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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

I just bought an internet radio for my stereo (yes, I'm that old, I have a stereo). I was surprised to discover it also had a wire in the box that turned out to be an FM antenna. I thought with internet radio, who needs an FM tuner? (all the local stations have streaming URLs)

Turns out I actually like it. It's handy when the internet fails, or when you're nearing data caps, or just want to run it all day without interfering with download speeds, or you don't want the NSA to know you like disco music (Edit: oh.. crap!).

I suppose long term FM is dead, but meanwhile it has its uses.

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It's funny, I really like listening to a number of local stations for the variety of music I get introduced to; but somehow, the fact that there is a real person curating it makes me enjoy it. Listening to spotify, it doesn't do it for me. Something about having someone come on, make a little human conversation, that's part of the experience for me. Algorithms don't cut it.

It's strange to me to read a positive comment about terrestrial radio broadcast amid so many complaints about ad blocking on the web. I stopped listening to radio many years ago and now I have an irrational resentment when I hear car stereos blasting pointless, noisy ads at traffic stops. I always wonder what allows people to mentally tune them out rather than decreasing the volume until music resumes.

This is in no way pointed at you; just something that struck me while browsing comments.

Agreed. You don't realize how invasive radio and TV advertising is until you don't have it.

what's more, it's remarkably annoying, being subjected to adverts on someone else’s TV is absolutely infuriating.

To be honest, I haven't heard a radio ad or seen a TV ad in almost 4 years.

And I use radio daily, and watch some TV every now and then.

But I only listen to N-Joy (part of the German public broadcaster NDR).

Seriously, foundation-funded and tax-funded media are probably the best at the moment, considering how ad-ridden and biased the private media are becoming.

The only ads I see now are billboards, which leads to weird distortions in what products, cars, TV Shows, etc. I am aware of.

Maybe not for everyone, but my local Christian station doesn't have ads.

http://www.klove.com/music/radio-stations/radio-station-down...

Thanks, I'll try it

It really depends what country you're in. In the UK, by far the most-listened-to FM stations are from the BBC, which are of course ad-free.

Radio 1 (for younger people) and Radio 6 (for less-young people) are great places to listen to new music. And you can stream them over the web, for free, even if you're not British:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio

I'd probably use the FM radio in my phone more if it could receive BBC Radio 6Music but that channel is only available on DAB. I'm not aware of any phones with DAB radios.

Its a shame they don't have TV tuners, I as it's also a good way to get those radio channels.

DVB-T copes very badly with a moving receiver, unfortunately.

One came out in Australia recently - http://www.lg.com/au/smartphones/lg-LGK520K-stylus-dab-plus-.... I don't know if I'd bother as DAB only works for me in metro areas with really good signal.

When the BBC have such a wide range of music stations I can never comprehend why commercial radio is still a thing, and still so popular here. I'm probably not the target market though, since I also get irritated at the way all radio stations have about 15 minutes of music per hour, and the rest is filler from some smug DJ pretending to be your friend, and people calling in because they've got no one better to talk to about their deathly dull morning.

I think it's from commuting here in the US. A lot of people commuting here in Southern California are older driving junk cars with no features. But they always have FM radio.

"Older junk cars" almost always have a single- or double-DIN form for their radios, and aftermarket radios are available for ~$50, so it's not like they can't get other forms of audio.

Even if you only have to buy a plug-n-play harness and insert a coat hanger into a hole to get the old radio out DIYing something like that scares most people and a $50 radio install will probably cost $50 or more before the200% markup on the adapter harness the shop bought on Amazon for $5-$15. Just figuring out how to use typical automotive connectors is a major task for someone who's never done it.

It's a low priority for most people, costs more than you'd think if you don't DIY. OEM radios tend to have pretty good ergonomics anyway.

Most early 2000s and older stuff has a cassette deck anyway so a $3 adapter lets you plug in your phone.

> OEM radios tend to have pretty good ergonomics anyway.

I'm appalled at the UI for radios these days. Obviously feature overload has a lot to do with it; I wish someone would make opinionated car stereos like Apple does for other consumer tech. "You don't want this feature because the tradeoff is more complexity."

I'd rather have, "We know some of you want this feature so we spent considerable time giving it to you without the complexity."

That's obviously better but often not possible when taking into account the constraints of a single DIN.

If a single DIN radio has a pop-out screen, it isn't constrained any more than a double DIN, and if it doesn't have one, the amount of possible complexity is rather limited.

> ...the amount of possible complexity is rather limited

Relative to what a person can handle while driving, there's far more potential complexity, and as with nearly all things electronic, spec sheets/feature lists often trump common sense limitations.

