Campaign Demands Telecoms Unlock the FM Radio Found in Many Smartphones (www.cbc.ca) 340
An anonymous reader cites an article on CBC: Your smartphone may include an FM radio chip but, chances are, it doesn't work. Now, an online campaign has launched in Canada, putting pressure on telecoms and manufacturers to turn on the radio hidden in many cellphones. Titled, "free radio on my phone," the campaign says that most Android smartphones have a built-in FM receiver which doesn't require data or Wi-Fi to operate. The U.S. arm of the campaign believes iPhones also have a built-in radio chip but that it can't be activated. Apple wouldn't confirm this detail. The radio chip in many Android phones also lies dormant. But the campaign says it can easily be activated -- if telecom providers ask the manufacturers to do it. In Canada, however, most of the telecoms haven't made the move to get the radio turned on. They'd prefer that you stream your audio, depleting your phone's costly data plan, claims campaign organizer, Barry Rooke.
FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Informative)
Hello,
Public radio tends to be quite good. NPR in the states, France Info, Inter, culture (etc...) in france... and I assume similar chanels in other countries.
Cyrille
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Whats killing FM is the HORRIBLE noise that passes for music these days, including Perry, Gaga and all the rest of that trash. NPR definitely has the best music selections. Some say the news is biased for"public" radio, when there are plenty of other outlets that offer such biased news. Nevertheless as a Republican, I support it anyway for the classical music and folk music that commercial stations don't touch.
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget the laws that let multiple stations in the same market to all be bought up by the same one or two radio companies, squelching all variety and competition...
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Interesting)
One person's trash is another's feast. Most of the music on the radio is actually quite good, if you're a fan of music and not just a fan of one particular genre. Pop music, for all its commercial faults, is popular for a reason. People like it.
Sure, classical and folk are good, too. So is jazz, rock, EDM, noise (yeah, it's a genre), and just about every other style people have come up with.
I challenge you to listen to some EDM and compare it to your favorite classical pieces. While we have had 300+ years to study classical music to death, the overall structure of the music is pretty much the same as EDM: invent a theme/hook, make some variations on it, connect the variations together for dramatic effect, embellish it all using the underlying implied chordal structure by overusing arpeggios ;).
Folk and Pop basically have the same relationship. Both tend to have rigid rules around song structure (ABAB,ABCAB, etc), use simple chord changes (almost always some mix of I, IV, V in both genres), and have lyrics that resonate with the listener base. Interestingly, they're also controlled with an iron fist by the powers in the genres - just try developing a new folk song without approval of the keepers of the Great American Songbook. ;) (I play in a country/folk band, the powers-that-be are almost as annoying as those from the jazz world, where I've also spent a lot of time)
The meta point being: Across genres, music is more similar the different. I encourage you to go on a listening bender across your local FM stations and seed a few Pandora stations with random things.
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Somebody should point out that on every metric, from structure to final product the truth is that heavy metal is the most like classical music today. It would not be a stretch to call the best metal bands of today (notably the Slavic and German powermetal movements) the contemporary form of symphonic music, with heavy inspiration (and usage) of opera and operatic concepts (indeed, most European metal singers have classical opera training).
My all time favourite symphonic pieces is the 1812 overture and the 9
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You can stream NPR (and France Info, etc. it seems), so that's not a good response to the OP.
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can stream NPR (and France Info, etc. it seems), so that's not a good response to the OP.
Except streaming consumes data cap.
Matter of fact, all the local radio stations I listen to(being the traditional sort) in the car offer streaming - they tell us so. Public, College, Commercial, all of them.
Still, while I don't come close to using my cap, I think that it's not a bad idea because it should also save power - no need for transmitting for all those packets, just the FM signal.
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not state-run, public. Admittedly, it's got more and more commercials/sponsors now, but very little money actually comes from the feds. It's probably a misnomer to call it "public", but that's what it's known as. And since they lean quite liberal, it's sometimes antagonistic to the party in power - hardly a mouthpiece of the state.
