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(Short-, Medium-, Long)wave Radio Meets Digital Stereo
cryptec writes "Today shortwave radio will have some new life pumped into it as the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle will be the first full time shortwave broadcaster of DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale). DRM is a full stereo fully digital broadcast system. The quality of the broadcasts are close to that of FM radio. For samples check out this link." Akai adds this link to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle with some more information, like the involvement of the BBC and Voice of America in this undertaking.
I don't think that's a popular acronym around here.
The goatse guy for president. Win one for the gaper!
"quality of the broadcasts are close to that of FM radio"
what's the point ? maybe I missed something ?
Music is the language of the heart, the sound of the soul. -Joe Satriani
Come on, we've heard enough about DRM from M$, now from German DJs?!?
Is there actually much point to this? In order to use it, people will have to replace pretty much all their existing equipment, in which case there are probably better alternatives. I may be wrong though, as I never listen to radio or watch TV.
Digital radio over SW sounds interesting. I wonder if old Auntie's going to pick this one up? I gather BBC services got cut over North America recently in favour of web broadcasts... maybe digital technology will allow that to be reinstated in the future?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Obviously, you will need special gear to receive this - they are using COFDM so your normal shortwave rig is unlikely to give you anything meaningful.
I suppose IF you had a single-sideband rig with a wide enough filter set, and IF you then used your computer, you COULD decode this, but the usual means is going to be a dedicated receiver.
(Hmmm. Have to see if I can get the spec, and see if I can write a decoder for it....)
www.eFax.com are spammers
Hardly the first. Lisp has been doing this for decades.
-- ShadyG
Nerd Rock In Progress
Boy, they had better get a different acronym for the US market as there are more than a few folks here that want nothing to do with Digital Rights Management.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
amatuer radio might be able to use this, since they dont need a boat load of bandwidth, only a tiny bit. They allready have VHF and UHF digital radios, too, so I dont see why it wouldnt work on HF.
My potato gun was confiscated by the United Nations. They said I wasn't allowed to have weapons of mash destruction.
Deutsche Welle will be the first full time shortwave broadcaster of DRM
Broadcasting DRM! How dare they! First, they try to stuff copy-protected CDs down our throats. Then they introduced copy-protected HARDWARE! And now, they're trying to RESTRICT OUR RADIO!
WE MUST BURN TH-eh? Read the article? Bah! I'm fighting Digital Rights Management! No time for that!
Or IRS for International Radio Service?
Or PMS for Portable Media System?
Or any of a thousand other shit-poor choices for acronyms?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
doh, I meant *Wir* sind die Borg
The British Broadcasting Corp., Voice of America and other international broadcasters launched digital short-wave radio service Monday, promising to provide near-FM quality in the place of static-filled signals.
Digital broadcasts don't increase a station's range, but they eliminate static and let broadcasters transmit text, such as news updates and song information, with the audio signal. For now, digital radio receivers are considerably more expensive than analog radios.
The Digital Radio Mondiale consortium launched its digital service at a global radio meeting in Geneva.
"DRM's introduction will forever alter the course of radio broadcasting," said Peter F. Senger, chairman of the consortium, which has more than 80 members.
The initial signals were transmitted from a nearby mountain in France shortly after 8 p.m., when Senger gave the word during a ceremony in conjunction with the World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva. The conference is held every few years to decide airwave issues such as the sharing of radio and satellite frequencies.
Simultaneously, other short-wave broadcasters started using digital transmitters in different parts of the world. The transmissions received at the reception featured voices in Chinese, French, English, German, Russian and Spanish, followed by static-free music.
For the foreseeable future, broadcasters will use both traditional analog systems alongside the digital transmissions so people with traditional radios will still be able to tune in. At first, broadcasts will be aimed at Europe, North America, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.
Digital radio signals are duplicated enough so that even if some are lost from interference, the receiver is able to put the transmission back together so it can be heard correctly. And Senger said the system uses much less electricity than analog, which will save broadcasters considerably on their biggest cost item.
Although the Federal Communications Commission has approved a different digital standard for U.S. domestic broadcasters, Senger said the new system is meant to be universal and could eventually be used in the United States.
Other broadcasters in Europe, Asia and Canada have been using digital transmissions for several years. That system, known as Eureka 147 or DAB, uses a different set of frequencies than traditional AM, FM or short-wave bands.
My potato gun was confiscated by the United Nations. They said I wasn't allowed to have weapons of mash destruction.
DRM != Digital Rights Management.
DRM = Digital Restrictions Management.
No rights are being given... your fair use is being taken away. Pay attention. If you argue, I guess your entire collection will be stored in non-transferablae WMA's. Or will you "buy" the right to listen to them each time you want to hear them. Somebody rank all these, including this one off-topic...
