AM in the "FM" Band

[Miss Tuned]

Canada, which of all the nations you named, has about the highest percentage of listening to commercial stations tried DAB and abandoned it when they saw that consumers saw no advantage and did not buy the equipment.

Even in the UK, many listeners who are in rural areas or small towns or where there is rugged terrain have found that DAB is not effective. The policy makers in London hear it just fine, and never think that it is really not so good.

I have recent experience of this. Just a few weeks ago, I was in a remote corner of Scotland with low population and lots of mountains. FM on the car radio faded in and out, with lots of multipath and flutter. DAB was rock-solid, the SFN doing its job.

The main drawback is that local and regional stations (e.g. BBC Radio Scotland) are not available, only the UK-wide SFN, which means listeners have to change from digital to analog broadcasting to hear regional programming. There are also no commercial stations available in those very out-of-the-way areas, just the BBC, but this has also been the case for many years on analog.