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Satellite Radio Coming in 2001
That Guy writes "This article explains how in a couple of years it'll be possible to drive cross-country listening to one radio station, in CD quality, with no static. "
Seems like this is an intermediate step before all music is downloaded
from the internet, and we just have cars with satellite net
feeds. I guess it would matter to me more if I ever left
the 5 mile radius around my house :)
There is something out already that is called L-band. It is more similar to normal radio in that it is transmitted form normal radio towers. Except that L-band is line of sight and is only 800W!. An L-band network will act similar to how cell phone networks work and it is cd-quality as well, except it is local stations.
L-band features 44khz(?), stereo, digital audio and many existing stations are already transmitting on it as an experimental step. I like in Toronto and one 800W source from the CD tower reaches all the way to Oshawa (about 40 km, ~25 miles).
One of the nice features about L-band though is that the there is a data stream separate from the audio stream that can transmit information like the name of the song, current weather, etc.
Before you go out and get an satellite radio receiver, remember this, if an L-band source get's knocked out then it only costs a couple thousand to replace (and there are tons of them spread around), mean while if a satellite gets knocked out, then its a couple hundred million to replace (these will have to be geo-synchronous satellites, not LEO,)..
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With satellite radio, one conglomo hires the equivalent staffing of a few radio stations, and reaches the whole hemisphere. No longer any need to buy up dozens of local stations to sell the latest and greatest homogenized pap handed down from program directors at HQ! Tastemakers love it!
Maybe, if this catches on in a big way, radio can get back to serving LOCAL communities, as it's really more suited than any other medium to do.
I know I'm not rushing out to put a sat reciever in my car, unless it's GPS. I don't like the notion of an even tinier (than the currently tiny) pool of people doling out what I shall hear (and neglecting to mention what might negatively impact their bottom line).
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
So you don't like their spouses, but apparently you have no problems with their news coverage because I didn't hear you give any concrete examples of bias (pro-Democrat or anti-Republican) on NPR. In the last couple weeks I've heard several good pieces on the Republican primary elections, including some coverage of Elizabeth Dole which really changed my mind about her in a positive way. If you have specific examples of bias or inaccurate reporting on NPR, then let's hear it.
And what does Waco have to do with NPR?
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Hmm. One of the big driving forces behind the conversion from analog to digital television is that it allows them to reclaim bandwidth... the digital signal is more robust than an analog signal, so you can use space in adjacent and harmonic channels that would ordinarily have interfered with each other. Also, thanks to the wonders of compression, it's possible to pack several digital video streams into the same bandwidth that would have contained a single, lower quality analog video stream.
I don't know, really, how radio broadcast differs from television broadcast, but I'd assume that at least some of the same points would apply...
Yes, to a certain extent you're trading signal for bandwidth. With analog, the information is lost in the transmission process. With digital it's lost during the digitization process. The difference is that with digital you get to choose which information you're going to lose, and, except under extreme circumstances, you're always going to get back all the information you put in. With analog, you will never get back all of the information you put in, and you have no choice as to what information you lose.
And, as a purely practical matter, a digital signal is able to tolerate, without degradation, interference that would render an analog signal unusable. That would seem to me to qualify as a more robust signal.
This service seems a bit like digital music available through major television cable companies. The idea is that you either install a new radio all together in your car, or you can just buy an attenna adapter that will let you use your existing radio. It's not the "free" radio that most of us are use to, where anytime you want you can tune in to any particular channel. Instead, there is a subscription fee ( $9.95 US for the CD Radio service), and supposedly this covers the revenues that commericial radio creates. Thus, commercial-free radio at a price.
Both CD Radio and XL offer 100 different "stations" respectively, with CD Radio dividing it nicely, 50 for news, 50 for music. Both companies have already produced primitive station lineups already: XL Radio and CD Radio.
Even though I have no direct evidence, I imagine many of the stations to be similar to National Public Radio (NPR) in their broadcast procedure. NPR reports news that is broadcast all over the nation, so reporting local events or weather is ineffecient for every single area around the country. Instead, NPR gives regional broadcasters space within the nation-wide program (anywhere from 5 to 60 minutes) to report local news, sports scores, and weather. If the new satellite radio companies really expect people to give up their old radios for the new deal, then they'll probably come up with a system similar to NPR's. The logistics of such an endeavour are beyond the scope of my knowledge.
If you want to get more news on the new technology straight from the horses' mouths check out both companies' websites at:
CD Radio ( www.cdradio.com )
XL Radio ( www.amrc.com )
You are not the only one that feels that radio stations play crap. I don't even have the patience to listen through the drivel for mp3 ripping. Its a cesspool of junk out there and I'm not sure who's listening. I'm sure they pay the marketing study companies great sums of money to get the results they need for cash. I would imagine many frequency bands would be better served if the public truely owned them and any Joe off the street could lease a frequency to broadcast whatever, regardless of political or entertainment content. Commercial radio is a very interesting business. Too bad the content is not.
Why do you feel that's being sarcastic? Its the truth! My sister plays in a tango band in Austin Texas and has released her second CD. She does not get a penny from the RIAA. Its a protection racket supported by our elected officials. I say if the music is good enough, people will pay for it. Entertainers do not need hardball tactics from the RIAA that crush recording technology. Its an offer they can refuse.
An Linux has packet radio built right into the kernel! Check it out next time you do a make config. I hope there will be enough interest in the next few years to get something like this started in my area.
While this is neat, I think it's going to have a difficult time replacing traditional radio and recordable media and CDs in the car. Given the quality of most factory-installed car speakers, extra quality isn't likely going to be noticed that much.
... Imagine losing your car radio when it rained!
Monthly fees for car "radio" likely won't go over too well either, except for people who do lots of traveling - and maybe not even them. I know when I spend nearly every weekend driving around at 2 in the morning, one of my favorite things to do was play "AM tag". Basically, see how far away of a station you can pick up. Works very well at night - and will at least keep you awake, unlike straight listening to music.
Also, I hope they don't use DBS frequencies
On the other hand, if this takes off, it might force traditional radio to become more interesting to retain listeners.
-- Rick