If you haven’t, you probably will do soon.

Before the days of Freeview, the chances are that you watched terrestrial television that was broadcast in an analogue fashion. Analogue transmission is seen as incredibly wasteful these days, as you can utilise a similar frequency for a whole number of channels in a digital form, rather than just the one in an analogue form. It’s all down to squashing data through a pipe using compression and something they call ‘Statistical Multiplexing’. Statistical Multiplexing is where they use less bandwidth on one channel when there’s not so much happening on the picture, and give it to a channel where there is a lot happening – kind of like taking it away from a static shot on the Harry Hill’s TV Burp and giving it to a Match of the Day where they’re panning across grass. You get the idea…

What’s the big deal? Well, the overall goal of this DSO work is to allow the broadcast transmission operators to turn up the data rate and power of the transmitters, allowing more distant places in the UK to receive a signal and have that signal capable of High Definition (HD). They can’t do it right now, as it will interfere with the analogue users, meaning they can’t watch Eastenders (“You bitch!” “You cow!”) – which I’m sure won’t make them very happy. I’m not stereotyping analogue viewers, mind.

So why the hell am I writing about television transmission on this blog? Well, it’s all to do with the Crystal Palace transmitter in London, and that’s the big pole that we use to reach across London on FM. Crystal Palace also supplies all analogue and digital terrestrial television across London, and it’s going to need some pretty major work in order to bring it up to specification ready for the DSO. As a result of this, Absolute Radio is going to be moved onto a temporary antenna that is a little bit higher on the mast, but it’s going to be a lower power. We don’t like this anymore than you do, but it’s got to be done. Don’t worry, we will be going back to the original antenna and power once the work is complete.

It’s all starting at the end of April, and is likely to last until the middle of June.

The outcome of this gain in height yet drop in power is that we’re going to see a change in our signal level on FM in London, by around -1.8dB. Sorry. I’ll tell you what, here’s a little map to show how you might be affected if you listen to us on FM…

The yellow bits are where you get signal now, and where you’ll get it when we’re on the temporary antenna.

The red bits are where you can get us now, but won’t be able to get us when we’re on the temporary antenna.

The green bits are where you can’t get us now, but you’ll be able to get us when we’re on the temporary antenna.

If you’re in the green or red bits, do yourself a favour – get a DAB Digital Radio!