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Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

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Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#211

Post by sevensor »

LesZedCB wrote: post #201
sevensor wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for that matter, AM degrades even better than FM -- at least to my ear I prefer AM static to FM fading.

AFAIK that's why aircraft still use AM. Unless I'm wrong about aircraft still using AM too. :)

Interesting, did not know that. Just looked it up on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airband#Modulation

> Besides being simple, power-efficient and compatible with legacy equipment, AM and SSB permit stronger stations to override weaker or interfering stations. Additionally, this method does not suffer from the capture effect found in FM. Even if a pilot is transmitting, a control tower can "talk over" that transmission and other aircraft will hear a somewhat garbled mixture of both transmissions, rather than just one or the othe

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#212

Post by nucleardog »

winter_blue wrote: post #141
krkoch wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's because the infrastructure for FM is quite expensive to run. Won't the free market decide if it's too expensive to run? Or is even radio run by the state in Norway? Otherwise, why prohibit private companies from licensing & broadcasting FM radio? I mean the free market would decide stop to broadcasting when it's not profitable for them anymore. Or is everything state-run in Norway? When I read "one member of t…

In a lot of places like this the infrastructure wouldn't exist in the first place if not for the state, so it seems natural to me that the public should retain ownership after paying to develop it.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#213

Post by mrbabbage »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #183
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-environmental conspiracy theories (the evil electric car lobby are ruining the business of the nice oil providers for no good reason) aren't really any more useful than environmental conspiracy theories and biases ("chemicals" are bad, "natural" means good etc). EVs are better for the environment, both local and global, than ICE cars. That's true on average and even truer for Norway with its cleaner grid. Biodie…

> things that can't be easily electrified, like flying craft Funfact about airplanes: they can pretty easily be converted to run on liquid hydrogen. There was a big Airbus-led research project on this some years back. IIRC they found overall efficiency (when accounting for larger fuel volume etc. etc.) was ~4% lower than normal aircraft. Not to mention that Tupolev actually built and flew a full-scale proof of concep…

What about the fuel tanks that would be required for a hypothetical hydrogen aircraft? Unlike kerosene, hydrogen is very light, but the high-pressure tank to contain the hydrogen is quite heavy. Plus, given hydrogen's very low volumetric density, I imagine you'd have to sacrifice a lot of the cargo volume of the aircraft to fit the H2 fuel tank.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#214

Post by bmm6o »

iamdave wrote: post #209
Roboprog wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital TV in the US flopped, as far as I can tell. Broadcasters were killed by their own greed. If a Roku is cheaper than an adapter box, and some of the channels on it are also free-with-commercials, as well as cheap paid content, broadcasters push people away with the transition.

as far as I can tell Genuinely curious, but what are you using to measure this, or better asked: how do you define flopped? A year ago before I finally had everything in line to drop out of the workforce and go to Grad school I spent a lot of time in rural America and I met a LOT of people who didn't have Cable, but relied on rabbit ears plugged into converter boxes to get digital TV. Heck, for a while I even used it…

When the switch was made to digital I was really surprised at the picture quality and the number of channels available with just rabbit ears, for free. This was in LA so it could definitely be different in less populated areas.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#215

Post by Spooky23 »

kagamine wrote: post #115
varjag wrote: post #90

Earlier 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…

Money is how we align priorities although our individual wants and needs vary dramatically.

I don't think there are any major initiatives around that are compelling people to junk cars in favor of EVs. We do have subsidies that are "priming the pump" to ramp up production volumes and build enough economies of scale to make EVs a thing. That's a good thing IMO as many driving use cases are well met by EVs.

IMO, plant based fuels are problematic due to the affects they'll have on the agriculture market. I would prefer to see subsidy to make natural gas replace diesel fleets. Alot of needless human suffering is attributable to diesel particulate emissions.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#216

Post by nommm-nommm »

Roboprog wrote: post #205
aluhut wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and Cars are not there yet. We have strong campaign for DAB once a year here in Germany to remind people that there is something like DAB+. We had one this year again. Thats when I realized that despite using so many rental cars, I haven't seen one with DAB. So I guess it's an extra you have to pay for more then for FM. I don't know anyone having a DAB radio. I guess people remember the DVBT debacle from a few yea…

Digital TV in the US flopped, as far as I can tell. Broadcasters were killed by their own greed. If a Roku is cheaper than an adapter box, and some of the channels on it are also free-with-commercials, as well as cheap paid content, broadcasters push people away with the transition.

What? Digital broadcasts did not flop in the US. I cant' imagine how you come to that conclusion.

You only need an adapter box if you have a non-HD TV. If you have a HD TV all you have to do is plug in an antenna directly into the TV. The government subsided conversion boxes when the transaction happened, which was around 2008 IIRC.

If you have a non-HD TV you aren't going to have an HDMI port to plug your Roku into, so that's a moot point anyways. There literary is no "Roku vs conversion box" it doesn't make sense.

