DAB aerials

I don't see why people make a combined MW/VHF aerial expensive. If you think about it, an aerial for 88-108MHz will work perfectly well on

170-220MHz. It's harmonically related. So a quarter wave on 88-108 will be a half wave on the DAB band. All car manufacturers have to do is increase the bandwidth and filtering in the preamp they use. Nothing expensive ! I bet most are already wideband anyway and rely on filtering on the front end of the radio.

A better idea if you want to do it is buy one of the mini-magnetic mount aerials from Maplin. They have a tiny base and thin whip. Just cut it to size for 100MHz and it will work on DAB. I use one myself. Car manufacturers could make a trapped vertical for 88-108 and 170-220MHz that would provide some gain on DAB.

As for glass mount aerials, they are not very good and they do introduce quite a bit of loss. I would say about 3dB which is half the signal.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk:

Portable DAB radios seem to receive perfectly well with nothing nore than a standard telescopic aerial, just like the automotive type, only shorter.

If you're set on a DAB radio, why not buy one and see how it fares hooked up to the car's standard aerial? That way you won't fork out for an expensive aerial unless it's absolutely necessary.

Stu

The adaptor I tried was absolutely rubbish, as was the inside of the window sticky type.

The JVC HAL3 DAB only aerial works brilliantly both roof mounted and, on my 5 series, mounted on the rear wing top. Only 23quid from here:-

I've just put the JVC HAL4 on my new car, a glass mounted external one like the mobile phone aerials. Initial reports show it's much the same as the HAL3

John

My home tuner works on a bit of wire hanging out the socket but I'm in a strong signal area. (I do have a proper aerial for it, though.)

Snag is the sockets are different so not an instant experiment. As I say there are adaptors available but I'd like to know if they work ok.

Excellent, thanks. And about half the price of a Blaupunkt one.

I'm thinking though that if I fit a roof aerial I'd want to get rid of the wing mounted telescopic one. They do offer one of those too but it appears to need an extra downlead for FM. The BS version has a powered combiner.

It does look like the JVC needs 2 leads, or is it 3? I'd get rid of FM completely if traffic reports didn't need it.

John