Swiss Broadcasting Corporation To Pull Plug On FM Radio (swissinfo.ch) 143
Digital audio broadcasting (DAB+) and internet radio have largely replaced traditional FM radio in Switzerland, with digital radio holding an 81% share of use in spring 2023. Due to the high costs of maintaining FM transmitters and declining financial resources, Switzerland plans to fully transition to digital radio by the end of 2026, phasing out FM broadcasting completely. From a report: DAB+ and the internet offer better quality and a larger program selection, are more energy and cost efficient, and can provide additional information in text and images, it said. To receive DAB+ requires a corresponding device or adapter, and new cars have been equipped with digital technology as standard for several years. In addition, the Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) will upgrade all tunnels on the national road network for digital radio reception by the end of the year and switch off FM transmitters.
FM was originally expected to be switched off throughout Switzerland by the end of 2024. The government extended FM licenses for the radio industry for the last time in October 2023 to the end of 2026, after which radio stations in Switzerland will no longer be able to broadcast via FM, only digitally. OFCOM announced at the time that the final extension would give the radio industry the flexibility to complete the transition process from analogue to digital radio.
FM was originally expected to be switched off throughout Switzerland by the end of 2024. The government extended FM licenses for the radio industry for the last time in October 2023 to the end of 2026, after which radio stations in Switzerland will no longer be able to broadcast via FM, only digitally. OFCOM announced at the time that the final extension would give the radio industry the flexibility to complete the transition process from analogue to digital radio.
First they pulled the plug from shortwaves... (Score:5, Interesting)
Then they pulled the plug from medium waves.
Then they added encryption to satellite TV
Then they switched off digital terrestrial TV (DTV)
Now they turn off FM.
What's next ?!? It seems to me that they are not very happy if somebody from abroad listen to them...
Re:First they pulled the plug from shortwaves... (Score:4, Informative)
The radios in new cars in the countries surrounding Switzerland have been set up for DAB for a few years now, and I assume the stations also offer their output on the 'net. There was talk about doing this in Germany as well - offering broadcasts over FM and DAB is not particularly cheap, and I think some of the private stations have already taken this step.
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Re:First they pulled the plug from shortwaves... (Score:5, Interesting)
Part of the fun of driving 900 miles in the US is tuning into local radio stations as they come in and out of range. At least for me it is. YMMV.
Digital tuning on FM radios is also no fun, I prefer a real analog dial to sweep through the frequency range.
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I haven't had the "pleasure" of trying to listen to the radio driving cross country for many years now. Endless hassles of trying to find a station that doesn't suck and then have it fade into static after a short distance.
OTOH, my Internet connected radio lets me listen to my favorite stations and streaming music everywhere.
Please let AM radio die also.
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> lets me listen to my favorite stations and streaming music everywhere
I'll believe that when I see it, or hear it in this case. The internet via mobile networks has an abysmal range, perhaps if you stay to the few main routes that have decent service then you might be able to do it. I tried here in the UK, just between my town and Bristol on the main A roads, nada. Lucky to get 2G as the $G range was so short as to come and go as fast as passing a tree, 3G managed to stick around a bit longer between
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Radio DX'ing is always fun. Tuning to a frequency just to the side of a stronger one to try and get that station that you "shouldnt be able to listen to" gave me hours of fun.
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Don't even bust out with how broadcast radio has commercials, because internet streaming stations have commercials, too.
When they all decide to make streaming radio stations a subscription-only service like everything else, you don't get to cry about it.
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I pay $10/month for Internet streaming of music, radio stations as well as current maps, navigation, weather, traffic, etc. No ads in my music. I'm not stupid enough to listen to radio stations with ads.
Well worth it.
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You manage to somehow have cell coverage over 900 miles over there?
Amazing. Here in the UK 2G isnt enough for streaming and last time I tried the network dropped to 2G speeds outside of towns and cities. Heck, Yorkshire has large areas that are not spots.
