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Glasgow local MUX SFN Trial


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Old 20-03-2016, 13:33
Craig Kelly
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Ah, didn't realise that this was a separate "minimux" trial, which appears to be different from the normal Glasgow DAB. Is this correct?
YES, that is correct. Glasgow Trial is one of the 10 Ofcom Small-scale DAB digital radio trial licences which were for a 9 months duration and has subsequently been extended for 2 years until Small-scale DAB licences legislation is in place.

What you receive in Dunoon and Cowal, depending on where you are, is the commercial Bauer Glasgow mux or the Arqiva Ayrshire mux.
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Old 20-03-2016, 13:36
Vectorsum
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Ah, didn't realise that this was a separate "minimux" trial, which appears to be different from the normal Glasgow DAB. Is this correct?
Yep that's right. It was actually supposed originally to be a two-site Single Frequency Network minimux trial but the operating group are reporting problems with the second site and, as you've read above there seem to be technical difficulties with the kit at the first site.

If your location is where Streetmap pinpoints it in the Argyll interior, you'll be doing well to get the Bauer local mux. A CRC coverage prediction shows that there's some outdoor coverage on the hills above Dunoon from the minimux trial but nothing further west near your location at usable signal strengths. Due to the topo, that's unlikely to change if/when the second site makes it on air.
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Old 20-03-2016, 21:28
scotorca
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Thanks for your responses on this. Clarified the issue for me, and no Caroline via DAB. I can receive loads of DAB stations, including some Ayrshire ones. Some stations do cut out sometimes, which is a bit of a pain, so maybe it's back to FM. Surely they will have to improve DAB reception drastically before FM frequencies are turned off? DAB from Roseneath would be a start.
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Old 21-03-2016, 03:12
Black Label
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The Ofcom rule "...trial coverage areas should be no greater than 40% of the area served by any local DAB multiplex serving the same area..." as you correctly point out is open interpretation. Assuming it is land mass coverage, then, yes, the 'Greater Glasgow' area could be covered without any great issue, but the transmitter sites would have to chosen carefully.

For a full-time Small-scale DAB licence for 'Glasgow' I would have thought it would be Glasgow Hilton Hotel (William Street) at 300 Watts ERP and Anniesland Court block perhaps at 500W.

But under trial licence conditions, it is just 100W from the Whitlawburn block of flats at Cambuslang which provides rather restricted coverage in parts of Glasgow with a bias towards the east end of Glasgow and into Lanarkshire to include Motherwell. It does sound as if this is as good as it gets.
If it's just to be the one transmitter........and I beilieve this to be almost certain now......then the present setup with the power allocation and location make for little point in some of the participants being on this at all.

The primary benefit to Pulse and YOUR would have been the coverage off Glennifer which would have naturally complimented and extended their own areas. The East End/ Lanarkshire is way out of those station's patches.

It is plainly of no use to GO as a commercial entity. And while we may live in more liberal enlightened times than before, I have to say that the traditional working class areas that transmitter reaches are not as of yet places where you would want your 'Da' to catch you listening to Gaydio! It beg's the question 'what's the point?'

While I don't want to over-labour the negativity about it, I will only say the whole thing has turned into a massive disappointment, given the high hopes of 6 months ago.

We are where we are so if just the one TX then a more suitable location should be found which, given the above participants, should be city centre or West End, i.e The Grafton Tower, the Anniesland Tower or even the Sunny Govan site in Mosspark.
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Old 21-03-2016, 13:03
Vectorsum
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Aren't the minimux trials much more about investigating whether groups can successfully herd the cats onto multiplexes than about the technical aspects? Plus or minus the SFN and OFR deployments, the tech had already been established to Ofcom's satisfaction otherwise they wouldn't have allowed trials to go ahead. I see it much more as an exercise in the politics of combining services; if anything's on the air at all from the Glasgow trial then it's been at least a partial success.

Doing an SFN with a large budget and a satellite feed is easy; doing an SFN on a shoestring via terrestrial transmission is not, as the Glasgow trial has brought to light. Especially if any part of the arrangement involves indifferent and unsympathetic landlords like Arqiva and Wireless Infrastructure. If we're playing 'building bingo' for appropriate rooftop sites, my money would be on the Glasgow Uni library building up on Gilmorehill; there must be plenty of sympathetic students to knock on the Facilities Manager's door.
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Old 22-03-2016, 04:50
Black Label
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Aren't the minimux trials much more about investigating whether groups can successfully herd the cats onto multiplexes than about the technical aspects? Plus or minus the SFN and OFR deployments, the tech had already been established to Ofcom's satisfaction otherwise they wouldn't have allowed trials to go ahead. I see it much more as an exercise in the politics of combining services; if anything's on the air at all from the Glasgow trial then it's been at least a partial success.