DRM, what a terrible acronym
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Say what you want to about the utility of digital music over short-wave, I think it's a fascinating development. It's just another big application of Peer to Peer technology, one completely bypasses the internet. It's not just music that can be broadcasted this way - files can be sent and they could contain anything - newspapers, video, software, worms - and they could come from anyone with enough power to broadcast them. If the use of such technology becomes widespread enough - look for this becoming just another way to suck data into your computer, no matter how isolated you happen to be.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
I'm suddenly starting to wonder just how much modern digital techniques bring to the party. For example, remember the technique of bounding signals off of meteor trails? I believe they recorded audio at normal speed, then waited for a meteor trail and squirted it out at many times normal speed... that sort of thing would be trivial and cheap to do with digital technology.
Maybe a LOT of old, low-fi, unreliable radio broadcast technologies can have useful new digital life. It could be very handy as a backup for satellite-based communications.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Why would you spend all the money on shortwave equipment when you already have companies scrambling to provide FM via satellite for screaming deals? It just doesnt't make money sense at this point. I would bet the signal quality is more consistent too.
'Ya know, I used to think short wave radio was cool - until I discovered internet broadcast. Now I can listen to stations around the world, without buying any extra gear.
Maybe in the 3rd world, oh wait, the gear is going to be more expensive than SW radio - maybe not there either. Who is going to buy this to get the mass market price down? Not me.
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
heresy! :D
DRM was a 4 letter word around Slashdot.
My rights don't need management.
There are in the US people who actually live so far out in the middle of nowhere that shortwave is the only option for radio unless they want to put up a huge antenna.
Its also a fairly widespread hobby. Starting cost can be as low as $10 for a garage sale world band radio up to several thousand for the latest in equipment.
Its pretty fun being able to hear programs from austalia, india, or wherever someone can muster a few kilowatts to bounce a signal off the ionosphere.
I thought they meant thah Welle Erdball would broadcast. =(
A receiver with a wideband IF output (ie just about any ham receiver), a PC, and a soundcard. That ain't so special; some of you need to free your minds, much less free your radios.
This technology isn't going to be able to send high quality audio on frequencies lower than shortwave (i.e. longer waves), there just isn't enough bandwidth available down there.
Or maybe it was some bad pun I didn't catch?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Ha, here is the DRM we can all known and love at slashdot
here's a website I found in the UK that gives a very detailed explanation.
Wrap your brain around this.
I tried to digest all of it...
Now my head hurts.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
It's already been used to decode HDTV signals.
Slashdot also covered this technology a couple years ago.
In an area where 802. gear is pretty much useless because of line of sight issues, this might be just the ticket. There is more bandwidth in an HF carrier than in a phone line, and using low cost DSP tx/rx front ends it would even be possible to utilize two or three channels at once.
Hmmmm.... I think I need to go visit the neighbor.
There are those who would be critical of such things, but I like it! Ham radio to broadcast digital media will open a new door to... dare I say it, multi-casting! Why bother broadcasting on the net when you can actually recieve digital media over shortwave / ham and not have it suck up your bandwidth. Took us long enough to converge these two technologies.
Bit-torrent is a pretty cool and hip standard in it self, but imagine releases sent digitaly via the airwaves, using a simple 50ft long wire that can reach between seattle and finland. Not perfect mind you, even the best sets are going to have some unrecoverable packet loss, but hey. Not exactly ideal for let's say a linux distro, but through the use of checksums I can see how such a broadcast service could get you most of what you need, and anything that fails you can just download via standard means.
And as a bonus... to people who have a broadcast license, could open the door to ham based ISPs. While a dated technology, short wave / long wave is a proven one. While i'm sure statalight would no doubt be superior, land based access would be cheeper to deploy, and can even be based on older tube technology.
This is something i'd use, even if just to get music from overseas.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Anyone else read that as "douche well" instead of Deutche Welle?
The quality of the MP3's is no where close to FM radio.
It sounds like, well, like shortwave.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
CRC's for the CRC's, CRC's for those CRC's, CRC's for those, etc..etc..
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Try 8.99. Found a Broadcast Band shortwave radio at the local Big Lots for 8.99. Sure, it was a Coby (cheap assed radio) but it was capable of picking up shortwave.
Gorkman
Finally I can get my instructions from the KGB without them getting garbled beyond inteligibility.
This is the 3rd definition of DRM now...
