Pure Digital Highway IN-CAR DAB Tuner > Reviews (6)

Having owned a DAB radio in the home for a few years prior to purchasing the Pure Highway I had become hooked on BBC 6music, the crystal clear quality of both talksport and Radio 5 along with some of the other DAB exclusive stations.

As I'm not particularly a fan of any of the other BBC or local commercial stations morning or drive time shows my journeys to and from work were starting to get repetitive as I slowly worked through my CD collection from A-Z!

When I first heard about the Pure Highway I was sceptical as although DAB has worked perfectly at my last three addresses I continue to hear complaints about reception quality so was dubious as to how well this would work in a car.

When the unit first arrived I installed in into my car - it's fairly straight forward as aerial is simply a sticker which attaches to the windscreen and a suction mount holds the radio unit itself. Power is taken from the in-car cigarette lighter so there is no particular expertise required to set the radio up. A press of the auto tune button later and it has scanned the DAB airwaves for digital stations and FM bands for a free frequency to broadcast to you current car radio. The FM frequency is displayed which I tuned my radio to and then...very little! My fears were at first proving to be correct - DAB reception will struggle while on the move.

A few phone calls to the point of purchase later, performing various testing to ensure I hadn't received a faulty unit and it was agreed I could either give up and return the unit or purchase an additional £20 external aerial to magnet mount to my car roof. I took the gamble with the extra aerial which I was assured provided 50% better reception. It arrived, I mounted it with ease and tried the autotune button again...Result! It worked first time.

Still a little cautious of how well it would maintain a single while driving I tried not to get too excited but since then I've travelled the length and breadth of the country with no signal drop out at all. The only minor issue I do have is when travelling into an area that has an FM station broadcasting on the same frequency as my DAB as the station always overpowers my poor DABs transmitter and I have to retune (not while driving, of course!).

The unit itself is straightforward to use after its installed. A scroll wheel spins left and right to change the channel and is pushed in to select. There are at 8 (I believe) pre-sets to use for easy access to your favourite stations and sound quality is always just as good in not better than any FM/AM broadcast.

Depending on the size and shape of your car the installation can result in a few wires being draped around the inside carriage but I'm sure it would be possible to turn this into a neat arrangement with some thought in most vehicles. Depending on where the radio is windscreen mounted it can also be impossible to use while driving - unlike the in-car stereo, in my C-Max I find I have to stretch to reach the DAB unit which means I have to pull over if I want to change the channel and I don't have a passenger.