Author Topic: Bye bye FM  (Read 16969 times)

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Offline Rick LawTopic starter

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Bye bye FM
« on: December 14, 2017, 04:18:18 am »
Norway becomes first country to switch off FM radio

Norway on Wednesday completed its transition to digital radio, becoming the first country in the world to shut down national broadcasts of its FM radio network despite some grumblings.

For more info, click here.  Above quoted from this article:
https://www.thelocal.no/20171213/norway-becomes-first-country-to-switch-off-fm-radio


Personally, I am still on AM radio!  AM beats FM for news, traffic, talk shows, etc.  I would not even notice if FM gone kaput in the US of A.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2017, 04:19:51 am by Rick Law »
 

Offline georges80

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2017, 05:43:10 am »
Radio (am/fm/sirius/digital blah blah blah) - what's that?

Listening to radio... people still do that?? :)

I know the music I like and I stream it (BT or via flash/usb) to a mechless player in my vehicles. If they made a mechless without radio, I'd be happy to purchase that. On one vehicle I've not even bothered to connect the antenna.

cheers,
george.
 

Offline calexanian

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2017, 06:15:42 am »
Broadcast stations are so cheap in the US many of them did not even bother with digital. If you ever want to see a petty argument over simple inexpensive things, visit a FM station in the US. I have seen knock down drag out fights over the dumbest things like who drank the last of the coffee and who will buy another can or who's responsibility it is to buy toilet paper.
Charles Alexanian
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Offline james_s

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2017, 06:39:04 am »
Digital radio in the US is bullshit. Unlike pretty much the whole rest of the world where digital stations can be freely decoded, the US is locked into a completely proprietary system owned by a sleazy company called iBiquity that has a monopoly on the chips required to decode it and they charge stations a hefty annual fee to broadcast it. Since few people are willing to pay for an expensive receiver containing those proprietary chips the system has largely failed to catch on outside of car radios and even then I don't think it gets a lot of use. One of my cars has a head unit capable of receiving it, I've played with the feature a few times but probably spent less than an hour listening to it in the several years I've had the thing.

Personally I don't see the problem with good old analog FM, it's simple, reliable and gets the job done. The sound quality is good enough for what it's used for.
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2017, 09:12:29 am »
Broadcast stations are so cheap in the US many of them did not even bother with digital. If you ever want to see a petty argument over simple inexpensive things, visit a FM station in the US. I have seen knock down drag out fights over the dumbest things like who drank the last of the coffee and who will buy another can or who's responsibility it is to buy toilet paper.
It's not about cheap or not. It's about the radio spectrum being overcrowded and needing the space for more efficient digital applications.

Not that I entirely agree with that. I've experienced first hand that a low quality noisy analog transmission is superior to a digital one that bows out and turns into unrecognizable junk. The quality of analog systems is lower in optimal scenarios, but seem to be more robust in subtopimal ones.
 
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Online JPortici

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #5 on: December 14, 2017, 09:56:59 am »
Listening to radio... people still do that?? :)

not for music :)
i listen to the news, the guys reading the newspaper in the early morning while commuting... and our equivalent of the howard stern show
 

Offline Electro Detective

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #6 on: December 14, 2017, 11:10:47 am »
Digital radio in the US is bullshit. Unlike pretty much the whole rest of the world where digital stations can be freely decoded, the US is locked into a completely proprietary system owned by a sleazy company called iBiquity that has a monopoly on the chips required to decode it and they charge stations a hefty annual fee to broadcast it. Since few people are willing to pay for an expensive receiver containing those proprietary chips the system has largely failed to catch on outside of car radios and even then I don't think it gets a lot of use. One of my cars has a head unit capable of receiving it, I've played with the feature a few times but probably spent less than an hour listening to it in the several years I've had the thing.

Personally I don't see the problem with good old analog FM, it's simple, reliable and gets the job done. The sound quality is good enough for what it's used for.

 :-+




City based 'Radio' here has been over-run by coke snorting coffeeholic wankers with booze hangovers and or mental issues.

They talk shyte, giggle and jest childishly play noisy garbage masquerading as music, the ads are annoying unbearable drivel

The phone callers that get baited by these studio twats aren't the full quid either   ::)   

Who cares if this type of imbecilic disturbing behavior on the radio is broadcast in digital or FM? No thanks   :--


The battling country radio stations are far superior in every respect, they play real music and conduct civilized chat and relay useful information    :-+  :clap:

Nothing wrong with AM and FM if the content is worthy of a tune in. 

...and don't get me started on Digital TV programming and content...  :palm: 

 

Offline shawty

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #7 on: December 14, 2017, 12:13:55 pm »
Well if the complaints I received in my housing estate towards my experiments using an RPi to broadcast FM are anything to go by, then quite a lot of my neighbors in out cul-de-sac still use FM radios :-)
Meh....
 
