If you’ve found this page, it’s likely you’re asking, “Is DAB radio down today?”
DAB radio sometimes experiences outages, but if you aren’t picking up DAB stations it’s more likely there is a problem with your radio.
Causes of DAB radio outages can include:
- Technical problems at the radio station
- Planned maintenance work on the transmitter
- A power cut or other physical damage preventing the transmitter from working
DAB radio outages are rare and usually don’t last for very long (a few hours at most).
Large-scale outages that affect all stations are especially rare. In fact, we couldn’t find any news reports about DAB ever being completely down in the UK since the technology was launched.
Therefore, if your radio isn’t picking up any stations at all or is saying “no signal”, the problem is almost certainly with the radio or aerial—find out how to fix signal problems here.
How to Find Out if DAB Radio is Down
Here are some tips for finding out if DAB radio is down for everyone or just isn’t working for you:
- Check the Twitter feeds and/or websites of local DAB radio stations. If DAB radio is down, they will usually post about it to update listeners. You can also search Twitter for “DAB radio down” to see if other people are having the same problem.
- Check BBC transmission problems on UKFree.tv here. This page details outages in BBC TV and DAB signals in different parts of the UK.
- Check for transmitter faults using the BBC’s Transmitter Checker tool here.
- If you’ve just lost one station it probably means that the station has stopped broadcasting or has started using a different frequency. Try retuning your radio or look for information online to see if it has stopped broadcasting.
- If you have been unable to pick up DAB stations for several days, the problem is almost certainly with your radio, as DAB radio outages rarely last more than about three hours.
If you can still receive radio stations via digital television this doesn’t mean that DAB radio is working—radio stations use a different technology to broadcast on digital television than DAB.
If you suspect the problem is with your radio, check out these tips for improving your DAB signal.
If it’s time to buy a new radio, read our guide to the best DAB radios on the market.