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, NPR tries to be as neutral as they can while all voting Democrat. They make the effort. But public radio as a whole is liberal leaning (e.g. Harry Shearer's "Le Show", "Fresh Air", etc). It's all good - there certainly is no shortage of conservative radio.
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NPR finds a way to inject race into a lot of topics in their news coverage. They also spend an inordinate amount of time on black people's issues, a lesser amount of time on hispanic related issues, and asians simply don't exist.
While I enjoy Marketplace, most of these other programming has a liberal slant to it. Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" slants left, Michel Martin's old show "Tell Me More" slanted left, Dianne Rehm's "Dianne Rehm show" has civil discussions from all over the spectrum, but you can tell fro
Re: FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are we listening to the same NPR? They have a very strong liberal bias and tend to run one-sided segments.
Lately they've run stories in favor of illegal immigration with their arguments basically being an appeal to emotion. They've been all over the North Carolina "bathroom bill" and how awful and discriminatory it is despite it applying to everyone equally. They've attacked Trump as not fit for office whenever possible and suggested he's trying to incite violence while dismissing any violence caused by
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Re: FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Informative)
> because they weren't liberal enough.
They fired Juan Williams because he said he was scared of Muslims on airplanes. The only place a blanket statement like that won't get you fired is Fox News, because that's their business model.
In the meantime, All Things Considered has weekly segments with David Brooks (a conservative editorialist) and frequently engages conservative lawmakers in their stories. They had Darrell Issa on back when the USDOJ was trying to force Apple to break into the San Bernardino shooter's phone; last week they had a GOP congressman on to discuss why he was endorsing Donald Trump.
You can say a lot of things about NPR, but one thing you cannot say is that they actively try to prevent or otherwise diminish the presentation of non-liberal viewpoints. And frankly the only people who do actually believe that are better off going elsewhere anyway because it's obvious they don't distinguish between news and partisan cheerleading.
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A person's emotions are never wrong. It was despicable for NPR to fire Juan Williams for daring to be honest about how he felt.
Re: FM radio's last gasp? (Score:4, Insightful)
A person's emotions are never wrong. It was despicable for NPR to fire Juan Williams for daring to be honest about how he felt.
If he was working for me I'd fire him for being and idiot after saying that, pilot/mechanical failures claim more air-travellers lives. If he's afraid of the plane crashing due to muslims he's barking up the wrong tree and being a rude and offensive asshole about it in a very public way, perfectly firable offence in my book.
If a particular guy on a particular occasion was looking shifty who also happened to be muslim he could have just not mentioned at all the fact the guy happened to be muslim and just said he was afraid of that particular guy and got on a later flight, I could buy that as an emotional response.
But claiming he's afraid of every member of a major religion is not an emotional response, its prejudice. Which, let me be clear, I have no problem with aslong as he keeps it mostly to himself, declaring it as a reason for not getting on an aeroplane (whilst also working for a major radio station) makes him pretty stupid though, whether he intended to cause offence or not. Fired.
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you can keep repeating the propaganda spoon-fed to you by fox as well. Doesn't make it true.
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And I see the left once again has that complete lack of introspection.
If you want to see obvious propaganda from NPR on topics where it is easy to see they distort the facts
Check out their calling Brad Torgessen a white supremacist last year.
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Some of the most annoying call ins I've seen is when there's a debate over Palestine. Then you hear a bunch of people call up to complain that NPR is blatantly pro-Palestine, and a bunch of people calling in to complain that NPR is blatantly pro-Israel. The two sides are so diametrically opposed that any balanced coverage is seen as biased or a pack of lies.
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Oh just so you understand why that is an indictment
http://i.imgur.com/enUIiyp.png [imgur.com]
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Might want to re-read what I read, NPR use to be have integrity, but they started to broadcast editorial shows that concentrate on hit pieces and is not as highly impartial news services anymore. The Wall Street Journal is rated highest between liberals and conservatives above NPR, BBC is also higher then NPR on equal trust.
