Outdated Technologies: FM/AM Radio

LeviathanX said:

an actual fm radio is still a common fixture in my house, and it is used regularly by my family and friends when we hit the road. True, the selection of music has dropped off the side of a very tall, uncreative cliff since the turn of the latest century, but I like to use the radio for local news and night time debates. It doesn't have to be all music, all the time.

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Bleh, I have an iPhone if I want news and opinion on the go. You can always just turn on the TV for local news, as well.

When I'm driving, the only thing I want to hear less than bad, overplayed music is chatter, regardless of if it's news or a dumb commercial. As a result, I often drive in silence, which can actually be quite relaxing, in fact.

(My car is a late 70s model, so hooking up an MP3 or even popping in a CD isn't exactly an option. Ironically, popping in a CD isn't an option with my mom's brand new car either. My, how times have changed! {XD})

LeviathanX said:

I hope that FM radio prevails well into this century. I'd hate to see it get phased out like analogue (but say, aren't digital signals still transmitted in analogue, and get converted back to digital at destination? That's what I heard, anyway), as I really do not like this 'always on and connected' society we're becoming.

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Digital and analog TV signals are completely different. Digital signals are stored in the form of a gazillion 1s and 0s, which gives you a picture that looks clearer and uses less bandwidth, but degrades much faster.

It's only a matter of time until old school broadcast radio is shut down in the same way that old school broadcast TV was. The UK has already begun the transition to digital radio, for example.

BettyNewbie said:

Bleh, I have an iPhone if I want news and opinion on the go. You can always just turn on the TV for local news, as well.

When I'm driving, the only thing I want to hear less than bad, overplayed music is chatter, regardless of if it's news or a dumb commercial. As a result, I often drive in silence, which can actually be quite relaxing, in fact.

(My car is a late 70s model, so hooking up an MP3 or even popping in a CD isn't exactly an option. Ironically, popping in a CD isn't an option with my mom's brand new car either. My, how times have changed! {XD})



Digital and analog TV signals are completely different. Digital signals are stored in the form of a gazillion 1s and 0s, which gives you a picture that looks clearer and uses less bandwidth, but degrades much faster.

It's only a matter of time until old school broadcast radio is shut down in the same way that old school broadcast TV was. The UK has already begun the transition to digital radio, for example.

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The trouble with adopting Digital radio is that why the technology and sound quality is better, It just offers the same old poor content that is on Analogue (Top 40 music padded out with Commercials and DJ's talking utter clap trap or sports commentary).

What's needed is more choice in terms of content something Internet radio has been doing for over 10 years.

It really hard to find a channel that plays just music that's not interrupted by an egotistical DJ, the news or sports coverage and of course adverts (the only mainstream stations in the UK without adverts are the BBC ones but they are the worse offenders in the other issues I mentioned).

[FONT=&quot] So without quality content being broadcast the technology used is practically irrelevant!!!![/FONT]

Gardevoir the Dragon Slayer said:

The trouble with adopting Digital radio is that why the technology and sound quality is better, It just offers the same old poor content that is on Analogue (Top 40 music padded out with Commercials and DJ's talking utter clap trap or sports commentary).

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Unfortunately, that's mostly the case with digital broadcast TV, too. The quality is better, but the content is pretty much the same old cesspool of soap operas, talk shows, reality trash, and other lowest common denominator programming.

Satellite radio tries to offer somewhat of a solution by offering a large variety of programming, most of which is commercial free, but it requires a subscription to use, so its adoption has been slow. (And, the music channels, while far more diverse than FM, still lack the variety and depth found in internet radio.)

The best solution in the long run will simply be expanding the reach of internet radio. As I said, there are already cars with wi-fi access coming out, and that number is sure to increase in the coming decades. That will be the first major step towards internet radio replacing FM for good.

I still listen to the radio in the car, and at my grandparents. I still don't quite like the idea of playing music off my phone in the car, I'm weird, haha.

I wish my phone came with a FM radio receiver, i wish all my phones had one, its not a deciding feature but still nice.

You guys rock! This was an excellent start to the first week, and coming up soon is week #2 :D

Y'all are still free to use this topic until after it expires as well :)

I don't think FM radio will go away so long as it's still within the realm of "good enough" - and good enough is pretty much in place when you have something that is equivalent to ~16-bit, ~32 kHz stereo in digital equivalent terms. I don't think there are any active AM radio stations over here (not that I know of any that I can tune into since the entire AM band is silent), but FM radio is a very nice thing to have, especially when you don't have an Internet connection.

A good FM reception also tends to sound better than streamed digital radio at conservative bit-rates (talking about mobile-data-cap-friendly) - assuming that the signal is sufficiently good, FM actually comes pretty close to CD quality, even if you're using headphones. I can hear "off"-ness at bit rates common to mobile streamed digital radio, so...

Even though I don't directly use FM radio most of the time, since my phone tends to have the music I want in the first place loaded up, I still end up hearing FM radio really often. A lot of stores over here just tune into an FM radio station and play the tunes from there, and they sound fine.

FM radio in the car. Otherwise, it's TuneIn for me

I don't see FM/AM radio becoming obsolete anytime soon. Sure, it is (generally) losing significance at home, but in cars it is always nice to have - music, talk shows, traffic updates and news without having to touch your phone.

I'm not too sure radio will be around too long, even the radio beacons pilots use to navigate are being taken down. If anything keeps radio around, it'll be the hold it has a talk radio and sports.