Tuner Delight?

Old_Tech said:
An engineer at work told me he read an article in Scientific American about the FCC and the airways. They were considering auctioning the TV airways off to the cell phone companies.
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Must have been an old article, as this is already done. So what does TV have to do with FM?

It's like comparing a bicycle to a gas guzzler V-8, and saying because there is a gas guzzler tax, bicycles are going to be extinct.

You can fit *100* FM stereo stations in the frequency space of *one* TV channel (well, 50 HD channels which are 400kHz wide instead of the old 200kHz channel).

With TV, they had huge bandwidth for analog TV, and huge bandwidth for HDTV going simultaneously for a long time. With the launch of HDTV many years ago, they had to double the frequency space for TV. This went on for a long time, as recessions delayed the acceptance of HDTV.

With TV, analog and digital HDTV *did not* share the same frequencies. Analog and digital FM DO share the same frequencies - so there is nothing to sell off or take away.

This is a very important thing to understand.

FM uses a minuscule small bandwidth that nobody cares about because it is so tiny. The FCC wanted to make some $ for the US government, so they set a date for the end of analog TV, extended many, many times. Yes, they auctioned off the analog TV BW for billions of $.

That's TV. It uses 50-100X more bandwidth than FM. The video, plus stereo audio takes a whopper of space compared to humble FM.

There is no similar scenario of selling frequencies in the cards for FM. So relax and enjoy, and stop worrying. FM is cool for a long time.
 
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I think the current new crop of DSP-based HD Radio tuners demonstrates that superior performance can be built for a fraction of the cost of analog equipment with its numerous stages of tuned circuits built from mostly discrete components. Technology has caught up with Old School gear and will very likely surpass it in the near future as far as audio quality is concerned, whether the broadcast technology remains analog or digital. I do hope the FM band won't be abandoned; I don't think it will for a couple of decades yet.

I'm hoping that Sony, Sangean, Onkyo, et al are working on even better-quality tuners. The XDR-F1HD seems to miss being truly high end by not that many dollars. It will be interesting to watch.
 
Damon Hill said:
I think the current new crop of DSP-based HD Radio tuners demonstrates that superior performance can be built for a fraction of the cost of analog equipment with its numerous stages of tuned circuits built from mostly discrete components. Technology has caught up with Old School gear and will very likely surpass it in the near future as far as audio quality is concerned, whether the broadcast technology remains analog or digital. I do hope the FM band won't be abandoned; I don't think it will for a couple of decades yet.

I'm hoping that Sony, Sangean, Onkyo, et al are working on even better-quality tuners. The XDR-F1HD seems to miss being truly high end by not that many dollars. It will be interesting to watch.
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We'll see. Old school gear is not the competition for current designs.

Car radio FM tuner design is where the most current technology resides. If one does a one on one comparison, it's not clear there is really any true advantage to say, the Sony, to another analog only radio.

The most current car radios are very minimal component designs with very good performance, and consuming less power than the Sony or other very digital processor intensive tuners. The little Sony pocket FM Stereo radios do great, basically have one internal chip, and run for 44 hours from a single AAA battery. And sound great.
If you are looking at it from a pure engineer and specs perspective, that's one view.

But many still prefer tube FM radio tuners.

I have 2 Sony HD tuners and never listen to them. With an external antenna, they really don't deliver that much more, if anything reception wise. The sound, and user interface though, is hard to prefer over say, a Pioneer TX-9500II.
 
Bob@FM said:
Whoooah pardner!

1) Not true
2) Not in the cards
3) Way different issues involved than TV.

SniP
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Think people are missing the biggest reason. Its been a few years since the last huge natural disaster and even longer since 9/11. In case of a true Homeland security issue or huge natural disaster how else can the authorities get the word out to just about everyone. And don't say twitter.
 
Ohighway said:
Posting a picture of that Sherwood without it's 6BR5 tube glowing borders on criminal.

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You're right, and that S-2000 has a NOS magic eye tube that lights up nice and bright... I'll rectify (hee-hee) that situation anon; thanks for pointing that out.

Punker X said:
Think people are missing the biggest reason. Its been a few years since the last huge natural disaster and even longer since 9/11. In case of a true Homeland security issue or huge natural disaster how else can the authorities get the word out to just about everyone. And don't say twitter.
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Short wave :-)
 
Bob@FM said:
Must have been an old article, as this is already done. So what does TV have to do with FM?

It's like comparing a bicycle to a gas guzzler V-8, and saying because there is a gas guzzler tax, bicycles are going to be extinct.

You can fit *200* FM stereo stations in the frequency space of *one* TV channel.

With TV, they had huge bandwidth for analog TV, and huge bandwidth for HDTV going simultaneously for a long time. With the launch of HDTV many years ago, they had to double the frequency space for TV. This went on for a long time, as recessions delayed the acceptance of HDTV.

With TV, analog and digital HDTV *did not* share the same frequencies. Analog and digital FM DO share the same frequencies - so there is nothing to sell off or take away.

This is a very important thing to understand.

FM uses a minuscule small bandwidth that nobody cares about because it is so tiny. The FCC wanted to make some $ for the US government, so they set a date for the end of analog TV, extended many, many times. Yes, they auctioned off the analog TV BW for billions of $.

That's TV. It uses 200X more bandwidth than FM. The video, plus stereo audio takes a whopper of space compared to humble FM.

There is no similar scenario of selling frequencies in the cards for FM. So relax and enjoy, and stop worrying. FM is cool for a long time.
Click to expand...

I think he was saying the Cell Phone comapanies would then be able to charge us for watching TV... just mentioning because of the concept and the likelihood it could happen. Sorry if I went off subject.
 
Punker X said:
Think people are missing the biggest reason. Its been a few years since the last huge natural disaster and even longer since 9/11. In case of a true Homeland security issue or huge natural disaster how else can the authorities get the word out to just about everyone. And don't say twitter.
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Facebook. You can become a fan of FEMA.






JUST KIDDING!!!

There should be a "sticky" thread about the future of FM, just to clarify the issue.
 
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