Main point, NPR is now using bias to sell programming and commercials. Thats not a troll comment, its just pointing out fact.
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Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
FM sucks. AM or nothing.
Actually, I tend to listen to more AM than FM when I listen to the radio because I prefer talk radio over music (granted, most of that sucks, even)...... So I'll just stick to the various podcasts I listen to.....better content and downloaded over wi-fi so I don't use up my data.
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:4, Informative)
Broadcast AM (@ ~1MHz) is somewhat tougher to receive without a considerably more substantial antenna as compared to broadcast FM (@ ~ 100 MHz.)
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:4, Funny)
So how are cars receiving AM without 160 meter long antennas?
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AM radio antenna systems (Score:5, Informative)
While the whip antenna on a car is short, it has a substantial ground plane to work against (the body of the car.) This increases the signal level developed between ground and the antenna input. Sometimes the actual antenna is not as short as you might initially think, either; look closely, and on many car antenna systems, you'll see a fine wire that spirals up the outside of the whip; that's the AM broadcast band antenna, not the whip itself. The whip is just used as a mechanical support when receiving AM. This approach provides significantly stronger signals to the radio.
In order to obtain signals of a similar strength in a portable radio, the usual approach is to wind a lot of wire around a ferrite core and make it resonate with the appropriate matching capacitance. With proper design, this can result in a highly effective narrow-band (just a few channels), tunable, directional antenna capability.
Antennas aside, most car radios don't have very good AM sections. Just as with home stereo and theater receivers, manufacturers tend to not treat AM seriously. Historically speaking, there have been exceptions. For instance, Sansui produced an AM / FM tuner that had a pretty good AM section in it; early tube receivers also typically tried to do a good job. A good AM band receiver has control over IF bandwidth, and in a truly modern design, this is done with a software defined radio, so that the bandwidth is precisely controllable and essentially devoid of roll-off.
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a feritt rod is more substaintial than a telescoping FM antenna?
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
a [ferrite] rod is more [substantial] than a telescoping FM antenna?
Yes. A lot of FM radios get away with using the earbuds as an antenna that telescopes all the way up from your pocket to your ears.
Ferrite effectiveness vs whips (Score:5, Informative)
At low frequencies, yes, it is.
It has to do with the wavelength of the signal, and the approach to the EM field. A ferrite antenna (actually a particular case of a loop antenna) couples to the magnetic field. A whip couples to the electric field. You can learn more about loop antennas and the differences from whip and dipole and other antennas via Google, if you're really interested.
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Indeed. There will never be a smart phone with an integral ferrite bar antenna. AM is a real throwback in terms of wavelength; 540–1610 kHz in the US. That's kilohertz; 5 orders of magnitude lower than most FM radio. Nothing really wrong with that except you can't detect it well without a long enough piece of wire, so AM radio and very small portable devices are fundamentally incompatible.
There is a good public safety argument to be made in support of FM radio reception. FM stations radiate a lot
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Interesting)
So far, though, those $20 dongles require quite a lot of additional CPU power to do WFM demodulation, which requires a minimum of 180 Khz bandwidth (in the US, WFM is allocated 200 KHz slots, within which 75% modulation is the legal maximum, which, using Carson's rule, results in about 180 KHz of bandwidth use.) They require even more to to analog television, which are (were) allocated six MHz per channel.
As the author of SdrDx [fyngyrz.com] I have reason to know. :)
I am sure, however, that the currently large CPU requirements could be gotten around with some additional specialized hardware.
However, there are obvious financial reasons why a carrier would prefer you use bandwidth to receive information. So I wouldn't hold my breath.
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They already have digital broadcasts on the FM band, piggybacked on the analog signal, called HD Radio. Best Buy has a portable that can recieve the HD Radio signals.HD Radio on the FM band has been more controversial due to the negative impact on long range DX reception of AM clear channel stations, something which can actually still be quite valuable.