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Offline madires

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #8 on: December 14, 2017, 12:44:06 pm »
The shutdown of FM in Germany is scheduled for 2025. And next year all new radios have to support DAB+ or internet streaming.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #9 on: December 14, 2017, 02:36:01 pm »
FM will never completely die. When the commercial broadcasters disappear, pirates will fill the gaps like they do already here in London. The transmitters are cheap to build and efficient, the receivers are cheap and ubiquitous. Ofcom can't do a Pokemon and catch them all  :-+
 

Offline Nauris

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #10 on: December 14, 2017, 03:27:28 pm »
The shutdown of FM in Germany is scheduled for 2025. And next year all new radios have to support DAB+ or internet streaming.
I really hope that madness is not spreading here. I tried to count, we have like 20+ radios here. So you get new radios, spend half a week changing them and still have no HI-FI sound in your forklift  :-//
Pointless waste of money just for the sake of 'digital progress'.
 

Offline Rick LawTopic starter

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #11 on: December 14, 2017, 03:58:44 pm »
Listening to radio... people still do that?? :)

not for music :)
i listen to the news, the guys reading the newspaper in the early morning while commuting... and our equivalent of the howard stern show

In the USA, many commuters listen to the local news, local weather, and local traffic.   Satellite radio stations on the other hand are mainly national/inter-national and don't do local coverage if at all.  That is why even AM radio stations are not only hanging on but actually doing well.  Commuting hours are the coveted time slots for shows.  Some shows boast the millions of listeners they have.  The most popular (I believe) is the Rush show claiming to have 20 million listeners nation wide.

What is done by AM/FM analog can of course be done by digital - but if you are currently an analog broadcaster, switching to digital is guaranteed to loose customer for you.  Almost every car has an analog AM/FM radio, almost none has digital AM/FM radio.  So day one, you will go from thousands/millions to almost none.

[Almost entirely re-edited - pasted wrong on the first go around]
« Last Edit: December 14, 2017, 04:15:45 pm by Rick Law »
 

Offline Vtile

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #12 on: December 14, 2017, 04:10:07 pm »
Broadcast stations are so cheap in the US many of them did not even bother with digital. If you ever want to see a petty argument over simple inexpensive things, visit a FM station in the US. I have seen knock down drag out fights over the dumbest things like who drank the last of the coffee and who will buy another can or who's responsibility it is to buy toilet paper.
It's not about cheap or not. It's about the radio spectrum being overcrowded and needing the space for more efficient digital applications.

Not that I entirely agree with that. I've experienced first hand that a low quality noisy analog transmission is superior to a digital one that bows out and turns into unrecognizable junk. The quality of analog systems is lower in optimal scenarios, but seem to be more robust in subtopimal ones.
Exactly what I have experienced with Digital TV Broadcasts, a crap if you happen to have perfect antenna and good weather. With a bit poor antenna and or a poor radio weather the broadcast is useless, just few big pixels on black screen, where the analog broadcast were somewhat usable as information transmitter. (Distorted picture and sound, but at least you had picture and sound). Almost nothing happened from the reasoning which it were used to sell the digiTV to the people (from government).

Besides Digital is so last season, ternary is bigger and better.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2017, 04:14:04 pm by Vtile »
 

Online woody

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #13 on: December 14, 2017, 04:10:34 pm »
Ha, don't get me started about digital radio.

In the Netherlands they started testing with DAB a couple of years (decade?) ago. Supposedly the best thing since sliced bread. Me, being a gadget freak, I bought a very nice and rather expensive VitaAudio DAB radio. On which I was able to receive 4 digital stations due to a lousy reception. Living in the wrong street it seemed.

Two years later I move out of Amsterdam to a spot 50k north. No DAB service at all. Huh? Turns out that this nice new digital radio signal cannot be received everywhere. This in a country the size of Los Angeles, but then flat. Another 2 years later they manage to install a transmitter that I am able to receive. Hooray. Only, in the meantime they thought it smart to exchange DAB for DAB+. I now can tune in to the stations but due to a different encoding of the audio I only get silence on my non-upgradable VitaAudio radio. Really clean, digital HiFi silence. |O

They call it progress. I don't  know. I do know that I own a 35 year old Quad FM4 tuner that receives FM as well as it did its first days in 1982. I vouched to never EVER put money in a digital radio again. If they want me to listen to DAB+ they issue me the receiver.  Up until it is switched off I will continue to listen to FM. Then I'll  play my own records. Or hum to myself if need be.

Meanwhile, if anybody is interested in a very nice looking, hardly used white VitaAudio R1 DABnonplus radio let me know.
 
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Offline Vtile

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #14 on: December 14, 2017, 04:16:22 pm »

Meanwhile, if anybody is interested in a very nice looking, hardly used white VitaAudio R1 DABnonplus radio let me know.
I suggest you send it to the parliament with a Happy Xmas! card.
 
