No more analog FM in Norway?

[PRR]

> 200m radius would reach about 8 houses where I live.

2 houses here. Out in the woods.

My Wi-Fi has no security. Anybody close enough to use it, I'll know. Kin from the City are aghast at being Wi-Fi-ed without a struggle.

 

[nigel pearson]

It's a shame all wi-fi couldn't offer some access. I seldom lock my car or house. It makes me feel more secure not to. One day I will pay the price. The car is that they do less damage if unlocked. If they want it badly enough they will get in regardless. Our area is uniquely old world.

 

[jean-paul]

Hi I read this thread and I am surprised no one mentions DAB+ transmitters using 10% of the energy compared to FM transmitters (for the same coverage). I tested a few DAB+ tuners and while the system itself is way better than the old DAB system the content unfortunately is distributed with low bitrates which is a shame. I also find it to work good in cars and noticed quite a few affordable DAB+ upgrades. If you car has vendor lock in, well then that counts for all other electronics in your car. I noticed such a thing in a car of a friend. We needed to activate
/register a new car radio with the cars computer. No way that it would accept a third party car radio. I would not buy such a car

Nothing wrong with a universal DAB+ module with analog outputs to the AUX input of the car radio.... I guess we have to get used to the idea FM will be over in a few years whether we like it or not. I know it will happen and sold all my very good FM tuners. It won't come as a surprise that many DAB+ devices are developed by Norwegian companies.

Like often when newer technique is met with reluctance some misconceptions are born. Older receivers were power hungry but the newer generations are very power efficient. I have a few DAB+ tuners that only consume a few hundred mA at 5V. So to me this counts as a non item. I also read that DAB+ transmitters would be more expensive than FM transmitters. This is also not true. Maybe this is some nice info, it comes from a leading DAB+ transmitter manufacturer:

https://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=...949415&usg=AFQjCNHHcTtlLLiPxS5iW-g7wQ9CW0Z3iQ

 

[nigel pearson]

We had very good DAB when it was new. Then someone thought why not give us less. Ironically the spare TV freeview in the UK like Ch703 has the real version.

The main reason DAB is not liked is it isn't easy to get car radios working as well as they do on FM. All we ask is that this is put right. I drove through Germany 1000 kM one day from Austria to the North non stop except fuel and the same FM station ( RDS tuned , Sony top of the range ). Seemless FM and supurb sound. I have doubts this will ever be matched.

The old NICAM section of my old VHS recorder was better than DAB as it became. That's very sad. This would be BBC the proms compared. My old Sony ST2950 has great sound. My Quad FM3 copes better with bad signal. My Armstrong 600 beats them all. I have Kenwood KR750 also that might be best of all if it ever returns home from loan. Ch 703 BBC Radio 3 has moments when it's the best.

 

[MikeVou]

"Older receivers were power hungry but the newer generations are very power efficient." Is that really the case - with the current UK DAB system? I have a number of old FM receivers that, with moderate daily use, will run for months on a set of batteries. Although I haven't tried one of the more recent "eco-friendly" types (such as Roberts), I haven't found any DAB set that will give anything like that old FM battery life. Not surprising given the D to A processing that has to be done.

 

[nigel pearson]

My cheapest OK Nokia phone ( £20-30 model 206 ) has FM. It gets very close to my Quad FM3 on sound. I suspect Nokia's RF skills shining through. They didn't know how to make a bad one. I really have one criteria for a phone that it should fit in a Levi's mini pocket ( right hip). The modern stuff will not. I have an iPhone that I can't be bothered with. The Nokia camera is almost OK, as good as my Olympus of 12 years ago that stunned me at the time.

 

[DF96]

With the current state of the art, and near-future developments, it is virtually impossible for a DAB decoder to match the low current consumption of an FM IF strip and discriminator. As I understand it, the main issue is the 1536-point FFT which needs to be repeated many times a second just to extract the raw data. Then you need to throw away most of the data (relates to other stations on the same mux), do error correction processing, MP2 decoding and finally DAC. The comparison is few hundred mA vs. few mA.

 

[jean-paul]

I have owned fine FM tuners that had class A stages and were power hungry. None of my tuners consumed just a few mA. Maybe the RF part does but I prefer to count the total power that is used I guess it all depends. Anyway, I would not worry too much about the electricity bill when buying a DAB+ tuner. My 2016 DAB+ tuner I currently use has a 6V 500 mA adapter. It consumes way less but let's exxagerate. 6 x 0.5 = 3W. Wow.....