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I meant to say on the AM band it has been controversial.
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HD Radio on the FM band has been more controversial due to the negative impact on long range DX reception of AM clear channel stations
That and the fact that iBiquity never published a complete spec for the audio codec used in the NRSC-5 receiver and transmitter.
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HDFM (Hybrid Digital FM, not what they want you to think it is) Is not getting any decent traction anywhere. The radios stations hate spending money so they usually dont upgrade the modulator to get the HDFM signal, and almost NO radios support receiving HDFM..
Broadcasthas been dying for years, I have not listened to FM for 10 years now, I grabbed Sirius and haven't looked back. And contrary to the poor people that whine about Sat radio and how nobody uses it... Last report was over 28,000,000 subscr
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How many of those are people who bought a new car in the last year and got 1 year of Sirius for free?
Comparing national and regional providers (Score:2)
Last report was over 28,000,000 subscribers with an average of two receivers (I personally have 4). Comcast has fewer customers.
That's because the big C's (Comcast, Cox, and Charter) have chosen to divide the cable market up among themselves by city. Sirius, on the other hand, has a single nationwide market. To compare them fairly, you have to add all C's.
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree - and there are tested historical facts to show my point.
At 9/11, the cell towers couldn't handle the load and basically cell
phones became useless as communication devices. And with no
data, no "FM" app would work either.
Now, an analogue FM radio won't allow you to phone home, but
with an emergency like that, you'd at least be able to get some
sort of news, maybe helpful information about the event. And it's
not like the chips in the phone are defective FM receivers, they
are intentionally disabled by iApple (and other like-manufacturers)
to force you to use an app to gain that functionality. Sadly, users
believe that the app is the FM receiver and they're not corrected
by the salesman.
I'd like to see this as an FCC mandate (that cell phones are required to
have a non-app working FM receiver) since it really is a public safety issue.
That's just common sense, IMHO.
CAP === 'invented'
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I'd like to see this as an FCC mandate (that cell phones are required to
have a non-app working FM receiver) since it really is a public safety issue.
That's just common sense, IMHO.
CAP === 'invented'
I know you're probably referring to a "fake FM app" when you say "non-app FM" but I think it's worth mentioning. It would obviously be hard to control the FM receiver without some sort of app. As the receiver is already there, I would love for the FM receiver to be opened up to third party app developers. It might even be possible to see innovation in this space. "Tivo for FM" would be an app I might actually pay for and use. Other creative uses could probably also be found.
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in a WCS FM radio could be used to tell folks to "If you are currently mobile please make your way to %local landmark% where Emergency Response Teams have setup shelters. Please pass this imformation on as you can Please BE Safe."
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FM in most of Europe is good.
FM is decent bandwidth.
FM is analogue, which means it degrades far more gracefully than digital.
Local FM is more likely to reach your receiver than a mobile signal.
FM doesn't get congested as the number of listeners goes up.
FM doesn't require me to pay for a data plan.
et fucking cetera.
FM is a great solution for local radio. It's the difference between me a) writing down a message on a piece of paper, photocopying it, and handing it out to everyone in the auditorium; and b) ensu
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Informative)
FM is decent bandwidth.
You are correct, FM does use a lot of bandwidth which could be used far more efficiently.
FM is analogue, which means it degrades far more gracefully than digital
Sure, if you're comparing it to a digital signal with no error correction. If you use vaguely modern error correcting codes (as in, developed in the last 50 years), then digital signals can correct all errors long after analogue signals are indistinguishable from white noise to a human. The reason that this idiotic myth persists is that the switch to digital radio and TV broadcasts came with a slight decrease in range as a result of a huge decrease in transmitter power.
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And that, ladies and gents, is why you need a good lawyer: they're great at making things up that sound so much like they should be true that, well, surely they are true?