Re:First they pulled the plug from shortwaves... (Score:4, Insightful)
What happens with DAB is that the reception becomes spotty, probably because they are using less power than the FM transmitter on the same repeater location, and probably because FM degrades better with multi-path reception and over line of sight distortion.
You lose the DAB reception of Italian broadcasting way before arriving at the borde rwhile FM could be received 25 inside France, and the reverse it's also true.
There's another aspect: while digital TV it's on the same frequencies of the analogue channels, DAB is on different frequencies, and makes less sense to switch off FM to get more DAB channels, and I can't see how the FM band could be used for cellular networks or even for DVB channels. VHF bands I and III aren't used anymore because the multipath problems and tropospheric propagation, and sometime Es ionospheric propagation.
I think it's another version at the end to ditch an old technology for the sake of ditching it and have more e-waste in the skip.
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It's funny how eveey time "they" try to kill off RF they mention this mythical "internet" that somehow can be found in the wilderness. I can barely find it in the wilderness that is the main A roads between my town and Bristol in the UK... and by the time I walk onto a beach I guess it went out with the tide? :D
Seriously, nationwide mobile coverage is abysmal due to the incredibly short range nature. I doubt the Swiss care about nationwide coverage of radio considering most of the population is concentra
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Don't worry, my country hasn't even started considering DAB or DAB+.
I own a few smart radios which can use Internet Radio, FM or DAB/DAB+, obviously there is nothing in DAB* range.
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(Because that's the subject of the article)
But yeah, it is interesting to see how countries are moving away from analogue and towards digital stations. My last several cars had DAB build in and travelling through a couple of EU countries tells me it is a well working system.
Listening to (internet) radio via your phone (connected to the car's audio) is another option but more fiddly to change stations.
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> It seems to me that they are not very happy if somebody from abroad listen to them...
They'll next ban CB and PMR if thats the case as there are plenty of DXers and DX hobbyists holding events and competitions up mountains etc.
Once they do that, only the amateurs will be left.
Quality (Score:4, Interesting)
While it is certainly possible for DAB to have better quality than FM, it is also possible to broadcast at 112kbps or something like that.
Similar to digital TV. Some TV stations in Lithuania broadcast SD channel with mp2 192kbps audio track and the HD channel with mp2 128kbps audio track, so you get to choose - have HD video quality with unlistenable audio or have SD video with barely-good-enough audio.
Re:Quality (Score:5, Interesting)
DAB+ moved to AAC coding, and dropped bitrates with it. In the UK some stations go as low as 32kbps with mono audio, and they are mostly music stations.
For comparison, the BBC's flagship music stations Radio 1 and Radio 2 both use 128kbps stereo. Classic FM, a commercial station, uses 64kbps stereo. Colourful and Union JACK are the lowest bitrates I could find at a mere 24kbps stereo.
According to this it looks like all the stations in Switzerland are on DAB+ and using 72kbps: https://www.digitalbitrate.com... [digitalbitrate.com]
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"For comparison, the BBC's flagship music stations Radio 1 and Radio 2 both use 128kbps stereo."
With the old MP2 codec which requires very roughly twice the number of bps compared to AAC+ for the same audio quality.
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AAC+v2 can sound pretty decent at 24 or 32 kbps. Far from high fidelity, but certainly good enough for talk radio use.
Possible but rarely happens (Score:3)
With FM stereo the bandwidth of the transmission is fixed whereas with DAB the broadcaster can pick and choose how many bits in the stream they use from 256kbs down to IIRC 24kbs. Guess what - most of them pick the lowest they think they can get away with so here in the UK a lot of music - never mind speech are in *mono* FFS, in 2024. Naturally the regulator doesn't care so long as profits are being made.
