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No one has mentioned the antenna. Just because the silicon is there doesn't mean you'll get decent reception without an antenna, and a dipole at 100 MHz is 1.5
by madengr 10y ago
No one has mentioned the antenna. Just because the silicon is there doesn't mean you'll get decent reception without an antenna, and a dipole at 100 MHz is 1.5 meters. Not trivial to put in a phone, unless they use the headphone wires. If they do enable it, then people will just complain of poor reception.
- gruez 10y ago>unless they use the headphone wires that's what they use in most of the cases. on my phone, the radio refuses to function until a headphone is plugged in.
- Animats 10y agoIt doesn't have to refuse to function. I have a Cat B15, with an FM radio. It will warn you if you don't have a headphone plugged in, but you can continue and try anyway. If you have line of sight to a strong station (in SF and can see the Sutro Tower), it will work without an external antenna. Of course, headphones as antennas will stop working when headphones go USB-C or an Apple-specific connector.
- Kliment 10y agoWhy would they stop working? You just use the cable shield as the antenna.
- pessimizer 10y agoIt's enabled on my phone, the headphones have to be plugged in, and the reception is fine.
- nvahalik 10y agoI've been able to receive most local FM broadcast station with little to no antenna. They are so powerful that you generally don't need a special antenna to receive them...
- copperx 10y agoAnd by the way, why can't phones receive AM too? There are some good talk shows over AM...
- ryao 10y agoAntennas capable of picking up 535KHz to 1700KHz are very different than those intended for 700Mhz to 2600Mhz and 2.4GHz to 5.8GHz that cell phone antennas are intended to use today. Both FM and AM should require separate antennas in the phone, although maybe the one intended for cellular communications could be used for FM without failing to picture up anything at all. It would be surprising if someone could avoid a separate antenna for AM.
- ryao 10y agoI think about the antenna every time this comes up.
- omgtehlion 10y agoLumia phones use headphone wire, as almost all cheap feature-phones. I do not see a reason why an Android headset cannot do the same.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoMy old LG Android phone I used 5 years ago could indeed receive FM radio, using headphone wire as an antenna.