IOW, parent sounds like sensible conjecture but is totally made up. Most digital rollouts have NOT been with a huge decrease in transmitter power, and a codec that actually handles the sort of signal distortion that occurs in the real world AND maintains FM quality stereo has not been deployed in most countries.
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Sure, if you're comparing it to a digital signal with no error correction. If you use vaguely modern error correcting codes (as in, developed in the last 50 years), then digital signals can correct all errors long after analogue signals are indistinguishable from white noise to a human.
They could in theory, but in practice they don't. Almost all of them consist of a codec and then error correction. If you can correct the error, it all decodes nice and is perfect. If you can't correct the error random bit flips in the codec turns everything to complete trash. This is what leads to the digital cliff [wikipedia.org] effect. Here's an actual example from Freeview in the UK [jimsaerials.co.uk], showing how you get something barely watchable even after the digital signal has given up with normalized signal strength.
Now for a stat
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some situation where the lobbying is an ugly business of two or more industries fighting over the right to screw the customer; but this seems like a case where, even if the free-our-phones side is largely a shill for broadcasters, it's still the shill acting in the interests of users.
Now, if they were pushing to make FM support legally mandatory (probably for some BS 'safety' reason) or playing the support-local-culture card to demand that the FM tuner app be given a suitably prominent and impossible-to-delete position in order to save Canadianness from the internet, or similar nonsense, that would be a serious problem; but if it just so happens that a nontrivially powerful industry pressure group also wants your phone's firmware to suck less? That sounds like a bonus.
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
They also play BBC content which is also great.
Then there are "community" radio stations that play all sorts of music and news programs that are great.
Perhaps you should pull your head out of the internet for a moment and take a look around at what else is out there.
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There is Public Radio(NPR) that have very few ads, and fantastic quality programming. Perhaps you should pull your head out of the internet for a moment and take a look around at what else is out there.
As a long time supporter of my local NPR station, who actually listens to it on an FM radio, I am well aware of what is out there. That has no bearing on whether or not the campaign is an attempt by FM to remain relevant in a changing marketplace.
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My apologies.
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I like to listen to NPR morning edition I also think that a lot of spanish speakers may want to listen to spanish language stations and not use up data.
The thing is if the chip is in the phone and can turned on easily then why not have the option?
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Guess what, friend? We can enable the FM receiver on your phone right now, without your permission -- and nobody is forcing you to use it at all. You can go on about your business as usual, using up your dataplan to listen to streaming services, or your own music, or whatever, and it won't change anything for you. On the other hand, people who'd like to use it on their own phone are then free to do so, and profit thereby. If I didn't know any better, I'd be tempted to think that in so many words you're saying 'Stop liking what I don't like!', but of course that would be silly, now wouldn't it? I'd also be tempted to wonder if you're a paid shill for the telecom companies or some other competing interest, but that would be rather silly, too, wouldn't it?
Fair points, it's when I hear somebody doing something "for me" and is part of an organization that stands to benefit by their doing it "for me" I tend to question their true motives.
Here's where we disagree. Just because a device has a capability doesn't mean the manufacture should make it available. They may not want the support headaches, they may be concerned that it would interfere with the proper operation of the device, or simply decide it's not a feature they want to provide. The consumer then votes with their wallet and decides if a device that has it is more valuable than one without it.
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Maybe but then again you can blow an awful lot of money letting a streaming service run 8-10 hours a day in the back ground while you are working and not necessarily listening intently.
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I wonder how much of this is actual consumer demand for listening to ads and the same songs every hour to avoid data overages vs. FM radio's last desperate gasp to remain relevant now that streaming is offering an alternative?