There is also waaayyy more channels with HD broadcasts than analog broadcasts. I'm saying that as someone who went through the transition personally. In 2008 I had a CRT TV and was using rabbit ears to pick up local stations (yeah, I was a "cord-cutter" way before it was cool). I bought a converter box (which the government paid for half of it) and switched to HD when they cut off my analog.

And how were "broadcasters killed by their own greed?" How is broadcasting TV for free "greedy?"

Oh, and the transition was mandated by the FCC and Congress (with the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005) not "greedy TV stations." It was done in order to free up spectrum for other stuff. The amount of spectrum the Earth has is finite. Duel broadcasting digital and analog of the same content at the same time was taking double the spectrum. Verizon bought some of the previous analog spectrum to use for their 4G network.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#217

Post by Fnoord »

geff82 wrote: post #176

OK, so you switch off a completely fine technology with billions invested, rendering useless multi-millions of fine working radios. For what? I think this will be the death blow to radio. People will not go DAB if not absolutely needed, they will essentially try to go "internet" directly and thereby eliminating classic "radio". Maybe you'll use the DAB in your car sometimes, but I can't imagine it will happen that yo…

Far too dramatic IMO.

Did CD and MP3 players kill radio in car? No.

Radio as being the primary source of audio-only data has been long dead, and the audio-only source has also seen competition of TV, RL (due to easier & cheaper forms of travel), and the Internet. In that sense even TV is dead thanks to the Internet. Both deaths are relative, not absolute.

Radio is however very much alive in the sense that audio-only is alive. Just look at streaming services such as Spotify, and the diversity possible with it. You can make your own playlist, follow someone else's, or collaborate. You can have multiple playlists, too. For a mere 10 EUR a month you even get rid of all the advertising (15 EUR for family pack of 6 people). I'm not advertising for Spotify here; its just one of the many options available and I happen to be familiar with it.

My Nokia N900, an experimental device from 2009, had a FM transmitter on it. One could tune in on car audio, to receive the signal send from the Nokia N900. One could power it up with the car's charger.

We're now in 2017, 8 years down the line. Its not far fetched to have a FM to Bluetooth or FM to WiFi converter. Exactly for situations where backwards compatibility is desirable. It might also be worth it to upgrade the car to more recent standards e.g. an Android mini computer made for the car.

> OK, so you switch off a completely fine technology with billions invested, rendering useless multi-millions of fine working radios.

Keyword: Maintenance. It costs money.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#218

Post by donatj »

bmm6o wrote: post #214
iamdave wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as far as I can tell Genuinely curious, but what are you using to measure this, or better asked: how do you define flopped? A year ago before I finally had everything in line to drop out of the workforce and go to Grad school I spent a lot of time in rural America and I met a LOT of people who didn't have Cable, but relied on rabbit ears plugged into converter boxes to get digital TV. Heck, for a while I even used it…

When the switch was made to digital I was really surprised at the picture quality and the number of channels available with just rabbit ears, for free. This was in LA so it could definitely be different in less populated areas.

I live five miles outside of downtown Minneapolis and have trouble picking up anything inside my stuccoed house. I've tried many many antennas and short of poking a hole in my wall and running an antenna outside nothing has worked. I was able to watch many many analog stations without issue.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#219

Post by Aoyagi »

scholia wrote: post #188
Aoyagi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The place where I usually listen to radio is the car. Car radios don't have DAB receivers. It's not like anyone was asked when digital TV was the only thing left working..

True, but you didn't have to replace your TV, just add a cheap set-top box. (And not even that if you had cable or satellite TV.) Also, at the time, most people only had one or two TV sets. With DAB, you have to buy a new set, and most people have multiple FM radios: typically living room/hi-fi, kitchen, bedroom alarm clock/radio, car radio, boomboxes, and FM radios in smartphones and MP3 players. We have about a doz…

Actually getting my car to receive "digiTV" costs about $700 :)

It's the only TV I have, too.

Why can't there be a cheap set-top box for radios though?

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#220

Post by Johnny555 »

Roboprog wrote: post #205
aluhut wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and Cars are not there yet. We have strong campaign for DAB once a year here in Germany to remind people that there is something like DAB+. We had one this year again. Thats when I realized that despite using so many rental cars, I haven't seen one with DAB. So I guess it's an extra you have to pay for more then for FM. I don't know anyone having a DAB radio. I guess people remember the DVBT debacle from a few yea…

Digital TV in the US flopped, as far as I can tell. Broadcasters were killed by their own greed. If a Roku is cheaper than an adapter box, and some of the channels on it are also free-with-commercials, as well as cheap paid content, broadcasters push people away with the transition.

Flopped? I dropped cable and went entirely with over-the-air (plus Netflix) in part because OTA digital broadcasts looked better than the overly compressed video that the cable company was pushing - compression artifacts were very visible and annoying.
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