Hi Mark, I remember you saying, about the Large number of Base station sites, it needed to cover for London Buses

Part of my Radio Comms. job, was Installing Band 3 mobile radios in Vans etc, (when Band 3 was used before Mobile Phones)
It was a poor system, and the Range compared to High Band (around 165Mhz) was not that far, even with a good site
The range difference going up from 165megs, up to around 200megs, was very obvious when comparing it

Of course Just Below the DAB Band, used to be 405 line TV (Chan.9 for London) But TV use, used high power,
and Televisions often had a large Outside roof aerial as well, to pick it up, not an indoor telescopic

If you compare DAB and FM frequencies, from the same site, DAB needs far more power for the same range
Even our local DAB site uses about 3 or 4 times the wattage, from the same site as the Local BBC FM does

Ofcom did some research into Why DAB dont get into buildings as good as FM does, you would think DAB would be OK
but I remember fixing a DAB radio, and took it outside to test it, Lots of stations found, walked indoors..Nothing
and the DAB site was only about 8 miles away (A DAB site, Not a SSDAB site)
Another DAB site locally runs 300w odd, with yet another 300w site, only 5 miles away on the same freq (SFN)

Answer with SSDAB, is run more power, but cant near the coast, as will go across the North sea and cause problems
So SSDAB seems OK in Urban areas, where not far from the site, but in Rural areas it struggles

I think Peter Moore's page on DAB says it all...
"Cynics have described DAB as 'a solution to a problem that does not exist"
https://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#dab.html

Our Local SSDAB Multiplex has Only the 3 FM stations on it, that paid to set it up, and that's in an Urban area
Nobody in the UK Builds DAB TX, so if one goes wrong, need to send it back to Europe to get it fixed!

Rod Watts