns a DAB digital radio can listen to the 11 existing services listed above and the new DAB-only services once they are on air this summer.
