Tag Archives: aerials

A Complaint to Maplin

I’ve not blogged much lately. It’s because in the last couple of months me and my girlfriend have moved house. And even though there’s nothing majorly wrong with the house we’ve moved into, there are more niggles than I’d expected.

When we moved in, there was no Internet (or phone line). We couldn’t just reconnect the cable broadband that was here already, because we were half way through a contract with another provider. So we had to wait while a whole new line was installed and our old service transferred, or else pay a nearly-£100 disconnection fee. There isn’t a room in the building where we could get a reliable radio (DAB or FM) reception, so after a lot of mucking about, we gave up and just listen online (once the Internet was back on).

And then there was the issue with TV. The previous people who lived here had cable TV in the living room. Because of that, there wasn’t a TV aerial point anywhere downstairs. But there was an aerial in the loft, connected to the upstairs rooms. Easy fix, no? Just run a longer cable downstairs, right? You’d think so, wouldn’t you. But with no Internet access, I was forced to use physical shops for my purchases. So here goes. This is the email I’ve just sent to Maplin, that I thought I’d share with you. Continue reading A Complaint to Maplin

The Death of DAB at (My) Home

pic of my old dab radio

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with DAB ever since I discovered it.

I loved the added choice in radio stations, but hated that I needed a second aerial in the car, and that having it required a different radio, with severely limited choice of models. Even now in 2014, there’s not much choice if you want an in-car DAB radio with bluetooth.
Look for a radio with cd, usb input, bluetooth, etc. and there’s plentiful choice. But add those three letters of D-A-B, and it becomes all the more awkward.

Still, it was always good at home, right?
Well, yes and no. Continue reading The Death of DAB at (My) Home