261–270 of 289 posts
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It's even easier to demodulate at high power :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHSuInSkHtA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82s5Q3GIO9I
I have no idea how this works.
Effectively AM recreates a sound wave using the EM spectrum in the most direct way possible.
When the clamp is held just right, an arc forms between it and the mast that recreates the AM signal with enough energy to vibrate the nearby air.
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Don't worry, there's a new digital standard for AM radio too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio#AM
The new digital standard for radio is DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale). Given a choice, nobody would adopt 1990s-style DAB today. Problem is that countries are so deep in failing DAB systems that they don't have the will or the guts to change. It would involve a lot of humility and a huge loss of face. Sobering thought for the day: DAB was developed at the same time as the World-Wide Web.
So of course in the USA they have their own propriety standard. "In-band on-channel" or IBOC. Different versions for the AM band and the FM band.
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?
It has much better ability to penetrate into buildings, and through foliage, etc.
Well congrats to the hams in this country. They're going to get a huge bandwidth that others would be envious enough. They could also explain to people that just switching modes isn't going to make reception better. If you're having propagation issues then you'd be much better off working on getting repeaters setup on high mountains.
The band will immediately be re-assigned to other licensed services.
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>It will take at least a decade or two to free up the FM band for other uses anyway. Norway will probably wait and use it in a way that aligns with the rest of the world, rather than finding its own local use for the spectrum. And that's the difference between an entrepreneurial, capitalist minded society and a socialist minded one.
It's not clear that there are any good alternative uses for the FM spectrum. The UK plan is to move the national stations to DAB and use the old FM bandwidth for community and local radio. My personal expectation is that the FM spectrum will be taken over by pirate stations.
Testing has already started.
DAB+ sounds terrible to me compared to a (tuned) FM station - AFAICT it's 48kbit AAC.
The worst thing about DAB for me is that any signal interruption causes complete lack of sound, and then my car takes at least 5 seconds to tune back in. It's extremely infuriating - I much prefer FM radio which gets noisy, but at least you can continue listening, even when driving through poor signal area.
Any advanced receiver will be constantly hunting for the best backup channel so the change over is undetectable.
This is all about lobbying politicians. Very hard to understand why they want to set aside separate bandwidth for different sorts of media, when Internet access would provide all we needed. We have digital radio, digital television broadcast, separate emergency frequencies and so goes the list. What about gathering around standard that work and are already in place? What about making cell phone and Internet connectiv…
Errr - are you really suggesting that we really move all broadcast media to TCP/IP? You're going to give free streaming plans to everyone in the country? Or does it perhaps make sense to use dedicated broadcast technology for free-to-air broadcasts?
The advantage of streaming internet is that it allows unlimited channels, while only using bandwidth for one channel at a time for each user.
Depending on the number of channels you wish to provide, and the number of users in each area, there is a point where Internet streaming is way ahead.
What do we do with more channels that we can't listen? If you really need a little bit of bandwidth around 100 MHz for other use, you could cut the spectrum from FM radio and still keep it running. The place where I usually listen to radio is the car. Car radios don't have DAB receivers. They all have FM receivers. And these days most cars have radio units that are integrated to the car electronics, steering wheel co…
The whole car radio situation hasn't be handled correctly by politicians, at least not here in Denmark. When regular service began, in 2002 in the case of Denmark, politicians should have parsed regulation that required all new cars to be delivered with DAB radio within a certain time frame. You can get a DAB/DAB+ radio in your new car, but you'll have to pay extra. At this point is should simply be the default, othe…
In fact, even speedometer only became mandatory in new cars in 1984, so cars older than that are legal without one.
(Otherwise, the authorities here have been ridiculous with car equipment requirements, particularly before EU time, as they wanted to ensure the revenue collection from car taxes. For instance, one year third brake lights were illegal as "dangerous", then very suddenly at the time of EU membership they then became mandatory in new cars. The authority is still in constant breach of EU rules, and the authorities do nothing; officials break the law and there are no, zero, zilch consequences.)
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> 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…
> Commercial TV-station were still mostly broadcasting from England, due to the former state monopoly. To many Scandinavians this is the most natural thing in the world A state monopoly is a restriction on freedom. I'm fairly libertarian-leaning (on some issues), and what you're saying sounds to me like: "our lack of freedom is the most natural thing in the world". It's like a slave who's lived in slavery all his lif…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole car radio situation hasn't be handled correctly by politicians, at least not here in Denmark. When regular service began, in 2002 in the case of Denmark, politicians should have parsed regulation that required all new cars to be delivered with DAB radio within a certain time frame. You can get a DAB/DAB+ radio in your new car, but you'll have to pay extra. At this point is should simply be the default, othe…
I agree. Here in germany it was also planned to shutdown FM in favor for DAB already for 2010. It was then canceled and postponed due to the fact that nobody has a DAB receiver. But of course nobody wants to get a DAB receiver as long as they cost 200€ extra, and therefore FM is still the standard in cars. As cars have a super long lifetime that means every car that is now sold with FM works against a FM->DAB switch…
So, DAB radio won't be in all cars unless DAB radio is an EU wide requirement. Not happening overnight.
Requiring things like winter tyres is OK because they can be installed separately. I'd be happy to insist that all cars in EU must have block heaters and cabin electric outlets, it would surely reduce prices here a bit.