Now please check the type plate of your FM tuner and compare. It really is nitpicking and trying to find reasons to hate new stuff. Conservatism as found when observing the grey brigade in audio circles It was like this when switching from real to reel tape to audio cassettes, from LP to CD etc... The cheapest system wins anyhow. Always.

FM is to be extinct whether we like it or not. Now is the right time to sell your FM tuner or it will join the VCR in the closet.

 

[DF96]

Lots of people do their normal radio listening on portable sets powered by batteries with an integral antenna (typically a telescopic rod). DAB causes two problems for this:
1. short battery life
2. poor indoor reception
I can see no technological solution to either problem in the immediate future. Well, the latter might be helped by a massive rise in transmitter power but I can't see that happening. Band 3 just happens to sit in the frequency range which is too high for good building material penetration, but too low for good building material reflection. Band 2 FM penetrates better. Mobile phone signals bounce around inside buildings better. So for portable set use inside buildings they have chosen about the worst possible frequency range.

 

[jean-paul]

Normal people using mobile radios on batteries for normal listening inside homes ?!?! If normal people can calculate they would know that that cheap mobile radios cost a multiple after some years because of battery use.... Engineers invented table radios for that purpose. Second option would be to obtain a DAB+ radio with Li-Poly rechargeable battery. My advice to any person is to stay away from mobile stuff if one won't move the device i.e. the hype to buy laptops and use them as desktops. Broken battery within a year. if one insists there are radios out there that can be used with batteries or mains. Best of both worlds.

Think green: use mains fed devices !

Tested quite some antennas for indoor use and IMHO the Vega is very good. It has a 4 meter (!) long antenna cable and is available in black, silver and white. It is made from solid aluminium and looks like a quality device. The foot is magnetic for some strange purpose. Most furniture is made from wood, I think. Reception is way better than with a telescopic antenna rod or the famous wire antenna that is thrown in the box of most radios. It costs 15 Euro shipping included here so it is cheaper than most antennas.

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0...ativeASIN=B0049TM2E0&linkCode=as2&tag=kd0b-21\

http://www.ebay.de/itm/DVB-T-Antenn...ernseher-mit-Aluminiumkern-AVK25/230531284861

It is sold under several names but beware not to buy the active one. The passive one is better. I think they can be bought with F connector or Coax connector. The Vega branded one is with F connector and an adapter. I live in a problem area with regards to DAB+ but since I found this antenna I have no reception problems anymore.

Best/most practical DAB+ devices I have tested till now are the Onkyo 4030 and the Tiny M7+. Both have FM as well but it is digitised in the Tiny by means of an ADC which is not optimal.

 

[Fenalaar]

Mobile radios are very variable on their battery use. At the cabin, we used to have a 1960s Radionette Kurer Combi. Batteries lasted forever on it.

Then we had an early 80s cheap Sanyo kassette radio. Reception was never very good, and dropped to hopeless whenever the batteries got a bit worn

I lately got a Pioneer car stereo from a friend, that I hooked up to the solar panels. Works well, and doesn't need D-cells, but now useless for radio. It'll be cheaper, and better to buy a new car stereo than get all sorts of adaptors. I thought about a Tivoli Audio system, but they're way more expensive than a car radio. (Pioneer 1DIN system with DAB $130. A stationary Tivoli system $400 to $800).

I'd rather use the money I save on not buying the Tivoli system to DIY a pair of new speakers to replace the amost 50 year old Tandberg coaxes I'm using now

Johan-Kr

 

[PRR]

> It's a shame all wi-fi couldn't offer some access.

I am discovering that some newer Wi-Fi do.

We get cable-TV and Internet from Time Warner (no choice here). I got the basic ethernet, but my neighbor recently got a newer "box" with the Wi-Fi. There is a master account. He does not know the password. BUT there is a "guest" account. This seems to be on many new T-W Wi-Fi modems here. I found it in the eye-doctor's office, and got a TW screen saying I could have 1 hour free access. This explains why my fone was able to connect to my neighbor's WiFi, but lost the connection the next day.

Nothing about this in his notes or on their website. TW just gives-away your internet to total strangers, without your consent. OK, only 1 hour. But what if it is a spammer with a mega-stack of spams to send? Or some horny geek downloading amp-porn videos in violation of local law?