My Kyocera Hydro Vibe (Android) has an FM tuner and I use the free app NextRadio [nextradioapp.com] to listen to live radio, usually NPR, at work where streaming isn't available. My provider is Ting [ting.com] so I also don't want to burn data minutes by streaming. The app supports an ad-free basic mode, selecting stations by frequency and uses zilch data or an enhanced mode that displays album art for the current song/album playing on the local radio stations, station selection by tile and (reportedly) uses very little data. Small
Re:FM radio's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe it's sports fans that would like to listen to the game. In most cases, local sports teams broadcast their games on the radio, but block those games from being streamed without an expensive subscription, and in some cases provide no way at all to stream the games.
Terrestrial radio is about a lot more than top-40 music. Right here in my neck of the woods, there are classical stations, jazz stations, news, etc.
If I'm paying for an FM radio receiver, I'd like to be able to use that FM radio receiver.
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We got our kids iPod Touches after having iPod Nanos. For those who don't know, the iPod Nanos have a built-in FM radio; the iPod Touches don't. The kids like the iPod Touches for the web access, e-mail, messaging, and streaming services, but are very frustrated that they had to give up FM radio.
I'm curious to understand why FM radio isn't available in iPod Touches, iPhones, and other smart phones. Seems like it isn't a matter of real estate, if the chip is already there.
Built into Windows Phone (Score:2, Informative)
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Well one would also need to buy a Windows Phone so...
Kidding aside, the headphones are required as antenna for Android as well.
Tangentially on-topic (Score:2)
You should write your sig on the studio wall.
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They're removing their built in app, not support for the chip - you'll still be able to use 3rd party apps.
Android implementation is crap anyway (Score:2)
If only Android would let you send the audio to bluetooth. My bluetooth speaker doesn't have an audio in socket and I'm not buying another one. (And yes, I know you need the headphones to act as an antenna, but that shouldn't prevent sending the audio to bluetooth. You can send the audio to the phone's speaker, but not to bluetooth).
Apart from that, I've never seen a phone with an FM chip that wasn't activated but maybe its lower end phones.
Re:Android implementation is crap anyway (Score:4, Informative)
My ancient Moto-G phone has working FM radio - the reason it doesn't work with Bluetooth (well, sorta) is that FM radio's *need* a couple of feet of antenna - and the way the chip is set up is that it uses the headphone wire as the antenna. So if you don't plug in a physical set of wired headphones, it won't work.
The app I have tests that the headphone is plugged in and won't run without it.
Now, whether you can plug in a fake headphone wire and use BlueTooth for audio transmission - I don't know - it's not something I've tried.
-- Steve
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You can do this, after app updates. I had a 2013 Moto G, and you can listen to FM radio on Bluetooth, as long as you have a wired headphone plugged in.
I've tried with an audio cable without headphones, and it works; but perhaps because the connector is low-quality, the phone thinks I'm pressing the headphone remote button, which makes the radio randomly pause.
This is specific to Motorola, which seems to record the analogue radio output, and then sends it through Android's audio system as digital audio. The
FM enabled, or not (Score:3)
It can be a decision made by the carrier.
For instance, the Galaxy S7, definitely a higher end device, has FM receiver hardware. Sprint enabled it when the S7 was shipped; T-Mobile enabled it during an S7 system update; Verizon has not enabled it as of this posting.
And of course, I enjoy FM, and my S7 came from Verizon.
Nexus Devices (Score:3)
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Safety (Score:5, Interesting)
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To use the emergency alert system, your phone must be connected to the cellular network. That works great for things like tornado warnings or Amber alerts, etc. But two weeks into a disaster, when all the cell towers have been dead for well over a week, that gets a lot more difficult. And the emergency alert system is for short messages - i.e. "Tornado! Take cover!" or "Look for this license number...". They don't work well for long lists of water distribution locations and updated stock, instructions for leaving the area with bus schedules, etc. It is a lot easier to provide emergency power to one radio station operating independently than to a thousand cellular towers, which are all connected by fiber lines that will be severed when an earthquake hits. So for immediate duck and cover type warnings, the existing cellular system works great. For coordinating large-scale multiple-week disaster efforts, they fall apart quickly. That's why emergency response teams have phones and connected devices, but also have complete stand-alone systems like VHF radios.
