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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

#241

Post by gpvos »

Raphmedia wrote: post #204
wodenokoto wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or is even radio run by the state in Norway? As a Scandinavian, that is kinda fun to read. Of course Radio is state run. I still get surprised when I hear commercials on the privately owned stations. Private radio stations pretty much became a thing after I grew up and stopped listening to Radio. When I was a kid, there were maybe one commercial station and they didn't air in my city. Commercial TV-station were sti…

This makes a lot more sense. The article came off as a ban on FM. It's actually only that the state will no longer put money into FM radio and infrastructure.

> The article came off as a ban on FM.

Interesting cultural difference; I would never have it interpreted it like that. I did wonder whether the commercial stations would also leave FM. A large country like Norway is likely to have only state broadcasting in its more remote areas, but additionally commercial broadcasters in the more populated regions.

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

#242

Post by gpvos »

w8rbt wrote: post #189
mrswag wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FM works, and doesn't need any addition when you increase the number of listeners. I don't get it. Why throw away millions of perfectly fine radios?

Digital is more narrow and compact and allows more efficient use of the spectrum in general. More transmissions, different uses, sharing, freeing space up for other allocations, etc. All of that is resource/demand driven. More people is more demand.

While DAB transmission is more efficient than FM, the receivers are more complex and draw more power than FM receivers. I'm not sure the tradeoff is right in this case.

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

#243

Post by askvictor »

w8rbt wrote: post #189
mrswag wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FM works, and doesn't need any addition when you increase the number of listeners. I don't get it. Why throw away millions of perfectly fine radios?

Digital is more narrow and compact and allows more efficient use of the spectrum in general. More transmissions, different uses, sharing, freeing space up for other allocations, etc. All of that is resource/demand driven. More people is more demand.

I get that argument for tv transmission, but the FM bandwidth is tiny by comparison, so just doesn't seem to justify the switching pain (particularly regarding cars)

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

#244

Post by sweetjesus »

What they should do is turn off the spectrum a bit each year ranging from the top frequency down. That way people can adjust, stations can move on the dial, and there is no cold turkey. In the US this might mean I could hear my favorite Top-40(tm)songs only 24*60mins/4mins/40songs times a day, (and who knows if I would be willing to buy [obnoxious furniture store ad] furniture any more at that rate) but it would be a resonable way to do it.

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

#245

Post by freehunter »

Nullabillity wrote: post #238
freehunter wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your phone didn't come with a USB-C to USB-A cable? I find that hard to believe.

The 5X only comes with a C-C cable. The 6P comes with both an A-C and a C-C cable.

Wow, that's a huge mistake. Especially considering how rare USB-C was in 2015.

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

#246

Post by coldtea »

romaniv wrote: post #207
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…

It's not just a matter of the cost of switching either. I own a synthesizer (OP-1) that has a built-in FM receiver for sampling and for fun. Creativity-vise, it's an ingenious feature. Essentially, you can pull new sounds out of thin air whenever you feel like it. No need to connect or set anything up. Why does it work so well? The receiver is cheap, the radio service is free, the way it works is universal and it's s…

>My point is that the combination of those features enabled companies to create innumerable innovative appliances that use radio (from cheap radio clock to my Swedish synth).

I don't think your list is so "innumerable".

The radio clock was merely using FM radio transmissions as intended.

The OP-1 using FM for sampling is the niche-st of niches, and totally irrelevant for 99.99999% of the population.

Between those extremes there are not that many appliances that will miss FM radio transmittions that are not actual FM radios...

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

#247

Post by coldtea »

donatj wrote: post #218
bmm6o wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>and short of poking a hole in my wall and running an antenna outside nothing has worked.

Isn't that what one's supposed to do in the first place?

At least I live in a country and for the whole lifetime of analogue tv (and now digital) we've had antennas outside.

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

#248

Post by coldtea »

timonoko wrote: post #23

FM radio in Norway sucked so much because of mountains. Every fjord had its own tiny repeater, but only if there was at least one inhabitant, otherwise you heard nothing. The cell-phone digital network is much more advanced, the antennas are on mountain tops and there is always coverage within few hundred meters.

>FM radio in Norway sucked so much because of mountains. Every fjord had its own tiny repeater, but only if there was at least one inhabitant, otherwise you heard nothing.

Doesn't that imply that there wasn't anyone to hear anything in the first place?

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

#249

Post by dagss »

XorNot wrote: post #142
henrikschroder wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Emergency broadcasts should run on AM radio if we're worried about reliability. AM is brain dead simple to demodulate to the point you can do it accidentally with the right length of wire really. Kill FM, reserve AM for an emergency band.

In Norways case I wonder if AM does not work due to the hilly terrain or something. Don't think there are any stations, I never listened to AM at least and just barely heard about it.

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

#250

Post by [deleted] »

audunw wrote: post #82
dagss wrote: post #55

Consensus from a lunch table in Norway: It was stupid to spend money on DAB now, it happens right as people move from radio to streaming. Many will move to streaming on 4G instead of DAB (which seems to have as good coverage or better, at least for me...then consider if the money spent on DAB had been spent on cellular instead). The populist party that kicked it off in the first place is now the only party to oppose…

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-…

[deleted]
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