Going off topic slightly, has anyone got a so called 'portable' DAB radio that works successfully off battery power? We have two in the house and neither of them can be called portable (unless you have one of those portable petrol powered generators as an accessory) as they both absolutely chew up batteries. Both have 6 alkaline 'D' sized cells and they barely last 4 hours of listening. On one the design is so bad that the display stays on when you turn to standby (there is no 'off' or 'battery saver' switch) and whether you are listening or not the batteries die in very short order - when they are used on mains adapter the adapter gets very warm and I shudder to think how much power is being used.
I complained to Ofcom about the poor design / short battery life / high power usage of the DAB radios that they were going to force us to use shortly and they sent me a form which was all about reporting interference on your radio or TV - what was that all about?
On the other hand my wifes 'Old technology' Sony AM/FM stereo portable has 3 'AA' batteries that last months of listening probably 2 hours a day.
Also I purchased one of those 'digital' house energy monitors which has a clip-on transmitter that you can attach to you incoming mains supply cable at the meter and will show you via a battery powered table top display how much power you are using, how much it is costing you etc. it has a min and max power memory, it can sound an alarm when you go over a certain power usage etc. and is meant to save you money - how ironic that a set of 2 'AA' alkaline duracell last less than a month, (there is no facility to use a mains powered supply), and when the batteries die so does the memory, and it all needs to be set up again from scratch and 'paired' with the transmitter. We use it as a paperweight now and the money we save on batteries helps enormously with our electricity bill.
