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What do we do with more channels that we can't listen? If you really need a little bit of bandwidth around 100 MHz for other use, you could cut the spectrum fro
by ptaipale 10y ago
What do we do with more channels that we can't listen? If you really need a little bit of bandwidth around 100 MHz for other use, you could cut the spectrum from FM radio and still keep it running.
The place where I usually listen to radio is the car. Car radios don't have DAB receivers. They all have FM receivers. And these days most cars have radio units that are integrated to the car electronics, steering wheel controls etc - so it's not that easy to just get a new radio that fits the hole.
If I get rid of FM radio, I will not replace it with DAB. I'll listen to some streaming service over IP.
- martinald 10y agoMost newish cars in the UK come with DAB as standard now.
- ptaipale 10y agoAround here (Finland, neighbouring Norway), the average car on the road is 12 years old, so if we start to get DAB radios now, almost half of them will have it by 2025. Many more cars have right now Bluetooth connectivity in the audio system, so it'll be streaming from the phone then.
- jdietrich 10y agoAn aftermarket head unit with DAB+ costs about €150 with installation. Owners of older cars aren't stuck, but they will have to pay for the privilege of continuing to receive radio broadcasts.
- ptaipale 10y agoWill that integrate into the car electronics, and be able to run e.g. the satnav UI if that is included in the previous one?
- jessaustin 10y agoThis is just another example of satnav being a terrible option to build into cars. Who wants to use a "custom" nav system kludged together by the lowest bidder ten years ago when we have much better on our phones?
- ptaipale 10y agoWell, someone who doesn't want to reveal his/her driving habits to Google, NSA et al?
- jessaustin 10y agoGood point, but one probably does that as soon as one purchases a smartphone...
- Reason077 10y agoDAB service in the UK is a significantly better experience than FM when driving. However, receivers vary wildly. I rent cars frequently and while all new cars have DAB, the quality of implementation is not consistent. There's a huge difference between the crappy ones that constantly drop the signal and the good ones that almost never do, even in really remote (and hilly) areas.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mrweasel 10y agoThe whole car radio situation hasn't be handled correctly by politicians, at least not here in Denmark. When regular service began, in 2002 in the case of Denmark, politicians should have parsed regulation that required all new cars to be delivered with DAB radio within a certain time frame. You can get a DAB/DAB+ radio in your new car, but you'll have to pay extra. At this point is should simply be the default, otherwise a migration will never be well received.
- Matthias247 10y agoI agree. Here in germany it was also planned to shutdown FM in favor for DAB already for 2010. It was then canceled and postponed due to the fact that nobody has a DAB receiver. But of course nobody wants to get a DAB receiver as long as they cost 200€ extra, and therefore FM is still the standard in cars. As cars have a super long lifetime that means every car that is now sold with FM works against a FM->DAB switch in 10 years. So even the new plans like "we switch FM off in 2025 if the majority has a DAB radio then" won't work. There should now (or even multiple years ago) have some regulations that car manufacturers have to offer DAB for the same price as FM to get more traction. In the meantime building DAB receivers is often even not more expensive than FM if both are build on top of a software defined radio. However car manufacturers still sell DAB extra for maximising profit.
- ptaipale 10y agoBTW, technical requirements for cars are EU-wide. Country specific requirements for "a car sold here must have a DAB radio" are an illegal obstacle for free movement of goods, or a state subsidy to domestic industry. So, DAB radio won't be in all cars unless DAB radio is an EU wide requirement. Not happening overnight. Requiring things like winter tyres is OK because they can be installed separately. I'd be happy to insist that all cars in EU must have block heaters and cabin electric outlets, it would surely reduce prices here a bit.
- ptaipale 10y agoOver here (Finland), a car is not required to have a radio at all. In fact, even speedometer only became mandatory in new cars in 1984, so cars older than that are legal without one. (Otherwise, the authorities here have been ridiculous with car equipment requirements, particularly before EU time, as they wanted to ensure the revenue collection from car taxes. For instance, one year third brake lights were illegal as "dangerous", then very suddenly at the time of EU membership they then became mandatory in new cars. The authority is still in constant breach of EU rules, and the authorities do nothing; officials break the law and there are no, zero, zilch consequences.)
- dtech 10y agoWell, that's a chicken-egg situation, cars won't get DAB+ radio's until there's DAB+ broadcasts and it won't really be accelerated until FM is closely on the horizon to be shut off. Similarly it took quite a while for the first CD players to appear in cars, and a lot of older cars only had casette tapes, keeping casettes alive for quite a while longer just for car use.
- beobab 10y agoI've actually got a iPhone to cassette interface (I would call it a cable, but one end looks like an actual cassette) in my desk drawer, so that I could play my music in my car. New car now (well, new to me), so it's redundant.
- Aoyagi 10y ago>The place where I usually listen to radio is the car. Car radios don't have DAB receivers. It's not like anyone was asked when digital TV was the only thing left working..
- scholia 10y agoTrue, but you didn't have to replace your TV, just add a cheap set-top box. (And not even that if you had cable or satellite TV.) Also, at the time, most people only had one or two TV sets. With DAB, you have to buy a new set, and most people have multiple FM radios: typically living room/hi-fi, kitchen, bedroom alarm clock/radio, car radio, boomboxes, and FM radios in smartphones and MP3 players. We have about a dozen FM radios at home and there is zero chance of us buying any more DAB radios than the DAB/FM/CD "kitchen radio" we already have.... The obvious option is to buy a DAB receiver that broadcasts an FM signal to all your existing radios. That's how some of the DAB "radio adaptors" for cars work.
- Aoyagi 10y agoActually getting my car to receive "digiTV" costs about $700 :) It's the only TV I have, too. Why can't there be a cheap set-top box for radios though?
- ptaipale 10y agoUI for digital radio requires a more expensive hardware than for TV set top box (which will be happy with just the antenna in / signal out and power interfaces, and a remote control).
- hzhzjsj 10y agoThe FM band is useless for anything else. The antennas are too big, the noise floor too high and the band too narrow. Nobody are going to make a chipset only for countries where they AND all their neighbors have turned off the FM band. Radio waves dont stop at the border