Winchester DAB and UK Radio Portal on Freeview channel 277 are very pleased to announce a special discount offer to customers joining Winchester DAB. This offer means that national radio stations on UK Radio Portal can save up to £450 ex. VAT per year on their Winchester DAB bill. For more information, please click here.
Press Release 14/02/2024
Wednesday 14th February 2024 Winchester Small-Scale DAB returns to the airwaves! The closure of UK DAB Networks (Operations) Limited towards the end of last year sent shockwaves across the small-scale DAB radio community, and the resultant shutdown of the Winchester DAB transmission yielded a significant impact on local radio stations in the Winchester area. Despite…
– Signal coverage comparison
As part of the Ofcom consultation process, predicted coverage comparison maps were produced showing the difference between the indoor signal coverage from the original Winchester DAB transmission, and the newly proposed coverage model. Below are the coverage maps as produced by Ofcom: Map key: Blue = retained coverage Red = areas served only by…
– Suspected gap in coverage
The original Winchester small-scale DAB transmission site, as provisioned by UK DAB Networks, was the Arqiva mast at Crabwood Farm, Winchester. This mast is home to the BBC DAB antennae which was shared using an antenna combiner with the original Winchester small-scale DAB service. Being a “premium site” with an antennae height of approximately 40m…
Update 07/02/2024
We are very pleased to advise that the Ofcom consultation process for the reinstatement of Winchester SS-DAB has now been completed, and we are officially approved to bring the Winchester DAB service back on-air. All documents regarding the Ofcom consultation process can he found on the Ofcom website. This has been an unprecedented and extremely…
Update 14/12/2023
We have been advised by Ofcom that due to government legislation implemented to protect against public disenfranchisement due to changes of DAB radio service coverage areas, we are required to undertake a public consultation before final approval can be obtained. It is very unfortunate that this will cause us a delay in re-launch, (plus the…
Update 07/12/2023
In the interests of wasting no time, Alan and the team from Commtronix have been working on-site all day, and have completed the installation of all cabling, racks and equipment at the new Winchester transmission site. This is a major milestone achievement, and take us a big step closer to the re-launch of Winchester SS-DAB….
Update 06/12/2023
Having modelled a number of different antenna configurations with Rash from digris, an alternative antenna solution has been proposed that nicely meets the requirements required by Ofcom to reduce the risk of interference to France, whilst ensuring signal coverage to Winchester and immediate surrounding areas is appropriately achieved. The final proposed technical design sign-off is…
Update 04/12/2023
Further to our liaison with engineers at OfCom, some slight changes are required to be made to our proposed antenna and coverage model in order to reduce the potential risk of southbound interference with France. We do not envisage this as being a major issue, and are confident that an alternative antenna solution can be…
Update 01/12/2023
We are very pleased to announce that a new transmission site for Winchester has been secured. We’re working very closely with Rash Mustafa MBE, (former Ofcom engineer and pioneer of Small-Scale DAB – now CTO of digris), to produce the coverage prediction maps for our new site and model different antenna and transmitter configurations. Our…