Re: BBC FM networks borked

In article <4f112aaf75charles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Charles wrote:
Considering that a conventional AM or FM receiver can be made with less
than a dozen transistors but anything involving digital processing needs
the equivalent of thousands *in addition* to the RF, IF and audio stages
that any receiver must have anyway, I don't see how it can ever be
possible to reduce the power consumption to match. A "digital receiver"
is in effect an analogue receiver with some extra circuitry, and rather
complicated circuitry at that.

I agree that there will be a higher power drain, but does it need to be as
high as it is at the moment?  Mobile phone technology, even with a digital
system, has reduced the power consumption considerably in that field. 
Decoders for Ceefax - in the early days - used 10s of discrete chips with a
power consumption measured in amps.  Dedicated ics brought the power
consumption right down.

It might be possible to reduce it somewhat, but I can't see how it could ever
be as low as the power consumption of an analogue receiver. A digital
receiver needs all the basic stages an analogue receiver contains - RF and IF
stages, some sort of demodulator, and either an audio buffer stage or
loudspeaker/headphone amplifiers, *plus* some digital processing. I don't
know how low it is possible to reduce the power consumption of this type of
digital circuitry, but I suspect not as low as that of a phone, and certainly
not to zero.

Rod.

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