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.

Comments

FM radio's last gasp?

[Registered Coward v2]

I wonder how much of this is actual consumer demand for listening to ads and the same songs every hour to avoid data overages vs. FM radio's last desperate gasp to remain relevant now that streaming is offering an alternative?

Re:FM radio's last gasp?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello,

Public radio tends to be quite good. NPR in the states, France Info, Inter, culture (etc...) in france... and I assume similar chanels in other countries.

Cyrille

Re:FM radio's last gasp?

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree - and there are tested historical facts to show my point.
At 9/11, the cell towers couldn't handle the load and basically cell
phones became useless as communication devices. And with no
data, no "FM" app would work either.

Now, an analogue FM radio won't allow you to phone home, but
with an emergency like that, you'd at least be able to get some
sort of news, maybe helpful information about the event. And it's
not like the chips in the phone are defective FM receivers, they
are intentionally disabled by iApple (and other like-manufacturers)
to force you to use an app to gain that functionality. Sadly, users
believe that the app is the FM receiver and they're not corrected
by the salesman.

I'd like to see this as an FCC mandate (that cell phones are required to
have a non-app working FM receiver) since it really is a public safety issue.
That's just common sense, IMHO.

CAP === 'invented'

Re:FM radio's last gasp?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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.

Re:FM radio's last gasp?

[Sir_Eptishous]

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.

Re: FM radio's last gasp?

[pchasco]

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.

Re: FM radio's last gasp?

[Anonymous Coward]

> because they weren't liberal enough.

They fired Juan Williams because he said he was scared of Muslims on airplanes. The only place a blanket statement like that won't get you fired is Fox News, because that's their business model.

In the meantime, All Things Considered has weekly segments with David Brooks (a conservative editorialist) and frequently engages conservative lawmakers in their stories. They had Darrell Issa on back when the USDOJ was trying to force Apple to break into the San Bernardino shooter's phone; last week they had a GOP congressman on to discuss why he was endorsing Donald Trump.

You can say a lot of things about NPR, but one thing you cannot say is that they actively try to prevent or otherwise diminish the presentation of non-liberal viewpoints. And frankly the only people who do actually believe that are better off going elsewhere anyway because it's obvious they don't distinguish between news and partisan cheerleading.

Re:FM radio's last gasp?

[Firethorn]

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.

Safety

[captaindomon]

I do some safety consulting for disasters etc. This would be very helpful for disasters. You could even have an app that just tunes into the local emergency FM frequency. It's way easier to broadcast emergency instructions over FM to three million people in a metro area, than to support three million active streams over a data network, especially in an emergency.

It's not just software

[larwe]

Sure, many integrated WiFi/BT chipsets also include an FM receiver. But turning it on, in a phone that wasn't shipped with it turned on, is not just a software matter. With the LO powered up, you'll need to repeat conducted and radiated emissions tests. And if the phone wasn't intended to be shipped with the radio enabled, the necessary passives to connect it to the earphone jack as an antenna likely won't be on the PCB. And in the case of Apple, since they absolutely never intended to use the FM capability, I'd be amazed if the relevant pads from the WiFi package are even led out to traces.

AM radio antenna systems

[fyngyrz]

So how are cars receiving AM without 160 meter long antennas?

While the whip antenna on a car is short, it has a substantial ground plane to work against (the body of the car.) This increases the signal level developed between ground and the antenna input. Sometimes the actual antenna is not as short as you might initially think, either; look closely, and on many car antenna systems, you'll see a fine wire that spirals up the outside of the whip; that's the AM broadcast band antenna, not the whip itself. The whip is just used as a mechanical support when receiving AM. This approach provides significantly stronger signals to the radio.

In order to obtain signals of a similar strength in a portable radio, the usual approach is to wind a lot of wire around a ferrite core and make it resonate with the appropriate matching capacitance. With proper design, this can result in a highly effective narrow-band (just a few channels), tunable, directional antenna capability.

Antennas aside, most car radios don't have very good AM sections. Just as with home stereo and theater receivers, manufacturers tend to not treat AM seriously. Historically speaking, there have been exceptions. For instance, Sansui produced an AM / FM tuner that had a pretty good AM section in it; early tube receivers also typically tried to do a good job. A good AM band receiver has control over IF bandwidth, and in a truly modern design, this is done with a software defined radio, so that the bandwidth is precisely controllable and essentially devoid of roll-off.