I don't know about other digital broadcast radio systems but as far as audio quality is concerned, DAB i
Re:Quality (Score:5, Informative)
it is also possible to broadcast at 112kbps or something like that
Not DAB. DAB+. They are two wildly different things. Nearly all DAB+ transmissions are at a minimum of 64kbps and at that point also exceed the quality of FM transmissions. Yeah there are a couple of rubbish transmissions, but those are largely minor stations which in the past would have had incredibly rubbish FM coverage as well. DAB+ at 112kbps would sound excellent and I suspect most people couldn't tell that apart from a CD.
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"Not DAB. DAB+. They are two wildly different things"
Its quite possible for MP2 DAB to use 112kbs and many here in the UK do.
"Nearly all DAB+ transmissions are at a minimum of 64kbps"
Not true. Plenty of stations use 48kbs or even less here in the UK. They're often local community stations but a few of the niche stations of the large brands also use 64.
"incredibly rubbish FM coverage as well"
You're conflating coverage and quality, they're not the same thing. FM transmission quality (ignoring studio processi
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Its quite possible for MP2 DAB to use 112kbs and many here in the UK do.
It's possible for them to use more than that and still sound rubbish. BBC Radio 1 transmitted at 128kbps
Not true. Plenty of stations use 48kbs or even less here in the UK. They're often local community stations but a few of the niche stations of the large brands also use 64.
I said "nearly all" and you counter with small local niche stations. We are in agreement despite you arguing about nothing. In terms of market share nearly all DAB+ transmissions are of a quality far higher than FM.
Even at low bitrates they tend to fall back to mono so the quality is still there. At 48kbps mono station sounds perfectly fine with no audio artifacts (we're talking about cars here, not your
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"I said "nearly all" and you counter with small local niche stations"
Its not nearly all and also the main brand 70s, 80s stations also use hopeless bit rates.
"In terms of market share nearly all DAB+ transmissions are of a quality far higher than FM."
Rubbish. Almost all the DAB+ stations sound shit. Even virgin radios main channel is only 80kbs. Heart is 128kbs mp2.
"At 48kbps mono station sounds perfectly fine with no audio artifacts"
Define autdo artifacts. For a start mono is unacceptable , its 2024 , not
Norway closed FM in 2017 (Score:3, Informative)
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If you don't have a DAB receiver you can stream on the phone, but then many just use Spotify instead.
Sure, I have a DAB radio, but I don't think I have used it this year.
I mostly use Spotify and some local FM stations that are still allowed to use FM.
How good is reception with digital radio ?? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Maybe they will keep AM around. AM covers a wide area for sure ..but the sound quality is not so good for music.
Re: How good is reception with digital radio ?? (Score:3, Interesting)
If the USA is a "developing nation" then may I point to India? They're using Digital Radio Mondiale. All India Radio covers the country digitally on shortwave and AM. The competing "HD Radio" standard exists and can do the same thing, and yes radio receivers exist for it but it hasn't had the same push as DAB+ in Europe or DRM in India.
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Replacing an existing system in a developed nation that's good enough may require a disproportionate amount of capital and labor relative to the value the newer system offers. Meanwhile the developing nation is only concerned
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Depends on the band. DAB works on a few frequencies between 200-400MHz so it's mostly line of sight.
But in the US those frequencies are used. When Canada was trying DAB they had to do it in the 1900MHz band which meant you couldn't use existing radios. But it was the only band available
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" DAB works on a few frequencies between 200-400MHz so it's mostly line of sight."
Wrong, its approx 170Mhz to 240Mhz.
Re: How good is reception with digital radio ?? (Score:2)
The main problem with terrestrial digital TV in the US is the modulation method chosen. The ATSC 1 specs use 8-VSB - which isn't that good for multipath compensation compared to OFDM - which is what DVB-T and T2 use and... DAB/DAB+. That's one reason why digital terrestrial TV works best in the UHF band and with less obstructions in the way. Now ATSC 3 (or Next Gen TV) uses OFDM so it doesn't have that problem ... but then we have the problem of having another transition to another digital format.
