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Campaign Demands Telecoms Unlock the FM Radio Found in Many Smartphones (www.cbc.ca)
An anonymous reader cites an article on CBC: Your smartphone may include an FM radio chip but, chances are, it doesn't work. Now, an online campaign has launched in Canada, putting pressure on telecoms and manufacturers to turn on the radio hidden in many cellphones. Titled, "free radio on my phone," the campaign says that most Android smartphones have a built-in FM receiver which doesn't require data or Wi-Fi to operate. The U.S. arm of the campaign believes iPhones also have a built-in radio chip but that it can't be activated. Apple wouldn't confirm this detail. The radio chip in many Android phones also lies dormant. But the campaign says it can easily be activated -- if telecom providers ask the manufacturers to do it. In Canada, however, most of the telecoms haven't made the move to get the radio turned on. They'd prefer that you stream your audio, depleting your phone's costly data plan, claims campaign organizer, Barry Rooke.
FM sucks. AM or nothing.
Actually, I tend to listen to more AM than FM when I listen to the radio because I prefer talk radio over music (granted, most of that sucks, even)...... So I'll just stick to the various podcasts I listen to.....better content and downloaded over wi-fi so I don't use up my data.
FM in most of Europe is good.
FM is decent bandwidth.
FM is analogue, which means it degrades far more gracefully than digital.
Local FM is more likely to reach your receiver than a mobile signal.
FM doesn't get congested as the number of listeners goes up.
FM doesn't require me to pay for a data plan.
et fucking cetera.
FM is a great solution for local radio. It's the difference between me a) writing down a message on a piece of paper, photocopying it, and handing it out to everyone in the auditorium; and b) ensuring everyone can hear me at once by increasing the volume of my voice.
I certainly don't doubt that FM broadcasters are...looking kindly and charitably... on this oh-so-grassroots campaign(and possibly doing some direct assisting); but it seems like a situation where it isn't an either/or: As a handset owner I'm clearly better off if the FM tuner I already have is decrippled(even if I don't end up using it, I've already paid whatever pittance it costs to implement FM reception with modern hardware, so I'm no worse off for actually having the option to use it; and if I do feel like using it I'm obviously better off); and FM broadcasters are certainly in a much better position if they are a roughly equal option, relative to streaming services, when I pick up my phone and choose an audio player application to use. Merely being present won't save them if they suck; but being able to tune in as easily as I can start whatever streaming app makes me a lot more likely to bother than needing a separate radio to do so.
There are some situation where the lobbying is an ugly business of two or more industries fighting over the right to screw the customer; but this seems like a case where, even if the free-our-phones side is largely a shill for broadcasters, it's still the shill acting in the interests of users.
Now, if they were pushing to make FM support legally mandatory (probably for some BS 'safety' reason) or playing the support-local-culture card to demand that the FM tuner app be given a suitably prominent and impossible-to-delete position in order to save Canadianness from the internet, or similar nonsense, that would be a serious problem; but if it just so happens that a nontrivially powerful industry pressure group also wants your phone's firmware to suck less? That sounds like a bonus.
There is Public Radio(NPR) that have very few ads, and fantastic quality programming.
They also play BBC content which is also great.
Then there are "community" radio stations that play all sorts of music and news programs that are great.
Perhaps you should pull your head out of the internet for a moment and take a look around at what else is out there.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Not state-run, public. Admittedly, it's got more and more commercials/sponsors now, but very little money actually comes from the feds. It's probably a misnomer to call it "public", but that's what it's known as. And since they lean quite liberal, it's sometimes antagonistic to the party in power - hardly a mouthpiece of the state.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Whats killing FM is the HORRIBLE noise that passes for music these days, including Perry, Gaga and all the rest of that trash. NPR definitely has the best music selections. Some say the news is biased for"public" radio, when there are plenty of other outlets that offer such biased news. Nevertheless as a Republican, I support it anyway for the classical music and folk music that commercial stations don't touch.