A call center rents space where I work, by definition knowing their rate of pay, they're all poor. Their cars might have unrepaired crash damage, or mufflers held on my baling wire, but they have nice rims and nicer car stereos than my own.

Its a cheap extra luxury at the poor person level. Much like very expensive tennis shoes are a thing in their culture.

I can't speak for the UK market, but in the US, public radio is biased left. I'm biased right, so it annoys me, but I love the stuff that isn't political, like Click'n'Clack (did that come back or is it being rebroadcast?).

Commercial Radio has a non-government business benefactor, and so they cover what is of interest to them. Public Radio has government as it's benefactor, and so they cover their interests. Now it's not necessarily blatant, but whoever pays your bills, you have a self interest in seeing them in a positive light. If you are unable to do so, I'm sure you would move on to someone who you can see in a positive light. Bit of selection bias going on there, which is another slant maker.

I am fine with NPR, for example, having a bias to the left, but I wish they would stop pretending they didn't. Recognizing self bias is incredibly difficult, so it's not surprising when people don't see their own. This difficulty is as old as the bible (cf Matthew 7:3), and probably as old as thinking (I haven't read Plato or Aristotle but I would be surprised if they didn't talk about it.)

I have the same problem with Fox news, and really all the major news networks pretending to be unbiased, stating opinions as fact. I cut the cord a long time ago.

The more certain you are that you understand something, the less likely you are to examine it in depth. Do yourself a favor today, pick one of your beliefs, and take some time to examine why you believe it. Seek out some opposing positions, see if there is something to learn from them.

Do your best to find something other than "common sense" as the basis for believing what you believe.

There are no new episodes of Car Talk being recorded since the brothers both retired and one of them is dead.

That's sad. Now that you brought it up I think I remember hearing about one of the brothers dying. They were so much fun to listen to, really made me smile.

> This difficulty is as old as the bible (cf Matthew 7:3), and probably as old as thinking (I haven't read Plato or Aristotle but I would be surprised if they didn't talk about it.)

I like to imagine that some thinking took place before Plato.

What is stopping you?

Id say both fox and NPR are unbiased. Bias is pretty well defined by comparison to the audience, unless you're clakmjng theres some magical neutral, but theres no way to define such a thing!

so, fox's bias is the same as its audience, and NPR's with theirs, leaving no apparent bias for either of them.

There's constant talk about the BBC's bias, but looking at the numbers they get approximately the same number of complaints of bias to the left and right, which probably means they're doing a pretty good job of avoiding it.

Stuart Maconie's Freak and Freakier zones are top radio. You'd never get such a thing on commercial radio, and we almost lost it back in 2010.

I only listen to KQED/NPR on the radio and donate to them as well. Ad-free, and really high quality content. I actually look forward to a lot of their programs in the morning.

I like NPR, too, but you can't really call them ad-free unless you buy into their narrow definition of what constitutes an ad.

Not ad-free, but the ads are not intrusive.

Pledge week is still annoying of course.

Not to mention the decline of the vocal quality, too. God, those horrible vocal fries are pervasive now. (And no, it's not just the young or just the women.)

I quite like radio paradise. Curated (not much talking though) and ad-free. Supported by listener payments.

They have a beta test for their new web player: https://www8.radioparadise.com

Not the case (in the US) for all frequencies; 88.1 MHz - 90.9 MHz is reserved for noncommercial educational radio stations. (This is where you'll find NPR, college radio, etc.)

See here for more details: https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/how-to-apply#NCE

But as public funding has dried up, they increasingly insert "brought to you by ..." and/or pledge drives, which are nearly as annoying as conventional advertising (even though I understand they have little choice).

In nearly any decent city in the US, there are a few great college and/or community radio stations. It disappoints me that the wide of majority of HN has stayed unaware of their existence, or does not appreciate the greatness that a experimental, imperfect, human-curated radio station can achieve.

I listen to music on the radio. I have 5 stations I switch between on my commute, and usually at least one is playing music. As soon as it goes to talking, I quickly thumb through (using a steering wheel control) to a new station. I never hit ads (several stations do long periods of continuous songs during my commute hours too which makes it easier).

If someone comes out with AdBlocker 'plugin' for my in car radio, I am sold ... Cannot stand radio ads.

I listen to KEXP (Seattle) all the time, all sort of different music with no ads.

> somehow, the fact that there is a real person curating it makes me enjoy it.

I do this, too, especially when I'm up late at night for my work schedule. Since I'm up well after most channels in the US go to "Paid Programming," I like having international news channels as background noise so I pay for Sling TV. There's something nice, for me, knowing that someone else is awake at the same time.

On the other hand, I really love Spotify in my "more awake" moments. It's grand, especially on my bus commute to work, to have a huge cloud jukebox. But, in the quiet stillness of the dark at 1am, live TV or radio is soothing.

