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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Tahoma>To quote a lyric "it's time for making your mind
up"<BR><BR>The BBC is producing a dedicated pop-up radio channel dedicated to
covering the Eurovision Song Contest this year. Good news for ESC fans, but
Radio 2 Eurovision is broadcast using 64kbps mono(!), and the national DAB
multiplex has had to to be reconfigured to allow for this. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Tahoma></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Tahoma>For the duration Radio 2 and Radio 6 Music will
use 112kbps each instead of 128kbps, which already provided minimal sound
quality for music services. In addition updates to the 7-day Electronic
Programme Guide will be suspended for the duration (receivers should retain the
EPG if they were updated just before 7 May, but new receivers or ones that were
nor updated will not be able to do so).<BR><BR>The Daily Service and Yesterday
In Parliament were also not available via Radio 4 LW DAB for a period as well -
the BBC recommended listeners use Radio 4 Long Wave (analogue) or online instead
(Radio 4 LW is not available via Freeview).<BR><BR>I guess it's good that
they can accomodate this 'pop-up' channel, but ridiculous that our national
broadcaster has to operate so hand-to-mouth for broadast bandwidth, and go for
quantity at the expense of quality, largely as a result of the
decision to stick with DAB rather than DAB+ for so many years after the writing
was on the wall for DAB.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>