NPR is not state-run. They receive some (diminishing) state funding, but that's all. And if you actually listen to it you'll realize that any single journalist on NPR has more integrity than all of the "journalists" on for-profit cable and radio news combined. NPR has no qualms with reporting uncomfortable facts and asking tough questions of public figures and politicians, regardless of any party affiliation, from local politicians all the way up to President Obama. And they are the only news media I regularly consume which explicitly informs consumers of any affiliation NPR has with a subject of their reporting so that you can decide yourself whether or not that is a factor in how the story was reported.
a [ferrite] rod is more [substantial] than a telescoping FM antenna?
Yes. A lot of FM radios get away with using the earbuds as an antenna that telescopes all the way up from your pocket to your ears.
When the power goes out or you are stuck in the wilderness or there's some other lack of Internet infrastructure, I prefer to not have my critical source of information handicapped because of someone else's greedy hands. If the hardware is there, ENABLE IT. If the hardware is there in other countries DONT REMOVE IT specifically for other countries. I'm looking at you, Samsung Galaxy S3 (Europe version has FM radio, US does not)
You are correct, FM does use a lot of bandwidth which could be used far more efficiently.
Could be, but doesn't need to be. I don't need a hundred low quality local stations (bitrate AND content). There's enough spectrum for FM.
Sure, if you're comparing it to a digital signal with no error correction. If you use vaguely modern error correcting codes (as in, developed in the last 50 years), then digital signals can correct all errors long after analogue signals are indistinguishable from white noise to a human.
Proof please, using a codec that's actually used in broadcasting.
The reason that this idiotic myth persists is that the switch to digital radio and TV broadcasts came with a slight decrease in range as a result of a huge decrease in transmitter power.
Proof please, using UK transmission power and coverage data collected from users.
You can stream NPR (and France Info, etc. it seems), so that's not a good response to the OP.
Except streaming consumes data cap.
Matter of fact, all the local radio stations I listen to(being the traditional sort) in the car offer streaming - they tell us so. Public, College, Commercial, all of them.
Still, while I don't come close to using my cap, I think that it's not a bad idea because it should also save power - no need for transmitting for all those packets, just the FM signal.
I don't read AC A human right
Or maybe it's sports fans that would like to listen to the game. In most cases, local sports teams broadcast their games on the radio, but block those games from being streamed without an expensive subscription, and in some cases provide no way at all to stream the games.
Terrestrial radio is about a lot more than top-40 music. Right here in my neck of the woods, there are classical stations, jazz stations, news, etc.
If I'm paying for an FM radio receiver, I'd like to be able to use that FM radio receiver.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Don't forget the laws that let multiple stations in the same market to all be bought up by the same one or two radio companies, squelching all variety and competition...
A person's emotions are never wrong. It was despicable for NPR to fire Juan Williams for daring to be honest about how he felt.
Are we listening to the same NPR? They have a very strong liberal bias and tend to run one-sided segments.
Lately they've run stories in favor of illegal immigration with their arguments basically being an appeal to emotion. They've been all over the North Carolina "bathroom bill" and how awful and discriminatory it is despite it applying to everyone equally. They've attacked Trump as not fit for office whenever possible and suggested he's trying to incite violence while dismissing any violence caused by the anti-Trump protesters. You can pretty much count on them running a story supporting the liberal cause d'jour along with whatever the Obama White House is doing.
Yeah, NPR tries to be as neutral as they can while all voting Democrat. They make the effort. But public radio as a whole is liberal leaning (e.g. Harry Shearer's "Le Show", "Fresh Air", etc). It's all good - there certainly is no shortage of conservative radio.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
A person's emotions are never wrong. It was despicable for NPR to fire Juan Williams for daring to be honest about how he felt.
If he was working for me I'd fire him for being and idiot after saying that, pilot/mechanical failures claim more air-travellers lives. If he's afraid of the plane crashing due to muslims he's barking up the wrong tree and being a rude and offensive asshole about it in a very public way, perfectly firable offence in my book.
If a particular guy on a particular occasion was looking shifty who also happened to be muslim he could have just not mentioned at all the fact the guy happened to be muslim and just said he was afraid of that particular guy and got on a later flight, I could buy that as an emotional response.
But claiming he's afraid of every member of a major religion is not an emotional response, its prejudice. Which, let me be clear, I have no problem with aslong as he keeps it mostly to himself, declaring it as a reason for not getting on an aeroplane (whilst also working for a major radio station) makes him pretty stupid though, whether he intended to cause offence or not. Fired.