Buh-bye FM Radio
 

On January 11th, 2017, Norway has mandated all FM broadcasting will cease and desist, killing 8 million radios.

http://cellar.org/2016/fmradio.jpg

Can't turn back?
I read that as a few rich people have too much at stake to yield to the will of the people.
I guess Norway is a real democracy. :rolleyes:

link

:horror:

That's fucked up.

In the UK an FM switch off in favour of DAB has been proposed several times but has, so far, been booted into the long grass.
The switch over to a fully digital TV service was completed a few years ago and seems to be working well.
Unfortunately DAB radio reception is often poor. There's a DAB radio on my desk here but I can't remember the last time I switched it on.
It's now several years old but it does have the advantage of an aerial socket on the back and it's connected to one in the roof space.
Portable receivers now seem to be equipped with a telescopic antenna and nothing more.
High pressure weather systems often cause reception problems and signals take on the sound of bubbling mud.
All in all, it's a very disappointing system and reliability will have to be improved significantly before the Great British Public accepts it.
There again we'll probably just be told to 'get on with it' and we'll all meekly surrender. :sniff:

I'm sure the endgoal of an eventual elimination of AM/FM radio is the reason our phones don't receive it, though it would be absurdly easy for them to do so.

Keryx's android phone gets FM radio, my iPhone doesn't. And that sux.

You miss hearing five minutes of ads in a row?

There is FM on the chip in the iPhone, it turns out; but it's not switched on because A) engineering time would have to be spent to make it work right and not cause interference to other systems, and B) FM needs a different longer antenna which the iPhone doesn't actually have.

The broadcasters have fought to try to turn FM on by law; their argument is that cell services can be overwhelmed in an emergency. This is true except that it isn't; providers can manage traffic, and SMS, the most important emergency service, isn't so overwhelmed. And there is no time in an emergency when people will remember that there is an FM radio in their phone. (Car, yes; phone, no.)

If you want to listen to five minutes of ads on your iPhone you can do it via streaming radio apps. I recommend you do not and use Spotify and Pandora and Pocket Casts and Apple Music and such instead.

I drove the old car last week to the courthouse. Stuck in traffic. The single cassette tape we have floating around in that car has Bat Out of Hell on one side and the Cars Greatest Hits on the other, and it is so degraded from decades of intermittent play that it sounds atrocious.

All that is to say that I turned on the FM radio in rush hour traffic and every preset station (all five of them) was playing ads for the entire drive across town. I finally found one song and I forget what it was, but it was worse then the ads were. So I turned off the radio. It just made the drive more stressful.

I feel all nostalgic about FM radio because I listened to it so much in my youth. But it would be no loss if it went away.

That's how it's free.

So you don't think those ads would move to DAB? :eyebrow:

Like cable TV. Where we PAY for the privilege of watching ads.

The DABs are happening now, and with commercials. Also, still free like OTA FM. Satellite Radio is more like cable tv broadcasting where you pay money for the privilege of paying attention.