The article didn't talk about why? It's not as if the FM bandwidth is particularly valuable, being quite a low frequency. Unlike digital tv, there doesn't seem to be a particularly pressing reason to do this; if broadcasters are happy to keep broadcasting on FM, why stop them?
Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio
121–130 of 289 posts
Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio
#122I know I am properly a outlier but how many people on HN actually listens to radio over FM/DAB/Other non IP systems? I dont remember when I last listened to radio. Even in the car the entertainment is one or more of the following from the connected phone: - Streaming or locally stored music - Podcasts (which may include shows produced by radio stations). - Audiobooks. At home its the same, either played directly on t…
When driving is the only time I listen to radio. And only radio.
I mostly listen to the UK stations BBC Radio 5 (no adverts) and Talk Sport which are only available on AM (MW). And my reception generally is always quite crap.
I can't wait for my next car which will definitely have DAB+ where those channels are available without the analogue AM noise.
Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For one, the electric car market markets itself as green and while they are running on renewable energy, the costs and sources of power for building them are reportedly a lot less environmentally friendly. This is the kind of made up on spot arguments you hear from ICE vehicle owners. Until they switch to EV :) "Manufacturing a mid-sized EV with an 84-mile range results in about 15 percent more emissions than manuf…
Sort of just what I said. I did state "reportedly" and not provide any sources. I don't think I was being unfair to the EV market. However, buying a new car and junking the old one has to be less energy efficient than owning an old car and trying to use it less while utilizing public transport. Public transport is something I could have mentioned in my original post as it is not prioritized enough here in Norway and…
I actually agree that it's all about money. An average citizen cares for environment in abstract, but not enough to pay premium for it. What we have in Norway with EVs is government incentives for adoption at work.
With biodiesel I remember there used to be some debate how much it can harm the food crops supply if the prices are competitive. So at least that is a concern. And specifically in Norway diesel is penalized for a while now, ironically after being promoted by the government for years before that.
Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio
#124I know I am properly a outlier but how many people on HN actually listens to radio over FM/DAB/Other non IP systems? I dont remember when I last listened to radio. Even in the car the entertainment is one or more of the following from the connected phone: - Streaming or locally stored music - Podcasts (which may include shows produced by radio stations). - Audiobooks. At home its the same, either played directly on t…
I do. Whenever I am in the office, 2-3 days a week, I listen for about five hours a day. A radio is just easier, especially since I don't like headphones or ear buds. At home, at night, I'll sometime listen to the radio, eve though the phone is sitting right next to it. Heck, having a working FM radio in my phone was part of the reason I have a Sony Z3.
Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For one, the electric car market markets itself as green and while they are running on renewable energy, the costs and sources of power for building them are reportedly a lot less environmentally friendly. This is the kind of made up on spot arguments you hear from ICE vehicle owners. Until they switch to EV :) "Manufacturing a mid-sized EV with an 84-mile range results in about 15 percent more emissions than manuf…
Sort of just what I said. I did state "reportedly" and not provide any sources. I don't think I was being unfair to the EV market. However, buying a new car and junking the old one has to be less energy efficient than owning an old car and trying to use it less while utilizing public transport. Public transport is something I could have mentioned in my original post as it is not prioritized enough here in Norway and…
One could - from a narrow perspective[1] - argue that diesel engines on plant oil would be carbon-neutral but not that they are emission free. In fact: (older) diesel engines are being banned from cities (e.g. Antwerp, Belgium) not because of CO2-emissions but due to emissions of particulates (and NOx). CO2 is a global problem, but particulates and NOx are local problems (and hence more likely to trigger local political action).
[1] it is often argued that biomass/biofuel is not entirely carbon-neutral due to several reasons: the inherent lifecycle means some CO2 is in the atmosphere at any point; production is often based on CO2-emitting processes ... Secondly some other issues pop up as well: (indirect) land use change, competition with food ...
Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio
#126I wonder how smooth the switch will be (the article says cars are a big problem due to the price). I'd imagine quite a few people won't upgrade their car radio and you'd think...so what radio is way to retro let's just stream stuff and listen to mp3s/ogg. I don't know if owning a radio is legally required in Norway but if it isn't I can see the radio ownership going down. Once again you may ask so what? The biggest i…
Maybe one could just keep one emergency channel using an analog signal and make sure everyone owns a receiver (they are dirt cheap anyway).
Then you wouldn't be able to shut down any of the repeaters.
Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio
#127I know I am properly a outlier but how many people on HN actually listens to radio over FM/DAB/Other non IP systems? I dont remember when I last listened to radio. Even in the car the entertainment is one or more of the following from the connected phone: - Streaming or locally stored music - Podcasts (which may include shows produced by radio stations). - Audiobooks. At home its the same, either played directly on t…
I have a radio alarm clock, so almost every day.
Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio
#128DAB+ sounds terrible to me compared to a (tuned) FM station - AFAICT it's 48kbit AAC.
It can be set independently per station. As an example, in Norway the NRK Jazz channel transmits at 64 kbit/s, while NRK Klassisk (classical music) transmits at 96 kbit/s.
96 kbit/s AAC still isn't enough IMHO. 128 kbit/s OPUS would be awesome :)
Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio
#129The article didn't talk about why? It's not as if the FM bandwidth is particularly valuable, being quite a low frequency. Unlike digital tv, there doesn't seem to be a particularly pressing reason to do this; if broadcasters are happy to keep broadcasting on FM, why stop them?
It's because the infrastructure for FM is quite expensive to run. Because of all the fjords and valleys, you need many weak transmitters to avoid reflections. Also, because it's FM, they can't overlap in frequency.
With DAB, two time-delayed signals (either reflections or multiple towers transmitting the same data-fountain) will enhance the signal. This means that you can have fewer towers.
Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt that 4G is capabable of replacing FM/DAB. Radio is broadcast, 4G is individual streams. For a whole morning queue full of cars, that's a lot of bandwidth. Probably the next generation will be good enough to handle it. But this still ignores other benefits of DAB over mobile data. One is emergency broadcasts, the other is future-proofing. DAB will probably be a standard for decades. But what if you want built-…
> For a whole morning queue full of cars, that's a lot of bandwidth. Yes, but that's a problem for the telco's to solve, if they want to continue selling mobile internet. So they have strong incentives to solve it. > One is emergency broadcasts How is having to buy an expensive device to listen to emergency broadcasts a benefit? One of the reasons DAB was scrapped in Sweden was this. Everyone and their grandmother ha…
If the power goes out because of an emergency, you can probably say goodbye to the mobile phone network - towers tend to have, at best, a few hours of battery backup if that. The sheer number of towers and the fact they're unmanned installations located mainly in urban areas where space is at a premium means there's not really any way to change this.