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Online woody

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #15 on: December 14, 2017, 04:27:33 pm »
Sending a heavy square box with a dial, a display and an antenna to the parliament will get me on the no-fly list ASAP  ;D
 
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Online JPortici

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #16 on: December 14, 2017, 04:54:17 pm »
That is why even AM radio stations are not only hanging on but actually doing well.  Commuting hours are the coveted time slots for shows.  Some shows boast the millions of listeners they have.

Precisely. I also listen to the radio at work, because radio means that my eyes are free to do something else.

Quote
Almost every car has an analog AM/FM radio, almost none has digital AM/FM radio.  So day one, you will go from thousands/millions to almost none.

That may be related to what james_s said, because from what i know here in italy (and i think in europe) every new car since 2010 or so has DAB+ compatible radios
I actually prefer analog FM too. I usedd to commute/travel by train in areas with very poor reception (valleys) but i could hear the radio even if it was swamped with noise
« Last Edit: December 14, 2017, 07:04:52 pm by JPortici »
 

Online nfmax

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #17 on: December 14, 2017, 06:17:59 pm »
I do know that I own a 35 year old Quad FM4 tuner that receives FM as well as it did its first days in 1982.

You might want to check that the NiCd backup battery hasn't started to leak...
 

Offline takahidehimself

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #18 on: December 15, 2017, 01:04:44 pm »
Thanks to the Norwegians we (my workplace) have done even better this year, so I'm all for them switching off FM on the other side of the border... :)
Sr. R&D Electronics Engineer @ 33 4d 20 50 65 6c 74 6f 72 20 52 26 44
Electronics Designer @ Thorntwig Technologies
 

Offline Cyberdragon

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #19 on: December 15, 2017, 07:55:37 pm »
I personally think the removal of analog television was also stupid. At least it's still free, but it just means that people who want free TV have to use an extra piece of equipment. :--

So no, it's not "modernizing", it's just beaurocratic idiocy.
*BZZZZZZAAAAAP*
Voltamort strikes again!
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Offline james_s

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #20 on: December 15, 2017, 08:30:58 pm »
I tend to agree, it made millions of portable sets useless, and in the end I think hardly anyone uses it. Most people don't even realize you can get a HD signal over the air and has been mentioned the picture becomes unwatchable under less than ideal circumstances where an analog set would still receive a snowy picture. Everyone who wants a clear HD picture already has cable or satellite.

That said, between most of the shows being garbage now and those stupid persistent logos every channel has plastered over the corner of the picture, I find TV to be intolerable these days and have not had anything other than a bluray/dvd player and streaming box connected to my TV in years.
 
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Offline madires

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #21 on: December 15, 2017, 08:45:49 pm »
And then governments complain about an increase of e-junk |O
 

Offline chris_leyson

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #22 on: December 16, 2017, 12:05:20 am »
Anybody remember the pirate FM stations back in the day when somebody would build a 25W FM transmitter in a biscuit tin and broadcast from the top of a tower block and the "radio police" would scurry around and try to find it ? Nope probably not but the music was good and it was community broadcasting. Back then it took dedication and effort to do that shit, big respect  :-+ A Now you could probably do the same stuff with a PC and an internet connection but that's not the same.
Maybe the Norwegian broadcasters have have had the foresight to see that very few people listen to FM radio these days let alone AM, or maybe the FM broadcast spectrum is up sale.
 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #23 on: December 16, 2017, 12:29:05 am »
City based 'Radio' here has been over-run by coke snorting coffeeholic wankers with booze hangovers and or mental issues.

They talk shyte, giggle and jest childishly play noisy garbage masquerading as music, the ads are annoying unbearable drivel

The phone callers that get baited by these studio twats aren't the full quid either

 :-+

Never have I read a more accurate description of commercial radio. I can't stand it either. Haven't listened to it for many, many years.

However I do enjoy some of the AM stations including talk-back. The "Money news" show on 2GB is quite good as is the gardening programme on the weekend.

It seems that while FM stations are losing popularity, AM stations like 2GB, 2CH, 954 AM, and ABC are topping the charts. Good to see early-1900's technology still going strong.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2017, 12:34:24 am by Halcyon »
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Bye bye FM
« Reply #24 on: December 16, 2017, 01:05:17 am »
Funny, AM radio is virtually dead in the US. The only thing on it are low budget talk stations, political and religious crap, occasional sportscasts and one retro station around here. I listen to that occasionally for the old style radio shows but it's pretty clear there isn't much money in that business. It has that sort of vibe as though it's transmitted out of some hobbyist's basement, shows sometimes start at odd times, the occasional Windows notification sound effect ends up on the air, and the advertisements range from irritating car insurance ads all the way down to scammy diet and dick pills.
 
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