Digital Radio in Europe

This receiver became available in very limited quantities in Autumn 2009. The price will probably be about 250 Euros. Uniwave released preliminary technical information in June 2009 as follows.

 

The radio is compact at 125mm (high), 66mm (deep) by 232 mm (wide) that probably means that long and medium wave reception will be less than ideal. There is a telescopic antenna for FM and AM/DRM reception up to 30 MHz as well as an input for and external antenna for the latter. The radio has an SD card that can buffer the DRM signal for 10 minutes or be used to display pictures or play audio or video files. The SD card can be up to 2 GB in capacity.

 

Power is via a 6V DC mains adapter or 4 x 1.5V C/R14 cells. Current drain is likely to be high so alkaline batteries may not last very long.

 

The DRM features are the best so far in a standalone radio. In addition to the AFS (Alternative Frequency Switching) function the radio also supports Journaline and MOT slide shows that have required the use of a PC to decode. There is also an expert mode to view DRM parameters.

 

Early production units have had the usual teething troubles but Uniwave will want to display it at IFA 2009 in Berlin in early September and be able to ship units shortly thereafter.

 

Unconfirmed reports indicate that these early run models are not very stable and use up batteries very quickly.