Following my comments about the closure of BBC Radio 6 Music and the availability of DAB receivers for use in the car, I decided to do a bit more research.

Whilst my point about the lack of availability still stands, there are options for listening to digital radio on the move. Rather than limiting myself to searching the Halfords website (who do not stock DAB receivers), I made a wider search and did come across receivers available from stores such as Argos, Amazon and John Lewis.

The choice is still limited. There are not many head units available and those that do exist cost significantly more than analogue radio receivers. There is a cheaper option available though - a receiver which re-broadcasts DAB on to the FM band. I picked up one of these units at the weekend ... a Pure Highway.

This is a unit which is about the size of an old Walkman (the cassette tape variety). It has a windscreen mount to hold it in place and takes power from the car 'cigarette lighter' socket. An internal adhesive aerial is provided which sticks to the windscreen or a fixed window. A few controls provide access to tuning, station presets and a settings menu. Feedback is provided by way of a small LCD screen.

Setting up the Highway is very straightforward; it can be tidily installed in 10-20 minutes. I positioned the windscreen mount to the right of the windscreen, ran the power cable through the fuse box cover and through the centre console to re-appear just before the power socket, and stuck the aerial on the rear right passenger window which doesn't open. The aerial cable is tucked in to the trimming above the door surrounds and is only visible when it appears near the mount.

Initial tuning picks up my local multiplexes: BBC National DAB, D1 National and NOW Essex. Unfortunately reception of the latter is not great and even D1 National has problems in certain parts of the county. BBC National DAB is more or less fine apart from one very small area in my daily commute. Whilst I'm happy with this for the time being; I will probably invest in an external aerial which should improve the reception of D1 National at least.

The Pure Highway incorporates an FM transmitter so that digital radio can be heard via an existing car radio. This works particularly well. On first use, the unit scans the FM band for a free frequency and then instructs the user to tune the car radio to that frequency. On my route I have not heard any hiss or breakthrough from neighbouring FM stations. The car radio RDS displays "PURE DAB" when correctly tuned, although it would be nice if it displayed the name of the tuned station.

If your car radio has a line-in socket, there is no need to use the FM transmitter. A line-out socket on the Highway allows direct connection to the car radio which should offer higher sound quality particularly if the FM band is crowded. My car radio doesn't have this though, so I can't test it.

Another handy feature which I haven't yet tested is the presence of a line-in socket. This allows for the connection of an MP3 player and uses the FM transmitter or line-out to send that audio to the car radio. I no longer need my original FM transmitter since the Pure Highway now fulfills that role!

A final feature that could prove very useful is that the Highway is not limited to use in the car. Of course, any FM radio within it's range can receive it's signals so you could convert an existing home radio to hear DAB signals. More than that though, is that it can be used as a portable receiver. By adding a couple of AA batteries and plugging headphones into the line-out socket, the Highway becomes a handheld receiver. I'm using it in this way as I type this, and sitting at my computer I get perfect reception of BBC National DAB and D1 National. NOW Essex is non-existent however. The lead of the headphones is used as an aerial, so how this will work walking about or on the train, I don't know but in theory at least, this saves the need to buy a separate unit for portable listening.

In summary, I'm very happy with my new purchase. It's brought me back in to the world of digital radio, which I vacated back in 2005 with the loss of my first car and it's DAB head unit (which broke). Whilst I maintain my opinion that there are shortcomings to the DAB system used by the UK, I'm happy to be able to receive the digital-only stations which appeal to me ... BBC 6 Music, NME Radio, Amazing Radio, Planet Rock and Absolute Radio (not digital only, but the only alternative here is AM).

The Pure Highway is available from stores such as Amazon, Argos, John Lewis and Play.com for approximately £80