Digital radio - immaculate reception

At a time when manufacturers are bombarding us with hype about high-definition TV, it’s easy to forget about one of the other key broadcasting revolutions of recent years – digital radio.

In fact, digital radio has been with us in some shape or form for well over a decade and has found its way into car hi-fis, television sets and even mobile phones.

You can listen to digital radio broadcasts in several ways, either via a Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) radio set, through digital TV equipment or over the internet.

In this feature, we’ll show you how to tune in to digital radio broadcasts and explain what you need to look out for when buying equipment.

Radio times
The first thing to point out is that while your old FM radio set won’t be able to receive digital radio transmissions, going out and buying a brand-new DAB radio set isn’t necessarily the only option available.

You could, for example, consider listening to the radio on your TV. That might sound a bit backwards, but digital television in almost all its permutations (satellite, cable and Freeview) provides a selection of high-quality digital radio stations.

Freeview, for instance, features about 20 digital radio stations in addition to its TV channels, including digital versions of all the regular national BBC radio stations and digital-only ones, such as BBC6 Music. NTL/Telewest digital cable has more than 40 radio stations on board, but Sky’s satellite service has the widest selection, with almost 100 digital radio stations, including many local BBC services.

The main benefit of going down the TV route is that you effectively kill two birds with one stone. In some cases, audio quality can even be slightly better than when received via a dedicated DAB radio. And if your digital TV device comes with video-recording capabilities (a Freeview PVR, for example), then you can also use it to record radio programmes.

Twin tuner PVRs such as the Humax PVR9200T (£180) or Sky+ (from £99) will even let you record a radio show while watching TV, and vice versa.

On the downside, listening to radio this way means you have to switch your TV on every time you want to tune in or switch stations. And while Freeview costs relatively little (about £30 for the cheapest set-top box), both Sky and cable require you to sign up for monthly subscriptions.

A DAB hand
For most people, digital radio means DAB. Currently available to about nine out of 10 people, DAB is a big improvement on analogue FM and AM broadcasting in terms of quality, convenience and variety. DAB technology is much less prone to hiss and crackle and is not affected by factors such as environmental interference or local radio transmission activity.

One-touch tuning, meanwhile, makes it possible to leap from one station to another without having to twiddle any knobs or remember any frequency numbers. On top of all that, there are many more stations available via DAB than via FM.

At the moment, there are more than 170 radio stations broadcasting over the digital airwaves, some of which are digital versions of existing analogue stations and others that are exclusive to DAB.