1. Digital Restrictions Management (M$)
2. Direct Rendering M(anagement?) (XFree)
Luke-Jr
In order to use it, people will have to replace pretty much all their existing equipment
:)
......WHERE'S MY BOOK?? WHERE'S MY BOOK!! GET ME THAT DAMNNNNNNNNN BOOK?????????
See, they said stereo, and eveyone knows these SW wonks have loads more than just one crystal set laying around...soooo. They'll just wind one up for use w/the LEFT channel, and then dial in another Radio Shack Gold Klondike SkyMaster SW68-006 Horizon Buster II for the RIGHT channel, and won't we be the stupid ones
Yes, Earl??? Dorothy, I gotta call the guys over at NASA...there's something going on up there. Where's my damn book?....Am I wearing a sign that says 'Earls Slave'...?
I see they're using digital to revolutionize shortwave, why not revolutionize the TV band of the spectrum? Anyone these days either uses cable or dish for the most part, why not ditch all the analog counterparts and transmit digitally on the same spectrum? You could cram hundreds of channels in space of a few. Food for thought.
not all shortwave is HAM, and you generally can't use HAM for commercial purposes.
So opening up a "HAM based ISP" is probably not legal in most places.
Well, all of this will be long forgotten when XM takes comes built-in to cars and takes over.
I've got something to put in you...at the gay bar, gay bar, gay bar.
I would have expected the over-water radio link (at the bottom) to be less evil than the one across most of continental europe.
It was sufficiently bad that there wasn't quite enough bandwidth for the voice.
I've seen a bunch of that Cony stuff around here lately, it's hilarious. Their trade dress is a total ripoff of Sony, right down to the graphic design of the boxes, the fonts used, similar model-numbering scheme, etc. Totally shameless, I love it. :-)
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
Oops, I meant Coby, not Cony. They're not THAT shameless...
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
Yes, but the cult favorite of SW broadcasts will always be the mysterious "numbers" stations. Now with DRM, we can get it with FM quality!
(Hmmm. Have to see if I can get the spec, and see if I can write a decoder for it....)
If you really want the spec visit the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) website, search for Digital Radio Mondiale, register for free and download the system specification.
when you spastic AC's finally go get a job. or finish school. whatever comes first.
What is to stop people from broadcasting SMS text messages or Internet traffic over shortwave radio? How much bandwidth is there to play with? Sounds like great wireless possibilities.
We have FM or Sat radio for this kind of quality.
Part of what makes AM Medium or Shortwave so important is the ability to receive it with inexpensive receivers. If there is something you want or need to listen to there and you live in some third world country, chances are you're not going to be able to afford some nice new digital receiver.
And remember that the third world is usually the target audience for this stuff. It's used to get religious or political programming to those who wouldn't otherwise hear such things due to financial or political circumstance.
There's the hobbiest market too. I think one of the reasons that Heathkit faded away was the trend toward more complexity. You can still buy a kit or build from scratch a radio to pick up shortwave broadcasts. It's a great learning experience and takes few parts. You're just not gonna do that with a digital unit.
So the way I see it this is like HDTV. Nice toys, but who the hell really needs them. There really isn't a huge market going "hey, I need a better resolution TV picture" and there isn't a market begging for digital MW or SW radio.
Then again I could be wrong. There's a first for everything.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
One of the DRM organization's publications says they intend to provide "fair, reasonable, non-discriminatory worldwide access under one license to patents essential for implementing the international DRM standard," but what they consider fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory might not be what open source programmers think of as such. Does anyone know whether it will be possible to extend GNU Radio to handle this encoding?
You miss the big picture. Bandwith that onec was negelected due to poor quality can now be used to send reasonable quality sound around the world. There is NO radio technology currently used who's transmision has not been well understood since Maxwell. The change is in frequency hopping and digital encoding. It is doing neat stuff and provign over and over that there is no scarcity of available broadcast specturm. Whey you grok this, you might condlude that satellite is an expensive way to get the message around the world. If you don't grok it, I doubt anyone will miss your input.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
In the Harris booth they weren't even running it in stereo. They were using mono voice and it sounded just awful - full of really bad artifacts that made the speaker sound like he was gargling liquid while speaking.
A German fellow came up and was listening to the audio on a second headphone. he commented at how awful it sounded. Turns out that he does DSP for a living - perceptual coding in particular. he had done some work on the coser used and was embarrassed at what he was hearing on the headphone.
By contrast, the DRM samples I hear here sound just great! ...and this with dual (dueling?) bit rate conversions (analog > DRM > MP3 > analog).
FM DAB sounds somewhat better...but then again is's using a 96K bit rate - even Windows Media sounds good at that high a bit rate!
What I'd like to hear is OGG at both the 32k bit rates of AM DAB and the 96k bit rates of FM DAB... My guess is that it would sound great!