As such
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I used to live in south London, about 2.5 miles from the Capital Radio transmitter. I could listen to that station on my Hi Fi without turning the tuner on, although the sound quality will not have been that brilliant.
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Switzerland isn't a big country. Digital radio has excellent coverage even in the mountains. Certainly in a large country where transmitters are few and far between coverage can be a problem, especially compared to lower frequency transmissions (AM goes a really long way with some power behind it).
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Will it be like digital TV in US where you have to have line of sight and NO obstructions, no trees, no hills, etc ? A lot of CAN'T get a digital signal, it's all or nothing ! FM signals can cover a wide area !
The digital cliff effect is real, and it is unbeaten. If you don't have the appropriate signal strength into the receiver, you get nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I've consulted with a number of Hams who have fell into the common mantra that everything digital is always better than anything analog. They bought their digital Handi-talkies, marvel at the lack of static, and pronounced the end of anything but digital. Then they wondered why they couldn't hear each other the way they used to hear t
Re:How good is reception with digital radio ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep forgetting the USA is a developing nation.
Considering how fantastically larger the U.S. is compared to Switzerland [reddit.com], developing anything takes longer.
But then, you're European, so your confusion is understandable. Everything is smaller over there.
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Re:How good is reception with digital radio ?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of the US is plains, but a lot is not. I'm in a city in a not particularly mountainous state, live only 8 miles from the local TV transmitters (they're clustered together), and don't have line of sight (same is true for a lot of people around here). If I want to receive local TV, I have to use an outdoor antenna with a pre-amp on the mast.
For scale: 41 out of 50 US states are larger than Switzerland. Making any generalities about US geography is like the "Stargate SG-1" team stepping through the gate into snow and declaring it an ice planet.
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I know. But not a single U.S. state has as many valleys and mountain ranges as Switzerland does.
If it is more mountainous than Pennsylvania, then it is mountainous indeed. Our mountains aren't super tall, but especially in the ridge and valley region, they are like a roller coaster ride. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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If it is more mountainous than Pennsylvania, then it is mountainous indeed. Our mountains aren't super tall, but especially in the ridge and valley region,
Same for Nevada. Look at the terrain view of it in Google maps. It's nothing but long north-south ridges with flat valleys between. The peaks are surprisingly high. Some have snow into July.
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If it is more mountainous than Pennsylvania, then it is mountainous indeed. Our mountains aren't super tall, but especially in the ridge and valley region,
Same for Nevada. Look at the terrain view of it in Google maps. It's nothing but long north-south ridges with flat valleys between. The peaks are surprisingly high. Some have snow into July.
I just did - holy smokes that is some wild terrain! I'm used to Southwest to Northeast because of the Appalachians. The US has a huge variety of geology, for certain. Another weird fact is that with a bit of loss in rainfall, Nebraska will turn into a sand dune desert.
I might have to arrange for a trip to Nevada. I was only ever in Vegas, and the Hoover Dam area.
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I know. But not a single U.S. state has as many valleys and mountain ranges as Switzerland does.
Alaska, Montana, Idaho, California, and Colorado might disagree. At least in raw numbers of peaks and valleys. Eyeballing a map, just the mountainous part of Colorado is twice the size of Switzerland.
That said, I'm sure some mathematician-cartographer has a metric for how mountainous a region is, especially per unit area. If you average California out, it's probably less mountainous than average Switzerland.
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Comparing how much longer the line of sight is in the U.S. with their large plains, developing does not necessarily take longer.
We have mountains, valleys, gorges, plains and all of the geological features our superiors have. We've got it all.
But this touches upon some interesting things. We're in my arena now, perhaps I speak truth.
As opposed to the flat USA model, which is the best case scenario where you raise a nice antenna on a nice tall tower, and throw gobs of power into it and have decent signals into receivers in the area, you have all the other places.
I live in the ridge and valley area in Pennsylvania, typified b
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So the solution is to build small repeater cells in every place that would otherwise be shielded by a mountain.
Sure it costs to build more towers but then each tower only needs to use a very small power output.
