What DAB signal..??

No,local stations great and can even get Radio one all the way to Guilty Wells, never got that with FM
 
Nope non existant, I'm at the top of Essex near to the Suffolk boarder and its unusable on local stations and the non BBC nationals. The BBC is just about listenable but does drop out frequently. Once I'm past Chelmsford its fine and useable, it must be another London centric thing as our other cars with DAB are all the same.
 
Yep, mine was absolutely crap until I had a shark fin aerial fitted. Not had a problem since.
 
Drops out ocasionally here, but getting used to it... FM is put down here so no other option.
 
OK usually except near home as I live 500 yards from the Crystal Palace TV masts, once I picked up Chamberlain declaring war but that's it.
 
These posts illustrate the problems with DAB. If the decoder receives a signal a below a certain threshold, it gives no audio out and some of you describe 'drop-outs'. DAB is transmitted on frequencies around 225MHz which is over twice the VHF FM range (88 - 108 MHz), which means that the signal strength falls more rapidly with distance from the transmitter than at VHF. Also radio shadows caused by buildings, etc. will be more severe. All these things are out of the listener's control. As far as I can see, all the advantages of DAB are for the broadcaster and Ofcom and few, if any, are for the listener.

However, it appears that the aerial fitted by VW is not very good and some forum members have fitted more effective ones. I googled 'shark fin' and found several different models - please, which did you fit, @Scruffy ? I would be interested to hear about experience with different aerials.
 
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@Richard, the aerial is a shark fin fitted by Skipton Car Audio. I'm not sure which one they fitted, but I remember him saying it was Italian in make; check their website.

I was banging my head against the wall with the DAB originally, but can honestly say I haven't had a problem since. I found when I plugged in anything drawing power ( phone or TomTom ),the signal would immediately go, but not anymore. I think the problem with the van is firstly the DAB aerial is very weak, and combined with unshielded 12v around the head until, it just doesn't stand a chance.
 
There is a picture of it somewhere on this forum, on an earlier thread about the poor DAB. I'll try and find it.
 

That's not too invasive or hideous, it really makes a substantial difference to the reception though?
 
That's not too invasive or hideous, it really makes a substantial difference to the reception though?

Absolutely. I was seriously tearing my hair out (not that I've got any!) with the DAB reception. Now I don't even think about it; it just works.
 
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