Doing an SFN with a large budget and a satellite feed is easy; doing an SFN on a shoestring via terrestrial transmission is not, as the Glasgow trial has brought to light. Especially if any part of the arrangement involves indifferent and unsympathetic landlords like Arqiva and Wireless Infrastructure. If we're playing 'building bingo' for appropriate rooftop sites, my money would be on the Glasgow Uni library building up on Gilmorehill; there must be plenty of sympathetic students to knock on the Facilities Manager's door.
That's fair comment. The ups and downs of this Glasgow trial are just providing valuable feedback to OFCOM and the wider industry on a 'here's what happened in practice' basis.

The moral of the story will be that there is no point in promising the moon and the stars unless you have deals re the transmission etc set in stone.
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Old 22-03-2016, 09:34
Craig Kelly
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That's fair comment. The ups and downs of this Glasgow trial are just providing valuable feedback to OFCOM and the wider industry on a 'here's what happened in practice' basis. The moral of the story will be that there is no point in promising the moon and the stars unless you have deals re the transmission etc set in stone.
Very true!

It is generally accepted that the plans from the winning applicant were over ambitious by using two commercial transmission towers on hill-tops. Maybe Ofcom were keen on the idea to see if the applicant could pull it off which would be another learning experience for all concerned.

In the end, neither transmission tower as planned was used.

The 'Cathkin' site is on the roof top at a block of residential flats at Whitlawburn, Cambuslang, which due to its position and angle, results in poor reception or no reception in many parts of the southside of Glasgow including East Renfrewshire areas of Clarkston, Williamwood, Giffnock, Pollok etc.

The Gleniffer Braes transmitter was at least switched on for three days and it did seem to work well, then it was switched off.

The other applicant for the Glasgow trial was from Awaz FM and they planned a single site from the city centre using an existing FM transmission site. This seems to have been the successful model used in Manchester, Norwich and in other areas.

These trials were a mix of engineering to find out if it actually worked in practice with multiple programme services/radio stations and not just Ofcom staffer trial of seagulls and waves as in Brighton.

It would not be a trial without a few mishaps along the way, which probably Ofcom are grateful for as they will probably learn more from the Glasgow experience than from a trial area which was perfect from day one, but then again, they can learn from that best practice as well.
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Old 22-03-2016, 19:52
Tee Hee
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The moral of the story will be that there is no point in promising the moon and the stars unless you have deals re the transmission etc set in stone.
One of the flaws of have in a trial which is technically led is that, with a 'must launch in 90 days', Ofcom didn't take into account the somewhat lengthy and complex negotiations required to secure a TX site. Hence even the sites that are up and running on 100w are reporting coverage problems. Portsmouth has even had to relocate to an alternate TX site.

This was never a technical trial. There were always implications for licensing and commercial viability - for multiplex operators and their service providers.

As a platform for resuscitating digital radio, small scale DAB will either be a runaway success or an abject failure - there is no middle ground.
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Old 21-08-2016, 14:52
russellelly
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Pulse gone from the minimux? There's a station 'Timeless', but no audio
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Old 24-08-2016, 10:00
russellelly
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Pulse gone from the minimux? There's a station 'Timeless', but no audio
Pulse certainly seems to have gone..

Another service, which I can't get any audio for, appears to have started. Blast 106, which seems to be a community station in Belfast (!) is showing on my station list.

'Your' continues to come through clearly while 'Go' sounds awful.
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Old 25-08-2016, 00:05
Craig Kelly
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Pulse gone from the minimux? There's a station 'Timeless', but no audio
Pulse 98.4 from Barrhead left the trial mux due to variety of reasons. That just leaves Celtic Music Radio as the only community station on the trial mux.

Timeless seems to have replaced Pulse. The Timeless lable indicates a Pop Music service and it is being transmitted at 80 kbts mono. With a name like Timeless, it does suggest 'timeless' music/classic hits.
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Old 25-08-2016, 11:48
DiandalScotland
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Yeah, scanning last night as i came through Parkhead area, i see the Timeless station and also Blast 106 as mentioned before. Is the latter replacing Asian Fx which had ( ? ) on my dab as did Pulse. I also see Sunrise there on SDL and Glasgow Local , seperate stations.