Dude.... how much is a cellphone now? Aren't they giving them away in blister packs at the grocers?
It's just another digitial radio. The only thing hindering this is a standard; if there were a WARC approved standard and a few broadcasters using it there would be twenty dollar receivers being sold at ratshack - and handed out in the third world by peace corps volunteers.
Except those places where no legal jurisdiction has a rule one way or the other. Or are you implying the Amateur bands have this rule in every single jurisdiction and location on earth?
Well thank God it's not based on WM9. Unfortunately some DAB radio solution manufactures are looking into WM9 instead of MP1 layer II. I can only conclude they are mad and want their company (and the world) to be ruined like Sendo.
Perfect thing for all those tech-toy happy shortwave radio listeners in places like Sudan and Bangladesh. Maybe this will be a way to stop young Nigerians from embarking on a life of on-line crime! Wonders never cease.
That the pops, whistles, dits, dahs, and muzack from outer space is replaced with complete silence interspersed 5 second soundbites of Cuban propaganda, spanish speakers reading out streams of numbers, Turks talking about the best way to make coffee, people blabblering on about Jeeeesus, desperately lonely americans in lima, and all the songs they should have stopped playing in 1982.
Voice of America, Radio Sweden and BBC started to broadcast with the same system yesterday. Sony will launch a DRM capable receiver that also works with the old analog system later this year.
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
I envy you; you obviously have a broadband, flat-rate Internet connection in your home, at work, in your car, in the park, in the train, in the air, everywhere! Very cool, where can I get that?
"Who are the Borg?"
It is an amazing coincidence, but I was at the sales pitch for DRM last Friday. Well, apart from things being rehashed here on /. some insider information:
DRM is going to be certified by ITU (International Telecomms Union), basicaly the body that gives the certs for these kind of things.
Most of the digital radio concepts failed because they were able to produce a small run of say 10,000 receivers that would cost an arm&leg when they hit the streets. Well, it seems that DRM will not share this fate, since China, having poor radio coverage in rural areas (FM not viable, shitty AM/SW reception) has chosen DRM as their new standard. Starting run will be ~14mil receivers, so from start they will be able to produce them dirt cheap. Basically the deal is that the West will supply the transmitters, and China will flood the market with cheap receivers.
Otherwise the test rig shown at the pitch sounded really good.
How much is a mini-satellite dish? Obviously, it's super cheap, if not free, because the service charge is where they make up their money. No suck luck with shortwave radios, although, I admit it shouldn't be very expensive ($50) in a year or so if they mass produce them.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
... 33769 26197 47523 36746 39976 ...
"Shortwave sounds just like FM Stereo!" ... and it doesn't.
...and it doesn't.
"iTunes sounds just like the CD!"
Its almost like you have to take any audio claim and "go down" one level.
See:
http://www.tentec.com/Amateur.htm
for a relatively inexpensive DRM-enable receiver...
however, you will need to purchase a binary-only, proprietary decoder in order to receive DRM... this is an insidious enticement...
i have the 'plain' rx-320, which works well with Linux, and is a wonderful broadcast AM and shortwave receiver... there are several Linux clients for the rx-320, and i ported the xclass libs and rx-320 client to NetBSD...
the rx-320 is unlike other 'PC radios' in that it can run standalone after being programmed via its serial port... controlling the radio is via a basic set of seven controls, but you can use the controls to change frequencies, volume, line out, etc., along with implementing scanning, band sweeps, and of course, use its DSP for filtering received signals...
DRM in shortwave is not a good idea unless an open-source solution for the decoding is implemented... fortunately there is at least one such project, and if digital shortwave takes off, there's hope for some free solutions...
otherwise, you're going to pay, pay, pay! and don't expect a Linux version!
i don't expect DRM to take off... too many countries don't have the money to change over the equipment, there are too many SW receivers out on the market, and a basic SW receiver can be manufactured and sold for less than US$10...
one of the best 'deals' for SW receivers is the Sangean ATS-505 (also once sold by Radio Shack, and liquidated at $50)... you'll want a receiver that can also receive USB (upper sideband) all the SW bands, and has 1kHz tuning (many of the cheaper ones only offer a subset of the SW bands and 5kHz tuning)...
detailed pics and specs on the rx-320 are here:
http://www.tentec.com/TT320.htm
p.s. some folks spend $2000+ on receivers, but you can get almost the same capabilities in a Yaesu FT-817 - and while you're at it, get your FCC license and become a ham operator - basic entry for Technician Class is a 35-question test (in the U.S.)... learn CW (carrier wave), aka Morse code, take another 35-question test and you'll be able to talk with folks around the world!