In flat places like here in The Netherlands the cells are rather big and the transmitters often on top of the old
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DAB(+) radio is based on a cell-type transmission so the range of each cell can be small but as long as there is an overlap with the next cell the consumer gets uninterrupted reception. So the solution is to build small repeater cells in every place that would otherwise be shielded by a mountain. Sure it costs to build more towers but then each tower only needs to use a very small power output. In flat places like here in The Netherlands the cells are rather big and the transmitters often on top of the old TV and FM towers, compared to analogue the savings in power are significant.
There's the rub. Parts of PA are very close to wilderness, and it would get pretty expensive to run electricity to the towers. That said, there is one tower in the "wild area that I know of that was badly needed, and a good deal of power needed as well, so they went solar + batteries. Expensive yes, but not having to run 25 miles of power made it economical.
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https://localdab.org/index.php... [localdab.org]
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REF: https://external-preview.redd.... [external-preview.redd.it]
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Europe is bigger than USA (and both consists of about 50 states).
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I keep forgetting the USA is a developing nation.
Nothing worse than trying to throw shade when you have no idea what you rare talking about - AC is the proper way to post that.
Please Don't Consider for USA (Score:4, Informative)
Just got done working "The Great Race", the old car rally, this time from Owensboro, Ky to Gardiner, Me.
It is run on very beautiful, mostly "backroads" which have in common mostly no cell service. I work this rally every year, and need Sirius / XM and FM and AM radio if I want news / weather / sports because "no service" is probably the majority of the 1000+ mile rally course. The USA is not and probably never will be 100% covered by cell service. Would still like to be able to receive weather reports and maybe emergency info for tornados / hurricanes / wildfire / etc. info. So hopefully America will not follow suit and turn off our information lifelines.
Re: Please Don't Consider for USA (Score:2)
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AM as a backup? (Score:4, Insightful)
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> given how simple it is for the average person to construct an AM receiver from the most basic electronic components.
You are very optimistic about the abilities of the average person, aren't you? :-) We aren't in the 70's anymore.
Re:AM as a backup? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not at all. AM transmitters can be built by literal 10 year olds, even those going through the American education system and require only a couple of components. It's a quite a common kids project.
You're wildly overestimating the complexity.
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Most consumer home radios don't even come with AM any more here in europe and a lot of car radios don't have it either particularly in EVs for obvious reasons. And while a few phones may still have a built in FM receiver they sure as hell don't have Am, so no AM is little use for an emergency system now. As the other guy said , its not the 1970s anymore.
Oh, and no one uses CB either.
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"Then what's the backup plan in case of national catastrophe?"
What backup plan? Did you see one during Covid? Right.
"new ones can be thrown together will very little electronics knowledge"
But still some. I don't imagine many people after an apocalypse will think "I must build an AM radio!". They'll be too busy fighting over the last tins in the supermarket.
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"How would you find out? AM radio is how."
Oh please, do try and rejoin the real world at some point. Once the power is done AM transmitters probably have a few hours of backup power then its game over.
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> You're wildly overestimating the complexity.
> Exactly, pretty sure I built one (from a short set of instructions) when I was 8.
I know how simple it is, I built one too when I was a kid (in the 70s). I connected it to the auxiliary port of a portable turntable (the ones where the speaker was the lid) and tuned to a classical music station playing some solo flute piece. I still remember that as the most beautiful music I ever heard.
But these days I feel that kids don't care about such things. Most adu
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But these days I feel that kids don't care about such things.
100% agree, but if the day ever comes when they need to care for survival, it is trivial enough to do so that the majority would be able to without much difficulty, that is my point. Even if the internet goes down, one nerd who remembers how to build a crystal radio can teach 1000 others in a day. The knowledge can spread very easily and quickly because the devices are so simple. There is no other reliable form of long range communication about which this is true.
Re:AM as a backup? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I built one as a kid, it was pretty simple.
