In those days, of a Sunday lunchtime, everyone listened to Family Favourites and the Billy Cotton Band Show... in those days, there was hardly anything else available on the airwaves.

A dash of warm sunshine meant that windows were kept wide open, and the programmes could be heard by all and sundry.

In my naïvety, I wondered if each house received the same signal at the same time.

After ears-open dashes from one side of the cabbage patch to the other, I was still none the wiser.

I soon accepted the irrefutable truth that everyone heard "Wakey, Wakey" at the same time.

And this "fact" stayed with me until we bought a digital radio for the kitchen.

Very pleased we were with it, too.

Except that it didn't quite knit in with my domestic listening way of life.

I'm not so much a wall-to-wall listener as a room-to-room-to-room audio enthusiast.

If I'm listening to Just a Minute while moving around the house, I like to hear seamless listening from my four other radios placed in strategic rooms, but it just doesn't work like that.

You see, my other radios are FM models, and DAB receivers transmit the signal about 3½ seconds behind their FM counterparts.

It's so annoying to hear something on the main bedroom radio, and then have it repeated downstairs.

The real craziness comes in when the Greenwich time pips are broadcast, and with the quick-fire repetition effect, it sounds as if we have a demented heart monitor in the house!

I don't want to buy digital replacements for my perfectly adequate FM friends, and not just because of the capital cost.

Apart from the mains-powered models in the kitchen and sitting room, I like the carrying flexibility of portable radios.

But I don't appreciate the battery-powered (and mains) running costs of DAB receivers, which can be more than double those of FM.

Let's just carry on ad infinitum with the digital/FM marriage, I thought.

After all, we were led to believe there were no plans (unlike analogue TV transmissions) to ditch FM audio.

Then on Tuesday this week, I learned of moves to get all national, regional and big local radio stations to go digital within the next decade.

So welcome to another example of cheaper alternatives being ditched for something more expensive.

It also means that something acceptable has to be provided for motorists.

At present, most in-car radio is FM-based and there have been problems in producing a car-mounted digital receiver without reception/interference/lost signals problems.

Mind you, who needs DAB at present when you've got a car stereo with DSP-enhanced FM reception and MP3 playback? Or perhaps I'm getting a little too technical...

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