I looked at this while it was in Beta, and when they finally had a beta release ready to go, I saw the license.
No Way!
This is far from what they advertised. They wanted those of us beta testing the software, to pay for it. Even though we would still have to construct special modules to receive the broadcasts. Forget you and the horse you rode in on. There were also way too many restrictions on the license.
The site had been advertising this as though it was more of an experiment and movement rather than a blatant money grab.
I won't be jumping on their bandwagon.
"Dude.... how much is a cellphone now? Aren't they giving them away in blister packs at the grocers?"
:)
In third world countries?!?!? The last time I was in one of those places they wern't giving anything away. Hell you couldn't even get a decent selection of sanitary food in some of those places.
It's true that cell phones cost far less than they used to due to the scale of mass production. Still most retail for $150 US on up. The ones being "given away" are usually refurbs as those have no other market value and it's a cheap way for the carrier to get you to spend an airtime dollar if you're too cheap to sign a contract and buy a phone.
The difference as I see it is that this radio market is going to be a tiny fraction of what the cellular communications market is. So I doubt there will be the kind of numbers you need to bring receiver price down that far that fast.
Maybe the MW market will help drive the price down somewhat and make it afordable for the SWL market. But MW is a hurting market too. If you're in the US you might remember how the MW broadcasters tried like hell to save their market share with the miracle of AM stereo. Or maybe you don't remember that...which would make my point. A lot of people just don't bother with that band because they can get all the programming they want on the VHF FM band without propagation flutter and fade.
Seems to me that the MW and SW listeners are a different breed with different requirements. They're not after high quality signal, they're just happy to have signal. They're not after full digital stereo news, they're just happy to hear the news at all.
Besides, Rush Limbaugh gets his point across in analog mono just the same as he would in digital stereo.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
The great thing about analog is that even in horrible conditions if your willing to ignore the noise you can still get a useable signal.
Oh and by the way shortwave rules. You haven't had fun until you've tuned Radio Tirana.
"Technology.....the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it." Max Firsch
I listen to SW news to get a different perspective of the world. The local and network news in the US is politically slanted and full of sound bites. Where I live, the BBC, Radio Netherlands and Radio Cuba have strong signals at night.
I was listening to the BBC when it was first announced that Lady Di died in a car crash. It was a solemn moment The Brits did it with dignity. The American press handled it like the tabloids.
At http://www.drm.org/system/centraudiov202.htmy have a place called Kotka on the map. Yippee, Finland on the map! But they still failed to place the place called Kotka on the right place (400 km off).
the
Oh yeah, like America is going to adopt a standard just because every other country in the world does.
...
Metric, PAL, GSM,
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Karma PROTIP:
:) Maybe tomorrow I'll post something informative or genuinely funny. Then the universe will be back in order. Of course, now I'll have to make two good posts.
I don't care about Karma.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
If anything has the potential to take back the commercial airwaves (AM/FM) from ClearChannel, it is digital radio concepts like this. Is this a step in the right direction? No. It's a sprint in the right direction.
Screw IBOC. AM/FM need a digital makeover, not a legacy-supporting and shitty sounding downgrade.
In the US most cellphone proviers will give you a phone because they want you to sign up for a plan. They cannot afford to give away those phones if they were not cheap. In india many people cannot afford a cellphone, but most villages have at least one "community" phone and can communicate (for the first time since the telephone, in fact). In eastern euroupe cellphones that accept "minute cards" (which can be bought at the grocer's) are very popular. In a country where a month's salary might be fifty bucks, cellphones in the cities are even more common than here.
The point is: cellphone technology is cheap. Damn cheap, in fact. You can buy a complete front end on a chip for about three bucks in quantity - that includes RF, LO, AND D/A and A/D convertors. Just add equally cheap DSP and you got a radio. You don't pay a couple hundred bucks for those cool new phones because they cost a couple hundred bucks to make - you pay that because they have new feaures you need to keep up with the Joneses. The basic technology for this kind of communications is damn cheap. Not as cheap as a transistor portable, but hardly an order of magnitude more than that, either.
Digital has the advantage of supporting error-correcting codes and interleaving. Suppose you want to transmit four 512 byte blocks of audio data. Rather than sending the bytes in normal order, you can interleave the blocks, sending byte-1/block-1, byte-1/block-2, byte-1/block3, byte-1/block-4, byte-2/block-1, byte-2/block-2, byte-2/block-3, byte-2/block-4, etc. This limits the damage a fade or noise burst causes to any single block. Rather than losing a whole block. the damage is dispersed in time, resulting in less severe errors that can be corrected by the error-correcting code.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
F.U.