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[Lawton1987]

With the government anouncing that all FM stations must move to DAB radio by 2015
as part of their digital Britain scheme I thought I would make a post on what people
are planning to do to enable DAB within their car. Whether it be an addition to your
current radio or a new stereo.  I thought I would open a general chat about the
subject.

As of now the only major stereo manufacturers to offer DAB stereos are Sony and
JVC, and I know additions such as the Pure Highway, Clarity etc are available, but I find
them very cumbersome to have in the car. Mercedes are now offering DAB radios
(around £350) to their new cars, I just hope they make a hideaway unit that adapts
our original stereos to allow DAB.

Yes I know 2015 is way off for some, but I hope to have my lovely ForFour still, and
I like to plan ahead and get other peoples views on what they plan to do.

Many thanks to all those who respond

Lawton1987.

[CrazyG]

I saw and responded to something about DAB adapters recently.....and it was along the
lines you state re Pure Highway, Clarity, & Acoustic Solutions.
(REVO no longer make their DAB for cars...unfortunately.)

The PURE Pocket DAB...as the name says..it's a small portable DAB...£70.
(connect the Pocket DAB to your existing Smart radio via one of Evils - 'Smartmods' Aux socket adapter lead.)
The PURE Highway is £60
(The PURE Highway extra car kit...so you can swap it between cars...is £18  but you'll still need a DAB aerial)
The Clarity C-DAB7 costs £60
The Acoustic Solutions ICS-100 costs £70

The choice of DAB aerials, which you really must have are:-
PURE Hghway VL-61112 Mag mount £16+ ....but can scratch the paint/bodywork
JVC Hal1 ...glass mount internal £26+
JVC Hal4....glass mount internal+external for rear screen £30+

What will I do/be doing then ? I too expect to still have my ForFour when the change happens.
It could well be that I will change my HU from the good old Radio 5 to a double DIN
unit with a 7" screen, DVD, TV, Bluetooth, and all manner of other widgets/gadgets
/baubles/bangles etc and then fit/add a reversing camera.
Personally, I think in the next few years we will see the car audio market flooded with
new and expensive single DIN and double DIN HU's with DAB.....so perhaps this
question/topic is ' a wee bit early'.

NB: Current DAB HU's - Sony & JVC., though they & Pioneer do 'limited' DAB add-on tuners for their own equipment.

[Problemchild]

I'd rather go for satellite radio as it's a big thing in the USA but it has failed to make a big impact here in Europe - probably due to the fact that we already have so much choice of radio stations!!

TBH - I very much doubt I will have my forfour in 5 years!! I normally change every 2 years as I get bored but weirdly, the BRAB has kept me excited for 2 years already and no sign of itchy feet - although I do surf autotrader weekly

JJ

[Lawton1987]

Pioneer stopped making their DAB module which I believe was the GEX-700P or
something on those lines which they stopped making as they did not make the sales
they expected. If your lucky enough to find one you can expect to pay in excess of £400
which is amazing for such a small unit.

Thank you very much CrazyG for the info on the pure pocket DAB I will definatley have
a look, I have the Radio6 in my forfour so am reluctent to change it, but if I do I was
thinking of a double DIN all singing all dancing Kenwood unit.

Lawton1987

[Razvan.M]

Thanks for the info as this subject was new to me. I searched on the net and found a fair amount of info. If one would want to find out more than the wiki page covers it pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting

[Lawton1987]

Thank you for the information Razvan.M was a very good read, with the information you found I thought I would do some investigating and found the following (http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2009/06/22/46295/todays-dab-radios-will-cope-with-2015-switchover-mostly.htm) which says that the manufactures will provide firmware upgrades to the majority of backdated DAB units to allow for DAB+.

To add to CrazyG's list I found a useful little DAB unit that will fit to our cars using one of Evils - 'Smartmods' Aux socket adapter leads, the unit has a built in aux socket to allow connection for an iPod or generic mp3 player which can still play through the car stereo, thought that would be useful to most. It appears to be small enough to fit in the little cubby hole between the steering wheel and the door (if you know where I mean) though I cannot guarantee the units size. The unit is Acoustic Solutions DAB-ICS100.