So from what i can see, we now have a line up of

BLAST 106
CELTIC MUSIC RADIO
GAYDIO
GO RADIO GLASGOW
LIKE RADIO
RADIO CAROLINE
RADIO SALTIRE
SUNRISE RADIO
TIMELESS
YOUR RADIO
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Old 25-08-2016, 20:47
Craig Kelly
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Don't see "Blast 106" on the Glasgow Trial mux or on any mux for that matter.

Blast 106 is Belfast's Most Music Station! Broadcasts 106.4 FM across Belfast city area and is an Ofcom licensed community radio station aimed at the Belfast student population and young people under 25.
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Old 25-08-2016, 22:25
Radio_Geek
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Don't see "Blast 106" on the Glasgow Trial mux or on any mux for that matter.

Blast 106 is Belfast's Most Music Station! Broadcasts 106.4 FM across Belfast city area and is an Ofcom licensed community radio station aimed at the Belfast student population and young people under 25.
Sounds very similar (name) to Beat 106..
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Old 26-08-2016, 01:32
Black Label
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It seems to me that the information "output" from these local DAB trials thus far is that they are of muted interest to existing small scale broadcasters within the areas served, but in fact are more of interest to out of area-casters who can then create mini-networked DAB services on the cheap by the back door.

If OFCOM's 'vision' for this is within-the-area small ILR and community FMers, hospital, and netcasters all signing up to these things then I suggest they abandon this project as (and I have to be careful what I say here by dint of being back at Pulse 98.4) the local politics and expectation management can be a problem.

If, however, OFCOM are happy for the likes of Like, Caroline, Gaydio, and various 'startup' services proliferating these networks and it then becomes a lower level of national DAB then by all means proceed with it, and it gives a space for guys like Spencer Pryor and John Evington to bring new services to market.
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Old 26-08-2016, 07:05
mfr
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It seems to me that the information "output" from these local DAB trials thus far is that they are of muted interest to existing small scale broadcasters within the areas served, but in fact are more of interest to out of area-casters who can then create mini-networked DAB services on the cheap by the back door..
The outcome is almost certainly a mixture of the two - allowing a small number of local broadcasters to get access to DAB and part funding the multiplex by having other broadcasters on there. I doubt anyone would expect a dozen local services.

In addition, it's a limited-duration technical trial. I wouldn't set up a radio station when I knew it may be taken off-air in a year or two. The current set-up is not representative of a permanent service.

OFCOM has set this whole thing up to discover what the technical issues are around using low-cost equipment to deliver a service in different geographic terrains. They aren't expressly testing the types of service that might run on it.
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Old 26-08-2016, 12:45
DiandalScotland
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Don't see "Blast 106" on the Glasgow Trial mux or on any mux for that matter.

Blast 106 is Belfast's Most Music Station! Broadcasts 106.4 FM across Belfast city area and is an Ofcom licensed community radio station aimed at the Belfast student population and young people under 25.

well showing on my pure highway and listed as glasgow local but like Timeless is silent at mo.

maybe do a rescan?
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Old 26-08-2016, 13:25
hanssolo
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Sounds very similar (name) to Beat 106..
More like the Hits/City 3 nw, Jack 2 or Eagle 3 aimed at under 25s and their requests, but not a Uni student run station.
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Old 26-08-2016, 16:39
Vectorsum
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...OFCOM has set this whole thing up to discover what the technical issues are around using low-cost equipment to deliver a service in different geographic terrains. They aren't expressly testing the types of service that might run on it.
Back in early 2012 the community radio consultations hosted by Ofcom showed an appetite for DAB services based on this low-cost kit; despite issuing a blanket 'no' at the time, it was plain even to them the futility of trying to hold back the tide in a nation already renowned for digital broadcasting innovation and boasting the most highly developed DAB networks in the world.

Proving the kit worked had been done before, so the tangible prize from the small-scale saga is the knowledge of how to build and run an SFN on a shoestring. Ofcom only needed one group to succeed at that (and only one has), after which point they could just cut and paste that know-how over however many small-scale TXs are required to service a region, say Cumbria/central Wales/the Highlands and Islands.
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Old 28-08-2016, 17:08
Craig Kelly
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Timeless Radio has now got audio on their label on the Trial Glasgow DAB mux. It is being announced as "test transmission for Timeless Radio" which is being transmitted at 128 kbts Joint stereo.

