General incompetence

[EEPhil]

Ignorance, poor training, not knowing how the kit and the systems work are all to blame,

Parts of the BBC do good work only to have it ruined by poor training.
I used to have problems with BBC radio and the RDS travel announcements. Some useless tossers at WM kept forgetting to flick the switch to turn TA off. Loud unwanted music erupting from my speakers! A good system developed by BBC Engineering, ruined by DJs or news presenters or their producers.

 

[Owen Smith]

Parts of the BBC do good work only to have it ruined by poor training.
I used to have problems with BBC radio and the RDS travel announcements. Some useless tossers at WM kept forgetting to flick the switch to turn TA off. Loud unwanted music erupting from my speakers! A good system developed by BBC Engineering, ruined by DJs or news presenters or their producers.

It's in their interests to keep you listening to their station, so tardiness switching off TA is to be expected.

 

[Rodders53]

I used to have problems with BBC radio and the RDS travel announcements. Some useless tossers at WM kept forgetting to flick the switch to turn TA off. Loud unwanted music erupting from my speakers! A good system developed by BBC Engineering, ruined by DJs or news presenters or their producers.

It's in their interests to keep you listening to their station, so tardiness switching off TA is to be expected.

Poor training... and they got royally ---censored--- for doing it by senior management of Local Radio (and based in Brum as it happens)...

All events were logged in the RDS computer systems and, eventually, a time-out was introduced to stop the accidental incidents. {Some/many? TAs were triggered by tones on the jingles at start/end -- assuming that new jingles had them added correctly, on cartridges back in the day}.
EDIT IIRC there was also a big flashing red light installed to 'remind' them!!

The same issues with AR schedule changes were occurring in the analogue PDC days and it was never easy to get to the 'right' management chain within that, fragmented, system at that time.

Only way to 'encourage' better practice at BBC is to log it in the Audience Complaints system. The logs are distributed to (and read at) the highest levels internally.

____________________________________
On another AR/CRID error: EastEnders BBC ONE had a new one yesterday for this coming week (that includes a, rare, Friday episode).

 

[gomezz]

In this day an age of sat-navs with real time traffic monitoring does anyone bother with keep RDS/TA turned on on in their car radio?

 

[EEPhil]

My gripe about RDS was from the 80s/90s when I frequently travelled from Nottingham to Oxford via Brum.

 

[Owen Smith]

In this day an age of sat-navs with real time traffic monitoring does anyone bother with keep RDS/TA turned on on in their car radio?

Yes. Because I use the built in sat nav in my car from 2002 since it knows much better where cars can and can't sensibly go. If I use Google or Apple maps on my iPhone or iPad they invariably try to take me down a farm track or some other route that is technically, legally open to cars but in practice you're daft if you try it. The last one was across a live airfield and runway which technically you can drive across if there's no light aircraft landing. That was the last straw for me with driving live using phone or tablet satnav.

 

[gomezz]

Whatever sat-nav you use you do not turn off the sanity check switch in your brain.

 

[Owen Smith]

Whatever sat-nav you use you do not turn off the sanity check switch in your brain.

Indeed. But at the point you are looking at a turn into a farm track that you don't want to drive down, you're probably several miles away from where you should be to go a better way.

 

[Rick88]

Yes. Because I use the built in sat nav in my car from 2002 since it knows much better where cars can and can't sensibly go. If I use Google or Apple maps on my iPhone or iPad they invariably try to take me down a farm track or some other route that is technically, legally open to cars but in practice you're daft if you try it. The last one was across a live airfield and runway which technically you can drive across if there's no light aircraft landing. That was the last straw for me with driving live using phone or tablet satnav.

Shuttleworth?

 

[Owen Smith]

Shuttleworth?

Little Staughton, and I'm still not sure the mapping apps were correct in advising I could drive across the runway. I decided no way, and used the car satnav which basically said "I wouldn't start from here".

The problem now is the last map CD was issued in 2015, I'm using one from 2014. Roads don't change that often, but eventually it will be inconveniently out of date.

 

[Black Hole]

Built-in satnavs are (or were) bad. Expensive to keep updated, orphaned, or capabilities exceeded. Much better to have a separate (eg my TomTom), which can be replaced when necessary. Linked through Bluetooth to my phone's data connection I get live traffic, and if/when I need to bin it I gather the new models will tell you what the price of petrol is (now garages are obliged to tell the central database what they're selling at, and no more need for the PetrolPrices app). Go for one with free lifetime map updates.

However, a friend (who sees no point in dedicated satnavs and used Waze on his phone) now uses Waze on his phone pushed through to a dashboard Car Android screen (or whatever it is). Seems to me like the best of both worlds (I find Waze' location tracking a little suspect, but there are other options such as Google).

Yes I do review the route TomTom wants to take me on – usually I know better and just want traffic warnings. On my drive to Bournemouth it wants me to go M4/A34/M3?M27 rather than A350 because that is 10 minutes slower (it thinks), but 50 miles extra (that's £10!). But then the alternative routing is without optimisations that get offered along the way only when you get near them (and some it never offers), so I beat the motorway ETA as well as the mileage.

I regularly report anomalies via the TomTom reporter website. Some time ago I realised a road was missing, I wondered why it was trying to take me the long way around and when I investigated I found the aerial photos didn't show the road because it was under trees. Another time I was somewhere I didn't know and it tried to take me through a dead end with a pedestrian walkway the only continuation.

The idiots who drive into water because they're just following the directions make me laugh, but i must confess I've done that myself without the aid of satnav – I didn't realise how deep it was going to get and only decided to back out rather late (but in time, fortunately).

 

[Black Hole]

I'm using one from 2014. Roads don't change that often

My god. So it wont know about any of the major improvements around Cambridge-Bedford, nor the "missing link" (Swindon to Gloucester) etc etc. Or any of the 20mph/low traffic neighbourhoods/congestion zones/low emission zones. Yes, OK, the major network doesn't change very quickly, but when there is a change it can make substantial differences to journeys and routes.