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“And I said, ‘Well, so why don’t you stop listening?’” Murphy continued. “And he says, ‘I can’t, because it’s the only station that will go on mile after mile a

“And I said, ‘Well, so why don’t you stop listening?’” Murphy continued. “And he says, ‘I can’t, because it’s the only station that will go on mile after mile and I can pick it up again.’” Just drove from IA to MI and it's true. Between 90.3 and 92.7 FM there's always an NPR station waiting. Or I could just download their app and listen anywhere / anytime. http://www.npr.org/about/products/npr-one/ http://www.npr.org/about/products/npr-one/

kazinator 9y ago
It occurs to me that a FM radio should be capable of automatically doing this hand-off, thanks to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System If a station signal goes weak, the radio could scan the FM stations for another station which is known to broadcast the same signal (according to, say, an internal cross-matching database, or some other means).
- omnibrain 9y ago
  My car radio (in Germany, german car) does this.
  - dghughes 9y ago
    In Canada CBC Radio is the public broadcaster sort of a cross between the BBC and NPR. There are multiple stations from coast to coast and I think a person could hop from one to the other but it would have to be done manually not automatically. Quebec may be the wildcard but there may be a CBC English station there too, I think? I drove quite a bit when I was in my teens and 20s when I worked for a coin-op video game/grey area slot machines. You get tired listening to music even if you like it at first your favourite song ten times in a row is ugh. But interesting talk radio is better it's food for the mind. Now with satellite and the Internet it's different. It was such a subtle change I don't think it was noticed how radio died and was replaced by the Internet and satellite radio.
- AndrewKemendo 9y ago
  It certainly can, however OTA radio is very localized - to the city usually, by tradition - so it wouldn't make much sense to build such a network. NPR is probably the only radio network that could do a common band cross country, but even then, NPR just syndicates itself to other stations so it's not really in their interest to do so.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    In the US, yes. In many other places you can get lots of channels that exist over entire countries, and actually support this kind of automated handover.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    This is quickly changing. The Brew is the same everywhere, Nash FM is the same everywhere, and I'm pretty sure you can get Sixx Sense or Free Beer and Hot Wings in basically every market. Clear Channel/I Heart Radio is pushing hard to make every radio station the same across the country.
    - AndrewKemendo 9y ago
      Very interesting thanks. I haven't been involved in FM radio since 2008 so I've been a bit out of the loop.
    - kbenson 9y ago
      > I'm pretty sure you can get Sixx Sense or Free Beer and Hot Wings in basically every market I had never heard of any of those, so I decided to look them up. Sixx Sense, nearest station is in Sacramento. about 70 miles as the crow flies, and over some small mountains (large hills, really). Next closest station is ~110 miles in Modesto. They look to actually hit the central corridor fairly well, just not the coast. Free Beer and Hot Wings (ha, I first through this was two different stations), doesn't even have a station carrying them in CA.
  - Brendinooo 9y ago
    There's a network called K-Love that broadcasts contemporary Christian music across the United States[1]. It's the same programming in every market, apart from the occasional regional flavor in advertising and/or pledge drives. I didn't search to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that federal regulations prevent fully syndicated radio stations across markets, but they don't apply to nonprofits. That's why you'll have an iHeartRadio Top 40 station in every metropolitan area but they all have their own talent. [1]: http://www.klove.com/music/radio-stations/radio-station-download/ http://www.klove.com/music/radio-stations/radio-station-down...
- kalleboo 9y ago
  That's how it works in Europe where RDS is widely deployed. Even for the regionalized channels where the programming may vary a little your radio will keep you in the network.
- pawelk 9y ago
  I live in Poland. Every car radio I have ever owned did this, and every station that is available on more than a single frequency (that I'm aware of) can be followed using RDS. I can also listen to a CD or other media [1] and let it scan for traffic news in the background, it switches to any station that currently airs traffic news. It held true on road trips to other European countries. [1] I rarely do this, for me listening to radio is an integral part of driving. Especially when I have commuted to/from work, I was able to tell if I'm running late based on what segment has been airing when driving past particular intersection or landmark.
- mickronome 9y ago
  Yeah RDS does that, and it can do a lot more with proper metadata. In Sweden it has been running with at least basic functions - traffic announcements, channel following, and station names - since 1990.
- dfox 9y ago
  Also new car radios seem to use SDR for FM reception and simply downconvert whole FM band to 20MHz wide IF and sample that with ADC and then do all the FM demodulation in software. This causes the radio to simply known all stations that are available and have RDS metadata (on VW's radios pressing the scroll knob in the radio screen gets you menu of visible stations that is shown essentially instantly) and to be able to do such handoff without any scanning essentially instantly. The handoff is so fast that it gets very annoying when the transmitters involved have different delay (at least in Europe radio stations tend to compensate for this by introducing delays on their end so the whole network is synchronized) or when it happens in middle of advertisement (which are usually different for each transmitter). When either of these annoying effects happen you can hear that the radio is perfectly willing and capable of switching the transmitter several times per second.
wyldfire 9y ago
The NPR app was pretty good when I first used it (~2014? Whenever they started advertising it on-air). But lately it seems like it gets really messed up during playback: arbitrarily rewinding back to earlier point within the current show, e.g. When that happens, the cue/seek mechanism is totally useless and doesn't match the show's playback at all. It's rarely a problem for 3-4 minute news segments of ME, ATC, etc. It's totally unbearable for "Ask Me Another", "Wait, wait, don't tell me...", etc.

