This is huge (Score: 1) by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-04-21 17:29 (#7H96) I'm probably one of the last shortwave fans out there. Not the only one, obviously, but we are certainly a dying breed. And I've lived the last decade in the poorer parts of Africa, where you'd think shortwave and similar would still be big hits. Nope. Not only is there precious little on the shortwave bands anymore (except for some Chinese and way too many evangelists) but even poor Africans aren't listening to it.What Africans ARE listening to is FM on their feature phones or smartphones. As a shortwave fan, this is hugely disappointing to me.I've been on the mailing list of the DRM group for ages now - unfortunate acronym, it actually stands for Digital Radio Mondiale and I wish they'd change it. And it's been really interesting to watch them progress. Dig Radio replaces your radio with what's basically a small computer that processes the digital signal at relatively low expense. This was unheard of a decade ago when all we had were Pentium IIs, but modern systems on a chip make it possible and not that expensive, either computationally or economically. Dig Radio promises the propogation qualities of shortwave with the audio quality of FM. That's really huge, when you think about it.By the way, I think this has implications for democratic promotion and the like. Despite jamming wars, it was possible at one time to beam a broadcast into a nation, where people could essentially listen to it without being tracked. TCP/IP as we all no know too well doesn't offer that same anonymity.Will this new tech get coopted by the likes of ClearChannel and their buddies? Maybe, but Dig Radio offers huge promise, I think. The BBC and some other stations are experimenting with it; this move by the Scandinavians is promising. Maybe teh USA will wise up and give it a try too (maybe not).At any rate, this is good news. Re: This is huge (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2015-04-23 01:24 (#7MDQ) I disagree completely, all they've done since 95 is to kill radio. The abilities of DAB and DAB+ are oversold and the receivers far too expensive and limited and the very few stations that were worth listening to have long since moved onto the net, outright died, or both. No surprise that the batshit religious loons, Christian and otherwise, and government propaganda known as news is still going strong. Working people listen to shit like Radio 1 not because it's any good but because it's less mental torture to listen to the latest pop song for the two hundredth time than to listen to any of the other shit, it's not because of traffic updates, people have no trouble figuring out on their own that there will be queues during rush hour or that otherwise it will be some accident holding everything up.There is no actual diversity of opinion or anything factual, only diversity of insanity and that includes Radio Nova for those who know what I'm talking about. I haven't paid one krone towards DAB/DAB+ and I'm not planning to, and since I don't have a TV I don't even have to pay the otherwise forced license fee which is about a hundred USD every half year. A lot of people have started doing the same which is why the socialists are aiming to make it a general tax instead. The label socialist includes social democrats since those bastards sing The Internationale at party rallies, the song of praise for international socialism and communism.Shortwave or software defined radio or ham radio sounds far more interesting than any of the modern proprietary/totalitarian crap.Anonymity? Yeah right not a chance.
Re: This is huge (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on 2015-04-23 01:24 (#7MDQ) I disagree completely, all they've done since 95 is to kill radio. The abilities of DAB and DAB+ are oversold and the receivers far too expensive and limited and the very few stations that were worth listening to have long since moved onto the net, outright died, or both. No surprise that the batshit religious loons, Christian and otherwise, and government propaganda known as news is still going strong. Working people listen to shit like Radio 1 not because it's any good but because it's less mental torture to listen to the latest pop song for the two hundredth time than to listen to any of the other shit, it's not because of traffic updates, people have no trouble figuring out on their own that there will be queues during rush hour or that otherwise it will be some accident holding everything up.There is no actual diversity of opinion or anything factual, only diversity of insanity and that includes Radio Nova for those who know what I'm talking about. I haven't paid one krone towards DAB/DAB+ and I'm not planning to, and since I don't have a TV I don't even have to pay the otherwise forced license fee which is about a hundred USD every half year. A lot of people have started doing the same which is why the socialists are aiming to make it a general tax instead. The label socialist includes social democrats since those bastards sing The Internationale at party rallies, the song of praise for international socialism and communism.Shortwave or software defined radio or ham radio sounds far more interesting than any of the modern proprietary/totalitarian crap.Anonymity? Yeah right not a chance.