Yes, the spammer and porn-pounder can connect to my (self administered) Wi-Fi without permission. But unless they come in cameo and crouch in a bush, I will see, probably hear them.

We left town overnight and had to hunt for the house keys. I leave the car key on the dash, at home and at many local stops.

 

[gpauk]

BT do that here. By default, their routers are set to act as a BT Wifi hot spot. You can turn it off, but most folk don't even realise it's set that way.

 

[jean-paul]

Nothing about this in his notes or on their website. TW just gives-away your internet to total strangers, without your consent. OK, only 1 hour. But what if it is a spammer with a mega-stack of spams to send? Or some horny geek downloading amp-porn videos in violation of local law?

Yes, the spammer and porn-pounder can connect to my (self administered) Wi-Fi without permission. But unless they come in cameo and crouch in a bush, I will see, probably hear them.

Fear is a good means to total control. Please think the other way or try to. If all internet WiFi routers would be "open" like the real world then the concerns vanish. If we would think closing WiFi traffic is a solution please think of this when looking at your street. Everyone would need to find a new way to the main road as everyone blocks his small private path to his home. Just imagine how practical that would be.

Even if there is fear, a stranger can do non decent things but it will be his IP that has connected to your router. Not yours. If you don't have that content no one can blame you unless you do shady stuff on the web yourself Please test the free one hour connection and try to connect to porn sites. It can very well be that this is not possible as it is blocked !

Since it is wireless no one needs to crouch in a bush. Most of the times it are neighbours using your internet connection. Kids are hooked to their smart phones and they don't care whose connection it is as long a they can connect to the world. No real spammer or porn person will use a relatively slow private connection. Maybe a boy in your hood will use your connection to see some naked girls, the modern equivalent of "finding" porn magazines. Real spammers usually are located in data centres where they have good bandwidth and very high throughput. Or they go "upper ground" and start as a normal business and sell their formula to us by finding all possible ways to overflow us with advertisements and such. Call it a service and charge for it. I am sure you know where they can be found.

 

[Fenalaar]

Even if there is fear, a stranger can do non decent things but it will be his IP that has connected to your router. Not yours.

That is incorrect.

Anyone connecting to a normal WiFi router gets assigned a private IP adress by the router. Every IP behind the router is translated by the router and is shown on the receiving end as the same public IP.

If the connection is used for downloading highly illegal content, it is the owner of the router that will be the prime suspect for law enforcement, and the first person that will get his computer(s) and storage media ruffled through as well as a very uncomfortable visit to the station. Even if you have nothing illegal, you will be without a computer for days and months until they are satisfied you didn't do anything. Digital forensics are time consuming.

However, the chances of this isn't all that high. The likelihood of getting nastygrams from copyright trolls is much higher.

Secure your WiFi. If it isn't possible - get another internet provider.

Johan-Kr

 

[gpauk]

If we would think closing WiFi traffic is a solution please think of this when looking at your street. Everyone would need to find a new way to the main road as everyone blocks his small private path to his home.

This analogy doesn't work. Customers pay for a certain data allowance. If someone else uses that, then there is a loss to the customer. You do pay for access to your local road - you pay local government to maintain it. Now imagine that payment allowed you only a certain number of accesses per month, and then you find that someone, who has not paid, has used your allocation...

 

[jean-paul]

Wrong thinking when thinking of data as possession ....Your analogy also does not work as you will notice nothing when someone uses a small part of your bandwidth unlike people using your path to your house. The free part of the open WiFi will be limited in bandwidth. It is a service to anyone visiting that area wanting internet access. I noticed this in some European cities. No worry to log in, internet everywhere. No hassle. Really very good to be able to look up a street or a museum without added costs.

Internet providers and telco's do not like less customers, they like more paying customers. In your street you could easily use one high speed connection to cater for all your close neighbours hence the invented fear that someone might download porn or using the dark web. Just suppose every street would do this, it would mean way less money for the provider. Why on earth would we all need a separate connection while polluting the air with our private WiFi networks ? I know a small place here where internet access was to be paid by the people themselves as it was economically not interesting enough for a telco. They paid for a long distance transceiver combo and laid the cables themselves to every house in the community. So they use only one high speed connection on fair use basis.

In the Netherlands the city of Leiden where the "free WiFi movement" became so strong that you can find free internet in the whole city. Some years ago everyone was encouraged to open a portion of their bandwidth. Many volunteers joined and it was a success. After implementing safety measures, testing and checking misuse was close to nil. This was in 2003, in december 2016 a test was done for free internet offered by the municipality to avoid congestion of 3G/4G networks.