While I agree a phone with FM would be great for an early warning, two weeks into a disaster the battery is likely long dead versus a pack of AA's and a cheap FM radio. As you point out, it's important to have an alternate reliable means of communication when land or cellular connections go down.
It's not just software (Score:5, Interesting)
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I was hoping to see a comment like this - I was going to add it.
Along with the device not having the correct wiring for the FM function, don't count on the FM part of the GPS/WLAN/BT/FM (GPS is normally a standard feature) on the chip to be fully tested/verified by the manufacturer.
When I was at RIM and were getting different products pitched to us, I asked about the FM functionality and was told by a TI FAE that FM was just there to round out the datasheet. The macro for the FM receiver functionality was
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Misleading campaign statements (Score:3, Interesting)
Not all phones have the FM Chips, but the campaign misleads us into thinking all phones have them, and the carriers just disabled them. I use a Nexus phone. There's no chip. My wife's LG does have a chip. According to the campaign website, Sprint already allows it, and T-Mobile has stated they will support.
If you purchase your phone and it is unlocked, the carrier is irrelevant. You can do what you want with it (provided it has the chip). If you bought a locked phone through a carrier, then you're at the whim of what they want to allow you to do with your device. Why is this news?
I may be missing something here, but I don't fully understand the emergency beacon type responses. Yes, of course I understand that the more options available for getting emergency information out the better. Of course that makes sense. But I get emergency beacons every once in a while on my phone today through either text or SMS (I've never investigated the mechanism). OK - now I've done 13 seconds of google-fu, and they apparently are not text messages and are specifically designed to not be bogged down during emergency periods with high congestion:
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/... [fcc.gov]
Are WEAs text messages?
No. Many providers have chosen to transmit WEAs using a technology that is separate and different from voice calls and SMS text messages. This technology ensures that emergency alerts will not get stuck in highly congested areas, which can happen with standard mobile voice and texting services.
So having FM radio for emergency broadcasts would be good. But we already have emergency broadcasts using our cell phones - even the ones like mine that do not have an FM chip. The argument for carriers to unlock because it's a security concern seems a bit like fearmongering. It might just work, and I would applaud if all carriers unlocked the chips so we can use them. But we did sign contracts with our carriers when we bought the phones, and they control what we can do, so I'm not sure what leg we have to stand on. Unless you paid full price and bought an unlocked phone.
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My Nexus 3 and Nexus 4 had FM and my friends Nexus 6 has FM after he cyangenmodded it.
Mobile DTV, Digital radio on smartphones with DVR (Score:2)
"Most" Android Smartphones (Score:2)
And yet of the 5 Android phones I've owned, none of them have FM chips...
Color me surprised... (Score:2)
I believe that all of the (not so many) cell phones I have bought since my first one, around 2003, have had FM radio capabilities. And it's always been one of the features I have most used. Except for the Nokia N95 I bought in 2008, my phones have always been at the cheap end of the category — I currently have a "Verykool" (yes, that's the brand) that costed under US$80, bought it because it's a dual-SIM, unlocked, decently-recent-Android, decent-camera phone.
Anyway, a FM chip is probably one of the c
hidden? (Score:2)
Unlikely to work (Score:2)
Unless these chips somehow share the antenna of the Bluetooth or 3G system -- which is unlikely as the wavelength is vastly different -- you would only pick up the strongest of signals.
I agree though that having a basic analog receiver in every phone could be very handy in emergencies and in rural areas where low power FM is normal and 3G/whatever isn't.
Plus I would just like to use it for music and news.
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Windows phones fwiw (Score:2)
Weather Radio? (Score:3)
It's not an FM chip (Score:2)
Now that I think about it, the circuitry probably has to be in both the baseband and the RF chip.
