Peace in the valley

On the way back from Blackpool, at Manchester Oxford Road train station, I heard Peace FM 90.1 testing.

RDS = Peace FM

Good signal, was atill audible on the train, some way to the east of Stockport.

Back to Manchester Oxford Road, other stations heard include:

87.7 Mahay Ramzan (Oldham)
96.0 BBC Radio Shropshire - mono signal
96.2 The Revolution, RDS = THE REV
96.9 All FM (Manchester), RDS = ALL FM
106.1 Rock Radio (Manchester), RDS = ROCK RAD

Ramadan Oldham and Preston

En route to Blackpool by train, I heard 2 Radio Ramadan RSLs while west of the Pennines.

The first was Mahay Ramzan 87.7 from Oldham, which was heard at manchester Picadilly train station and some way north.

Then, near Preston, I heard Radio Ramadan Preston on 87.9

No RDS noted in either case.

Diabolical Advertising Bull****

Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against DAB digital radio. But I do think the latest advert for DAB - which includes 'interference' from what sounds like a cliched London pirate - is rather 'below the belt' by reinforcing the myth that pirate radio causes interference.

Besides, it is also a myth to suggest that DAB has no interference, and is either perfect sound or impossible to receive. Anybody listening to a distant multiplex on DAB (ie all of them, in many areas!) will notice times when the station sounds like you're listening underwater! (appropriate for Radio Mi Amigo, perhaps :P )

Still, it's interesting that pirate radio is obviously still popular enough to be a thorn in the side of the radio Establishment, so they want to discredit it. Could this have something to do with the increasingly poor quality of independent radio in the UK, where even the 'music' stations seem to have 20 minutes of verbal diarrhea for every record played? And the fact that the promotions are increasingly getting 'preachy', encouraging us to take up exercise when all we want is to listen to the music? No wonder, then, people are deserting ILR for the pirates. And without a root-and-branch change in format of British legal radio, DAB isn't going to help.

After all, perfect-sounding crap is still crap!