 

[gpauk]

It's the ISP and the Government that think of data as possession. Hence the charge per usage.
There are bandwidth limits for some embedded hotspot systems, but not all. There are many areas where bandwidth is barely enough for the primary customer.

Now, if we had decent infrastructure and unlimited data allowances it might well be a different matter.

 

[jean-paul]

That is incorrect.

Anyone connecting to a normal WiFi router gets assigned a private IP adress by the router. Every IP behind the router is translated by the router and is shown on the receiving end as the same public IP.

If the connection is used for downloading highly illegal content, it is the owner of the router that will be the prime suspect for law enforcement, and the first person that will get his computer(s) and storage media ruffled through as well as a very uncomfortable visit to the station. Even if you have nothing illegal, you will be without a computer for days and months until they are satisfied you didn't do anything. Digital forensics are time consuming.

However, the chances of this isn't all that high. The likelihood of getting nastygrams from copyright trolls is much higher.

Secure your WiFi. If it isn't possible - get another internet provider.

Johan-Kr

This is the standard story by providers. Yes, the IP will be the routers but the router logs which address it has given the unwelcome guest. As said, chances that it happens are small.

If we would open our connections and adjust bandwidth limited so downloading large data is impossible it would be good as everyone can connect to the web everywhere. It works like that in places here in Germany. Downloading illegal content is very dangerous here as fines are high. If one joins a free network a login screen follows where one has to agree NOT to do illegal stuff as responsibility is for you. I helped configuring a wireless extender network a few weeks ago as I wanted to know how things work and it was not too complicated. In that street we had several relatively cheap "mains plug type" 300N WiFi extenders that we configured to relay and with the same SSID. It was very nice to conclude we could access internet everywhere in that area and only have one SSID visible. So in fact networks were interconnected and became 1 larger 300N WiFi network with excellent accessibility and coverage. Just 1 SSID and 1 password known to the inhabitants.

It's the ISP and the Government that think of data as possession. Hence the charge per usage.
There are bandwidth limits for some embedded hotspot systems, but not all. There are many areas where bandwidth is barely enough for the primary customer.

Now, if we had decent infrastructure and unlimited data allowances it might well be a different matter.

The Netherlands has second best infrastructure in Europe. In relatively new city quarters gigabit connections to the homes are standard (glass). I recently was at a remote area where I reached download speeds of 4 megabyte a second (not megabits!). I live in a city in Germany where infrastructure is known to have slow internet but even here I have 1 megabyte/second. We can not complain. This was all done with tax money when the state still owned the network. Germany choose not to invest in excellent fibre networks (and open them to competitors) which is why they are behind but they are adapting fast.

It is in the interest of economy to pay for everything. Despite privatisation etc. i still pay the same money (more, actually) every month for telecom/internet compared to when it was state owned. I stopped using television long ago as I noticed I was paying for advertisements which I despise. Why would I pay to see programs that want me to buy stuff ?

 

[DF96]

Like often when newer technique is met with reluctance some misconceptions are born.

No reluctance here. When DAB first came out in the UK I bought a DAB tuner, expecting better sound than FM. I was disappointed. BBC Radio 3 was no better than FM, and all the rest were worse. Most of them will be even worse now, as bit rates have declined since the early days of DAB.

DAB+ gives an opportunity to put things right again, but in the UK it is very unlikely that the broadcasters will take advantage of it. They will simple use the better encoders as an excuse to drop bit rates again, and cram even more automated pop music stations onto a mux.

It really is nitpicking and trying to find reasons to hate new stuff. Conservatism as found when observing the grey brigade in audio circles

See above. I may be grey, but I welcome genuine innovation and progress. UK DAB is not progress. It could have been, but broadcasting in the UK is not driven by people who have any interest at all in sound quality.

Normal people using mobile radios on batteries for normal listening inside homes ?!?!

Yes. Some may use rechargeable batteries. The standard form factor for radios sold in the UK changed from 'table radio' to 'portable' sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Many of the portables could be operated from mains power too. There is now an attempt to woo them back to DAB table radios, but people have become used to not having to attach an external aerial. What does not seem to be generally known is that the original transmitter plans for DAB were based on people using a rooftop aerial for it, like TV. The powers that be did not seem to realise that people don't expect to have to do this for radio - as for the last 50 years they have not had to do this for AM and FM.