kazinator 9y ago

It occurs to me that a FM radio should be capable of automatically doing this hand-off, thanks to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System If a station signal goes weak, the radio could scan the FM stations for another station which is known to broadcast the same signal (according to, say, an internal cross-matching database, or some other means).

omnibrain 9y ago
My car radio (in Germany, german car) does this.
- dghughes 9y ago
  In Canada CBC Radio is the public broadcaster sort of a cross between the BBC and NPR. There are multiple stations from coast to coast and I think a person could hop from one to the other but it would have to be done manually not automatically. Quebec may be the wildcard but there may be a CBC English station there too, I think? I drove quite a bit when I was in my teens and 20s when I worked for a coin-op video game/grey area slot machines. You get tired listening to music even if you like it at first your favourite song ten times in a row is ugh. But interesting talk radio is better it's food for the mind. Now with satellite and the Internet it's different. It was such a subtle change I don't think it was noticed how radio died and was replaced by the Internet and satellite radio.
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
It certainly can, however OTA radio is very localized - to the city usually, by tradition - so it wouldn't make much sense to build such a network. NPR is probably the only radio network that could do a common band cross country, but even then, NPR just syndicates itself to other stations so it's not really in their interest to do so.
- kuschku 9y ago
  In the US, yes. In many other places you can get lots of channels that exist over entire countries, and actually support this kind of automated handover.
- freehunter 9y ago
  This is quickly changing. The Brew is the same everywhere, Nash FM is the same everywhere, and I'm pretty sure you can get Sixx Sense or Free Beer and Hot Wings in basically every market. Clear Channel/I Heart Radio is pushing hard to make every radio station the same across the country.
  - AndrewKemendo 9y ago
    Very interesting thanks. I haven't been involved in FM radio since 2008 so I've been a bit out of the loop.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    > I'm pretty sure you can get Sixx Sense or Free Beer and Hot Wings in basically every market I had never heard of any of those, so I decided to look them up. Sixx Sense, nearest station is in Sacramento. about 70 miles as the crow flies, and over some small mountains (large hills, really). Next closest station is ~110 miles in Modesto. They look to actually hit the central corridor fairly well, just not the coast. Free Beer and Hot Wings (ha, I first through this was two different stations), doesn't even have a station carrying them in CA.
- Brendinooo 9y ago
  There's a network called K-Love that broadcasts contemporary Christian music across the United States[1]. It's the same programming in every market, apart from the occasional regional flavor in advertising and/or pledge drives. I didn't search to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that federal regulations prevent fully syndicated radio stations across markets, but they don't apply to nonprofits. That's why you'll have an iHeartRadio Top 40 station in every metropolitan area but they all have their own talent. [1]: http://www.klove.com/music/radio-stations/radio-station-download/ http://www.klove.com/music/radio-stations/radio-station-down...
kalleboo 9y ago
That's how it works in Europe where RDS is widely deployed. Even for the regionalized channels where the programming may vary a little your radio will keep you in the network.
pawelk 9y ago
I live in Poland. Every car radio I have ever owned did this, and every station that is available on more than a single frequency (that I'm aware of) can be followed using RDS. I can also listen to a CD or other media [1] and let it scan for traffic news in the background, it switches to any station that currently airs traffic news. It held true on road trips to other European countries. [1] I rarely do this, for me listening to radio is an integral part of driving. Especially when I have commuted to/from work, I was able to tell if I'm running late based on what segment has been airing when driving past particular intersection or landmark.
mickronome 9y ago
Yeah RDS does that, and it can do a lot more with proper metadata. In Sweden it has been running with at least basic functions - traffic announcements, channel following, and station names - since 1990.
dfox 9y ago
Also new car radios seem to use SDR for FM reception and simply downconvert whole FM band to 20MHz wide IF and sample that with ADC and then do all the FM demodulation in software. This causes the radio to simply known all stations that are available and have RDS metadata (on VW's radios pressing the scroll knob in the radio screen gets you menu of visible stations that is shown essentially instantly) and to be able to do such handoff without any scanning essentially instantly. The handoff is so fast that it gets very annoying when the transmitters involved have different delay (at least in Europe radio stations tend to compensate for this by introducing delays on their end so the whole network is synchronized) or when it happens in middle of advertisement (which are usually different for each transmitter). When either of these annoying effects happen you can hear that the radio is perfectly willing and capable of switching the transmitter several times per second.

wyldfire 9y ago

The NPR app was pretty good when I first used it (~2014? Whenever they started advertising it on-air). But lately it seems like it gets really messed up during playback: arbitrarily rewinding back to earlier point within the current show, e.g. When that happens, the cue/seek mechanism is totally useless and doesn't match the show's playback at all. It's rarely a problem for 3-4 minute news segments of ME, ATC, etc. It's totally unbearable for "Ask Me Another", "Wait, wait, don't tell me...", etc.