That was also decades ago, and I didn't memorize how to do it. I don't typically have "basic electronic components" just laying about the house. In real-world practical terms, no, I can't just build an AM radio receiver.
There's some prepper fantasy that AM radio is going to be the savior of society when all else has collapsed, but if society has collapsed to the point that people have to build their own AM radios from parts laying about the house, we're probably already going to be at the "eat your neighbor" stage. If the power is out long enough that every other means of communication is down (and with no warning that people evacuate an area, such as a hurricane), there's nothing to be said over AM radio that's going to make it better.
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And the power to the AM transmitters will also be down anyway.
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Quite likely. Some will have generators, but when we had a complete power outage where I live (2011 tornado outbreak took out hundreds of transmission towers so power was out for multiple counties for days), there were a bunch of generators that didn't run for long (or at all), because they weren't tested regularly, didn't get regular maintenance, didn't have fuel arrangements, etc.
The ISP I worked for at the time didn't go down (because we had all that covered on our generator and UPS setup), but had heat
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Quite likely. Some will have generators, but when we had a complete power outage where I live (2011 tornado outbreak took out hundreds of transmission towers so power was out for multiple counties for days), there were a bunch of generators that didn't run for long (or at all), because they weren't tested regularly, didn't get regular maintenance, didn't have fuel arrangements, etc.
What happened after? Was your outage long enough to find out? In Haiti it was. Yeah some radio went out briefly, but it was one of the first things back online.
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Yes and no. Most AM radio stations have backup power. There's a reason AM radio is part of government emergency response communication plans, and there's also a reason that when you have a major grid outage (like the one in Texas) that the radio still works.
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That was also decades ago, and I didn't memorize how to do it.
You don't need to. The internet is not the only source of information. I suspect you didn't do it back then either. Your local library (remember those?) will have plenty of books describing how to build one. Any place that sells the components to build one will sell a kids kit with instructions to build one. And that's before you consider that you may accidentally fall over one while rummaging through your garage.
There's some prepper fantasy that AM radio is going to be the savior of society when all else has collapsed
Actually this isn't some prepper fantasy. Here's three reasons why:
1) Government emergency resp
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You are wildly overestimating the public school system in the U.S. As different as is it from community to community. You won't learn about building AM radio. You'll learn the concepts in Junior high if you are advanced. But usually, it's a science class in high school. And just a chapter on wavelengths or "radio" waves. Nope. All that AM radio building comes from dads or community things and not school. Then you take in it for show-and-tell, and slip in that there is no Santa while you're at it. Most kids
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You are wildly overestimating the public school system in the U.S.
I'm not. Building an AM radio can be done by anyone who is capable of reading and bashing two rocks together.
You won't learn about building AM radio.
I didn't say it is taught. I said it is simple. Literally 4 components. It's not part of your curriculum but its the kind of thing you may find in kids toy stores. I still remember building one as a kid, from a book that had literal comic style artwork explaining how I connect the components together. Electronics isn't passed down from dads alone. My dad didn't know which side of a battery was which.
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Indeed you need amplification for a transmitter. But kids won't need to build transmitters. Disaster management is about getting information from a central source. Your job is to have information, not to manage the disaster for others. Those others presumably will build transmitters (see Haiti earthquake where Hams came in and setup communications networks while phones and internet were down).
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That's probably unnecessary.
Switzerland is a fairly small country; it's what? 300 km wide and 150km across. It's fairly densely populated with over 8M people. You have 3 majors cities. And because it is a mountainous country with lots of snow, they get lots of skiing accident, lost hikers, avalanches. So they do have well developed emergency services.
The country is small enough that a handful of helicopters can probably hold basic cell towers or airdrop them and cover the whole country.
I don't know where th
Re: AM as a backup? (Score:2)
It's more common to have radios that receive shortwave broadcasts in Switzerland than it is in the US.