If you want it unlocked (Score:2)
Info on Verizon and Sony FM Chips (Score:5, Informative)
I was just told about this thread - so this may be old. But, I've done a lot of research into Verizon and the Sony Z3V, which has an FM chip.
TLDR: The chip is not disabled. The OS is altered to mute FM output.
I have three Sony Z3V phones. All three have an FM chip. I can check to ensure the FM chip works by using the Sony diagnostics tool. Dial *#*#7378523#*#* and you get a diagnostics menu. Select hardware tests and test the FM chip. If it was disabled, it wouldn't work. It does work. Just type in the frequency to tune to and you get radio. The problem is that this screen will timeout. When it does, the radio goes away. Also, there's no volume adjustment. It is at max volume only.
In the original OS distribution, Verizon simply didn't include an FM app with the phone. You could download one (such as Spirit FM) and listen to the radio. With the 5.1.1 update, the radio stopped working. But, there was a catch. If you used Sony's FM app - which you have to download from a "trusted source" and install as an untrusted third party app - it still worked. You could listen to the radio. Then, there was the second update to 5.1.1. Instead of "disabling" FM, Verizon went another route. They mute the FM audio. So, you can download just about any FM app. You can run it. You can tune it in. You can see that it has a signal. You can see the over-the-air identification text, which is usually the song being played. But, there is no audio.
Now, controversy: Verizon has quoted multiple times that it would cost up to $100/phone to "enable" the FM chip in the phones. The chip is enabled. They are spending effort in muting it. Verizon has also quoted multiple times that an FM tuner interferes with normal phone operations. Before the upgrade to 5.1.1, I listened to the radio on my phone all the time and never had any trouble with any other operations. In my opinion, Verizon simply wants you to use data to listen to music. They don't want you to listen to music for free.
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Try looking at unlocked phones. I have an Asus Zenfone 2 and a Moto G; each came with a radio app that works while headphones are plugged in (the cable is used as an antenna). I think there was also radio hardware in the Moto X I used previously, but it was crippled by AT&T.
That said, I've not had much use for the radio so far. If I'm in my car, it's easier to just use its radio. If I'm playing something on my phone, it's most likely a podcast
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My Motorola G2, bought in a BestBuy in the USA, unlocked, has an FM radio with an app.
My Asus Zenfone2 also has an FM radio chip, and you can buy this phone in the USA.
Cellphone =/= iPhone.
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download the .MP3s to your phone
Download? What is this, 2010?!
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Radio stations let you listen to a random sampling of music you probably don't own, without a subscription fee.
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just download the .MP3 s to your phone and listen to the selection of music that you want
Uncoil your back. Lift your head. Try to focus your eyes on something beyond your front paws, if you still can. There is a lot more going on in the world than just listening to recorded music. FYI.
AM is a no-go; antenna problems. They do news, talk and sports on FM too, just so you know.
CDMA2000 let VZW and Sprint restrict phones (Score:2)
Until LTE became widespread, subscribers had to buy from a provider because two of the major U.S. carriers (Verizon and Sprint) used CDMA2000, not GSM/UMTS. CDMA2000 allows a carrier to choose to either issue removable CSIM cards [wikipedia.org] or program the subscriber identity directly into the handset. The U.S. CDMA2000 carriers chose the latter and generally refused to activate any handset that they did not sell, ostensibly because no other phones supported the correct bands. Last time I checked, LTE-capable phones on
There used to be no discount for BYOD (Score:3)
Then why are phones more expensive if you buy them from a mobile network provider?
Until about 2013, buying a phone separately and using it on VZW, AT&T, or Sprint was hundreds of dollars more expensive because there was no discount for not taking a subsidized phone. The carrier would still add $20 or so per month to your bill even after the contract ended or even if you brought your own device. T-Mobile's "Un-carrier" ad campaign in 2013, which promoted the fact that T-Mobile itemizes the service and the installment payment for the phone separately, forced the other carriers to adopt