Doesn't the Apple Music radio, Beats 1 or what was it, have human-curated streams too?

It does. That's probably the single Apple Music feature that makes me use it over Spotify (although Spotify still has me as a customer too because of discover weekly). I don't know why but like the parent said, a bit of chit chat about the songs they're playing and short phone calls with artists before a track debut make it a much more enjoyable listening experience than putting on, for example, a Spotify radio station.

Yes, and full on shows. I've listened to Elton John's show a few times. Amazingly broad and eclectic music and more eye opening than I'd have expected - he seems to like a bit of everything.

"Elton John has another habit, a habit he has had since he was an adolescent. Every new-release day, he goes shopping for records. If in England, he does this on Mondays at an HMV in London. In the United States, it's on Tuesdays and usually at a Tower Records in Atlanta. He buys not just every new release but, if he thinks it will be a record he'll like, a copy for every house." http://www.eltonjohnitaly.com/theusual-articolo.html

Tower Records is long gone (in the US), but Elton John was interviewed for the Tower Records documentary "All Things Must Pass". He states that he probably purchased more records there than anybody else (forget the exact quote). Judging by his enthusiasm, I believe him.

There are some human-curated internet radios as well. I enjoy soma.fm.

>the fact that there is a real person curating it makes me enjoy it.

You're lucky, I suppose. Around here every radio station is owned by the same media conglomerate, so we have 4 or 5 stations all playing the same generic top 40 music (with a slight variance by genre). Outside of the CBC, terrestrial radio, for the most part, sucks.

Yeah, around here commercial radio means ClearChannel, which means it's run by robots.

Of course there is satellite radio, but it turns out that's all ClearChannel too so no improvement.

All of the locally owned/operated radio stations were bought out many years ago. It's just cheaper to have programming piped in from the corporate headquarters instead of hiring local DJs.

The only terrestrial radio I listen to now is NPR, and even they have some issues.

Yeah, I think I am. When I'm cooking some elaborate meal, I'll put on the jazz station. I don't enjoy every song, but I do like feeling that sense of connection to the guy in the booth several miles away. It's a sense of intimacy.

But I can also totally see how, if you really had nothing but 4 or 5 clearchannel stations, that radio would have nothing for you.

I do have a had time making my own playlists and the auto generated ones always seem to miss the mark. Going off to Google playlists now maybe someone else has already made the right ones. KIBM Watson radio DJ might be interesting.

> I suppose long term FM is dead, but meanwhile it has its uses.

If true, this is really unfortunate. I've written about this before, but FM is a really great technology, and in a lot of ways it's only suffering because of the content. The sound quality of digital "equivalents" (XM Radio, HD Radio, Internet Radio, etc.) doesn't even come close to a clear FM station.

Not to mention there are millions of vintage radios that still work perfectly today with this technology.

For being invented in 1933 it's pretty amazing.

HD Radio really grinds my gears. They hijacked the HD acronym for marketing: it stands for Hybrid Digital. As you mention the quality is not comparable when you have a strong analog FM signal.

On top of that the encoding is proprietary and one company holds the IP for the codecs. I can't believe the FCC allowed it to become a "standard".

It's only saving grace is that works alongside existing FM without much intrusion into the way FM already works.

As an aside, I got a free SiriusXM trial with my new car, and the sound quality is terrible compared to FM. I was honestly reminded of the MP3s I got from Kazaa and burned to a CD in 2003, you can hear the aggressive compression.

I have knowledge of the bitrate at which Sirius transmits, and while it varies by station, 32/kbs is (or was) typical.

It's why I dumped Sirius a while back. When it started, Sirius had really good quality. IIRC, I'd put it up there with CDs. As they added more and more, the quality just kept going down and down. Between the nosedive in quality and the increasing number of ads on non-music channels, I didn't see $12/month in value. IOW, satellite radio went through the exact same cycle as cable TV.

It seems like it really varies between channels, especially between talk and music but also within categories. I assume they allocate more bandwidth to the more popular/lucrative channels. I find the quality to be fine on the ones I listen to (e.g. SiriusXMU).

When using a phone, the FM receiver also uses considerably less battery than streaming mobile data.

> It's handy when the internet fails, or when you're nearing data caps, or just want to run it all day without interfering with download speeds

So basically it's useful if you have really shitty internet.

I suppose. There's a long chain of things that can go wrong with the intertoobs. My switch could die (it has), the router could die (it has) the cable modem could die (it has), the comcast street equipment on my block could fail (it has) trees could fall on the wires (happens regularly).

I haven't had an outage in years. I've never had a switch or any network equipment die on me either. We also bury our cables here (everything except the high-voltage power distribution network) so there is no risk of trees falling on wires.