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The average person on Slashdot, a nerd site, considers an iPhone battery to be unreplaceable. The actual average person isn't going to be cobbling together any kind of radio. Especially if there's some kind of disaster that somehow renders all of the millions of existing radios inoperable.
More energy and cost efficient? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see that's true for broadcasters, but you can run a portable FM receiver on a couple of AA batteries for weeks, not something you can achieve with your average DAB receiver. If you factor in the total costs for the audience as well, is there really a saving overall?
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If the broadcaster is supported by advertising, the audience is the product. Their costs or savings don't matter.
Britain tried this and reversed tack (Score:5, Interesting)
It's still policy, but the original policy said by 2015 and the current one says by 2030 at minimum [radiotoday.co.uk]. Any bets on whether the next one says 2045.
(Oh, and that article's "nothing to protect British stations on smart speakers" whinging is ironic, considering it was the BBC themselves that changed their tech to something incompatible with the Homepod and tried to force everyone to their 'BBC Sounds' smartphone app. Previously used to work fine).
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"UK mandated DAB, not DAB+. As a result a lot of the signals are noticeably worse quality than FM."
Thats not soley down to the codec. 256Kbs MP2 (ie old DAB) is capable of near CD quality but of course no one used that bit rate. AAC+ (DAB+) can do even better but again, no DAB+ stations use anything close to a decent bit rate and some music stations are as low as 32kps which sounds no better than AM.
Problematic (Score:5, Informative)
Digital audio broadcasting (DAB+) and internet radio have largely replaced traditional FM radio in Switzerland, with digital radio holding an 81% share of use in spring 2023
Switzerland here. This is a big issue : 81% is far from 100%, and many not-so-old cars only have FM. I expect a rollback.
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I don't. The presence of an FM receiver (market share) does not imply the use of an FM receiver. 81% may not be 100%, but that doesn't mean that 19% of people will be up in arms about the loss of FM radio. This is also not just about cars. The market share covers more than that. FM radios both in the home and in the car can be replaced.
Cutting losses is a thing.
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FM radios both in the home and in the car can be replaced.
Home : easy. Car : certainly not.
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Now over 10 years later we have several DAB+ radio's with one connected to a 40+ years old radio/amplifier.
Quality AND more stations? (Score:3)
I thought you only got better quality or you could fit more radio stations, not both.
Has that changed?
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Yes, since DAB and DAB+ are compressed digital data, compared to FM which is (obviously uncompressed) analogue data.
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I thought you only got better quality or you could fit more radio stations, not both.
Has that changed?
It's called 21st century laws of physics, where bandwidth is infinite, and things like signal strength is not relevant, and if it is digital it is always better.
No, things haven't changed, other than a huge increase in gullibility, and smartest people in the room disease at pandemic levels.
Supprt Independant Broadcasting (Score:2)
The problem with the internet is ISPs, DNS, hosting, all of it is interdependent.
If your ISP goes down, you're out.
If their DNS goes down, you're out.
If the station's host goes down...
While I'm pretty sure it's illegal to just slap an FM antennae in your home and start broadcasting, anything that gets us further from that model is anti-consumer.
Let us broadcast!
I wonder if this will cut their overall EM output? (Score:2)
DRM - Not Digital Rght Management (Score:2)
I don't know why more governments don't push a transitional In Band On Channel Digital standard like Digital Radio Mondiale.
DRM is seriously the way to go if you want to go digital and still support analog broadcasting. DAB is too inefficient. DAB+ is better than DAB but cannot coexist side by side with analog. HD Radio while it's a IBOC system, it's too patent encumbered and doesn't work well on AM or 100mhz bandwidth FM.
DRM is an open standard and is extremely efficient to the point it can coexist with an
Radio (Score:2)
I haven't listened to the radio in thirty years. I got tired of having my 24x7 commercial broadcasts interrupted by occasional music intermissions. I've barely thought about it in all that time, and I definitely have never missed it. Radio has no practical value.
mountains (Score:2)
FM does not do well in mountainous terrain.