Frank Sinatra, Mama Cass, Herp Albert and alike are being played: "Easy listening memories for all to enjoy". www.timelessradio.uk
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Old 29-08-2016, 00:25
Black Label
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The outcome is almost certainly a mixture of the two - allowing a small number of local broadcasters to get access to DAB and part funding the multiplex by having other broadcasters on there. I doubt anyone would expect a dozen local services.
Indeed. For local ILRs and community stations serving specific geographic communities, they are of mixed limited benefit. Community stations on a shoestring have good old 25 watt FM transmitters directly serving their patches.

There are certain incremental benefits to FM community stations being on local DAB which covers their own and/or a larger area, one of which I'd say from observation is motivation amongst the troops, and also money-generating sponsorship opportunites...i.e the cost of being on these things is low so if a local business is prepared to stump up the cost and maybe some more then all good.

But looked at in the round it seems to me that small scale local DAB is more a vehicle for genre-specific services who can then occupy many local MUXs.

I can easily imagine a scenario, for example, where Celtic Music Radio, might be on local DAB across Scotland in it's major cities.

You may also have supply and demand realities where holders of these local DAB MUX licences....once there are permanant licences granted and many more of them..........are able to monetise it by selling slots to 'startup' genre stations and charge decent sums.

Would there be anything to prevent local DAB licence holders merging into single companies just as ILRs have done? I can certainly see possible business synergy between Spencer Pryor in Glasgow and John Evington in Manchester with this, for example. Why have two companies haggling over access costs in Glasgow and Manchester when you could instead have the one company selling the slots across the two? Or are the rules akin to community radio where they have to remain solus?

I am wondering what this is intended to be. A local access type thing, a free market free-for all, or some kind of mixture of the two, and do OFCOM have any vision re it or is it just suck-it-and-see?

As for 'Timeless Radio'.......I am wondering who that voice is at the start of the stream on the site Craig Kelly linked to on the post above. It sounds like it might be Mike McLean off YOUR Radio but I'm not 100% sure.

Could this be a new Spencer service? I shall resist the temptation to say something catty and say instead that I like the idea of the station a lot. It's a great unserved niche.
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Old 29-08-2016, 07:42
Craig Kelly
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As for 'Timeless Radio'.......I am wondering who that voice is at the start of the stream on the site Craig Kelly linked to on the post above. It sounds like it might be Mike McLean off YOUR Radio but I'm not 100% sure.

Could this be a new Spencer service? I shall resist the temptation to say something catty and say instead that I like the idea of the station a lot. It's a great unserved niche.
Yes, it is the dulcet tones of Mike McLean with a posh 'test transmission' continuity voice for the tests of Timesless Radio.

Timesless Radio is certainly a gap in the market and aimed mostly at the age group who just can fondly remember 'Hallmark of Quality - Britain Radio' and 'sweet music' Radio 390 from the mid 1960s.

Found 'Blast' on the Trail Glasgow mux, silent carrier at 32 kbts stereo. This would suggest being a DAB+ service at 32 kbts stereo.

Indoor reception not so good the last few days with drops in signal and going off-air for periods.

And BL, it would appear to be another Spencer service as you suggest. He is most likely using his Brave Broadcasting Ltd., company which also owns Your Radio and is the Trial Glasgow DAB licencee. It may be the first programme service from the new Brave Broadcasting House in Dumbarton.
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Old 29-08-2016, 09:41
hanssolo
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Found 'Blast' on the Trail Glasgow mux, silent carrier at 32 kbts stereo. This would suggest being a DAB+ service at 32 kbts stereo.

Indoor reception not so good the last few days with drops in signal and going off-air for periods.
Looks like Blast from Belfast is also now in Manchester.
Hopefully the opensource SFN software is finally synching and sorting out coverage as in London
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Old 30-08-2016, 04:04
Black Label
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And BL, it would appear to be another Spencer service as you suggest. He is most likely using his Brave Broadcasting Ltd., company which also owns Your Radio and is the Trial Glasgow DAB licencee. It may be the first programme service from the new Brave Broadcasting House in Dumbarton.
Is that so? Imagine that. Memories are for some reason jumping to mind now of when beleagured L107 staffers were also set to work remote VTing ON FM in London.

Brave Broadcasting House'? Is that 'brave" in the 'Yes Minister' sense of the word?
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Old 21-12-2016, 01:53
DiandalScotland
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i see Timeless has gave way at moment for YOUR XMAS RADIO until January

Any word on whats happening with Go Radio ???
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