Seriously, why would you run cables on poles, that seems super fragile to me.

Well, lucky you. For the rest of the world though, Internet isn't a thing to be taken for granted. Sure it works 99% of the time, but it's not like electricity which work 99.999999% of the time, and then you have workarounds like batteries and gas tanks and stuff.

And by "rest of the world" I don't mean third world countries or something. AFAIK Internet infrastructure in the US sucks hard compared to Europe, and here in Europe the reliability of the Internet is still not good enough feel like it's electricity.

Trees cut the lines here about 1 to 4 times a year. The longest outage was 10 days, the shortest was about 3 hours. Most everyone in my neighborhood eventually buys a generator.

The power company told me it costs $15,000 per span to bury the wires. They find it cheaper to send a repair crew out to rebuild the wires regularly.

> Trees cut the lines here about 1 to 4 times a year.

It's that bad ? Why don't they just bury the cables like we do here ? Maybe the initial costs are a bit higher but it can't be cheap to have to send someone out to fix the cables that often.

> Why don't they just bury the cables like we do here ?

In rural areas it's just not economically feasible to bury cables. Sure, some cables are buried and follow the roads between population centres, but they also need to cross fields, go up hills and span the wilderness to get to many places that would take many miles of detours of twisty roads and tracks.

For the power companies and telcos to bury cables where we live they'd need to rip everything up and start again, and even then there's a fairly good chance that some piece of agricultural equipment would rip the cable out of the ground. Burying stuff is hugely expensive.

> Sure it works 99% of the time, but it's not like electricity which work 99.999999% of the time

I can't speak for others, but it certainly is for me.

> and then you have workarounds like batteries and gas tanks and stuff.

And if it fails there is 4G and stuff, it may not be as fast as fiber but it's more than fast enough for basically anything but downloading large files.

To give you a little perspective from a rural part of the US:

I lose power at least one or two times a year. Normally due to a construction/farming accident, but sometimes it's due to a temporary overload. Most of the time the outage isn't more than an hour or so.

Last week when a slew of severe storms came through, I had no satellite TV (water absorbs the signal). Switched to Netflix. Netflix signal went out (I'm guessing there's a microwave link somewhere between my house and the phone company Central Office in the nearest town 10 miles away). Could have been worse: some people were without power for days.

We live on top of a hill and I lose my cell signal just walking across my living room. Would be even worse if we lived at the bottom of the hill. So much for 4G!

But yeah, I still prefer living out here to being back in the city :-)

I have AT&T and to be honest I would rather listen to NPR on the radio rather than streaming/using my data. My data rolls over. So wasting it on something I could get for free anyway doesn't seem fair.

I mostly listen at home so data usage is not an issue. Even on mobile I hardly use the data I get with my plan (5.5GB month and I barely use 500MB) so it doesn't really matter what I use it for.

There's a certain retardedness to streaming a live radio station over the internet when you have an actual radio available and are in the broadcast area of the station.

I'm still using an old stereo, the amps and speakers are still great. Although now I have a Raspberry Pi set up as an internet radio instead of a record deck.

I'm using a HiFiBerry DAC (https://www.hifiberry.com/dacplus) as the built-in analogue audio on the Pi is abysmal. Then MPD (https://www.musicpd.org) for the back-end and ympd (https://www.ympd.org) for a web UI.

Which box did you buy? I wish I could find one that does Internet streams and HD Radio that didn't cost a kidney...

The Grace Digital one. It works, although Apple has ruined me and the user interface on the box is worse than that on a microwave. There's a long list of complaints about it, but there isn't much alternative.

The category is wide open for someone to make one where, say, the remote actually works more than some of the time. :-( I don't know why this is such a hard problem.

Which microwave? I have a hard time imagining ways it could be improved over what I have. Put food in, twist a knob to set time, microwave starts.

You probably own an old microwave, lucky you. Newer models usually have a digital interface with have various buttons - that's probably the non-intuitive interface the OP is referring to.

It's almost brand new, bought it last year. Samsung. IIRC they had models with analog and digital knobs but both function the same way.

I only listen to french public FM (news, culture, politics ... Little to no ads) and I find the "native multiroom support" enjoyable compared to sonos, devialet, pi setups, pulseaudio, airplay, chromecast ...

All it requires is a handful of cheap FM receivers.

FM radio is the only reliable way to listen to broadcasts of local sports.

And in some places AM. I often listen to AM sports talk radio for light hearted entertainment, and when a commercial comes on switch over to a Bloomberg stream. If both are on a long commercial break (like the end/start of an hour), I switch to Google music and rarely switch back. Commercials lose me completely for the rest of my drive.

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