Also any DAB unit used with an Autoleads PC6-536 car aerial antenna DAB spliiter will allow for both the stereo and the newly fitted DAB unit to use the cars standard aerial, meaning no extra antenna for the DAB unit will have to be fitted 

Lawton1987

[CrazyG]

Apologies , but I did mention the Acoustic Solutions ICS-100 ....I just omitted the 'DAB' wording bit in the middle.....LOL

And forgive me...I was under the impression from reading a fair bit of stuff on 'The Net' that a normal aerial is not really
good enough for DAB..much like an old TV aerial not good enough for Freeview digital...but hey..what do I know...
I'm no expert and prepared to listen up and read up on stuff, and then try it and see.

[Lawton1987]

Sorry missed the Acoustic Solutions module.
Searching for it I found it on DAB on wheels website (http://www.dabonwheels.co.uk/Acoustic_Solutions_DAB-ICS100_DAB_car_radio.html) starting from £28.99 which I did not think was a bad price.

Lawton1987

[CrazyG]

Indeedo....and I see they do 'unused mail order returns' for £24.99 but that like the £28.99 version
comes without an aerial. £34.99 with a standard aerial(whatever that is)...
£39.99 with glass-mount aerial....
or £69.99 with DMA-1002 High performance magnetic roof mount aerial.

If I decided on one of these I'd go for the £39.99 one.
More sense than buying a 'returned' unit and an aerial adapter or a 'returned'
+ £16 for a glassmount aerial.

[QuBall42]

With the government anouncing that all FM stations must move to DAB radio by 2015 as part of their digital Britain scheme
I thought I would make a post on what people are planning to do to enable DAB within their car. Whether it be an addition to
your current radio or a new stereo.  I thought I would open a general chat about the subject.

Having just paid out on a new JVC Double DIN Sat Nav/DVD etc unit for the car I'll probably just use the aux input and add one of the units mentioned in this thread.

On the question of aerials - It likely comes down to a combination of the higher frequencies used for DAB and the fact that Analogue systems tend to deal with lower/degraded signal fairly well (which is normal from a car aerial) while Digital signals are almost all or nothing (I base that on experience of Analogue and Digital communication systems so I could be completely wrong  ). Any car aerial is a compromise anyway so you more than likely could receive DAB on a standard FM aerial but you'd have to expect reception problems (similar to the fact that you can use a "non-digital" TV aerial to receive Freeview but you don't necessarily have the same quality of signal).

From a personal opinion I think that 2015 is going to be difficult to achieve anyway bearing in mind the governments own migration conditions of 90% population coverage with DAB and that at least 50% of "listening" must be on DAB stations. They also talk about turning off "national" stations but infilling with Local stations on the vacated FM frequencies.

[Lawton1987]

Hi QuBall42 thanks for the great information. You say you have just purchased a JVC double din unit, JVC do a DAB hideaway module to fit the majority of their stereos, this means full control comes through the stereo without the need for another 'on view' unit. The unit can be found on ebay so is worth a look but I have attached the following link so that you may have a look www.incarexpress.co.uk/view_product.php?partno=KTDB1000

Lawton1987

[QuBall42]

Hi QuBall42 thanks for the great information. You say you have just purchased a JVC double din unit, JVC do a DAB hideaway module to fit the majority of their stereos, this means full control comes through the stereo without the need for another 'on view' unit. The unit can be found on ebay so is worth a look but I have attached the following link so that you may have a look www.incarexpress.co.uk/view_product.php?partno=KTDB1000

Lawton1987

Cheers I've been looking at that one. I need to research the headunit that I have though as the JVC box connects to what they are calling the J-Bus or J-Link connector. As far as I can see its just the fancy name for their CD changer input. Also it looks like only a few of their headunits will give the full control of the box. The rest will have limited control - so you might as well by one of the Aux units for a whole lot less.

[mr singh]

what about retro fitting a DAB module to a radio 6 or a radio 5? is it even possible to retro fit to a radio 5?
iv got a pure highway but i need to get another aerial as my old one was crushed with my fortwo (it was stuck to the glass roof)

[Lawton1987]

Yea the JVC DAB unit will just plug directly into the autochanger port of the stereo.

Lawton1987

[mr singh]

Yea the JVC DAB unit will just plug directly into the autochanger port of the stereo.

Lawton1987

the last time you said that i tried it and it didnt work! you said that the denison 300 would work with the radio 5 and it didnt.