Dumbed down consumer electronics: Adding DTV channels

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Personally, I stopped listening to broadcast FM a long time ago. Reasons: (I'll try to put these in order of importance)

1) On-air morning personalities who try waaay too hard to be funny and entertaining and bomb miserably. 2) See above 3) The switch to "urban" format. Which loosely translates to pure crap. I once attended a seminar at NAB-Radio in Philly, circa 2004, where I got to listen to Russell Simmons tell us "admit-it, you don't get it". You're right! I don't get it. I don't care to. It's complete crap. 4) The "Clear-Channelization" of America. Every station sounds the same, formatted the same, cookier-cutter, no local bands, no originality, etc...

Now, fast-forward a couple years and Apple introduces the iPod. Hallelujah! No more crap. I can download all I want and more, and listen to what I want, when I want. Including podcasts (which I love). No more need for OTA FM broadcast. At least, not for me personally.

My hope is that if the FCC adds some more spectrum to the band that FM might get back to what it was in the 70's. Maybe that's wishful thinking. Last I heard the FCC was proposing to grant allocations to AM owners so that they could better compete with their FM counterparts. I remain hopeful that ClearChannel, et. al, won't gobble up the band. Otherwise, what's the point?

-mpm

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Great, thanks.

It would need a 12V power supply (I have plenty of those) and a box, but in general, yes. However, I might have a better option -- there's a little-used component-style HD radio that I can probably lay my hands on too. (Sangean HDT-1X -- it has line-level RCA jack outputs as well as a digital optical SPDIF output, so you still need a stereo amplifier to drive your speakers...)

---Joel

I have a little book-shelf JVC to drive the speakers. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.

Check, check.

Check.

Yup. However, there is a refreshing ensemble of small locally owned stations. It's just that on a long drive you are constantly changing frequencies. And because FM radios have also been largely dumbed-down (no more dial knob) I often listen to AM while on the road. Find a nice station with Bluegrass or Mariachi, and off I go.

I carry a bunch of CDs, does the job. Sometimes the bible on CD.

But the radios in cars and homes won't be able to receive that spectrum. And no, we don't want another converter box.

They'll soon realize that the listenership is eroding, just like TV stations will (or do already?) after the DTV switch.

With syndication I also ask myself that. If you want to experience the epitome of syndication drive on a German autobahn at night and tune through the FM band. You'll quickly try to find AFN on the AM band, and not because of language issues.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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So if you change vehicles they make you pay again? Eeuw.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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In the US it wouldn't help. There is plenty of signal, it's just that the contents become garbled and unintelligible.

Here it is hard. The regular sat TV is all Pay-TV. Yeah, you can pour a massive foundation, anchor a 3m-dish and try to pick some special programming but I really don't want to go to that length.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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The Q45 has Sirius OEM.

I suppose you could carry around the Sirius plug-in from vehicle to vehicle, but it's be a nuisance.

Sunday was the most I've driven the truck in years... a total of two hours... over to Aaron's in San Tan Valley and back. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.

Panasonic CQ-C7103U...

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

We have a Stiletto 100

which is small enough that it's not too much of a nuisance.

Although with all the Internet radio stations available these days and all our CDs ripped, I'd have to admit it doesn't come into the house nearly as often as it did, e.g., five years ago.

---Joel

I listen to Fox, BBC, some local talk radio and numerous '50's and '60's rock-n-roll stations via the Roku. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.

$350? Yikes. That's more than 10 lunches for two at our favorite Japanese restaurant. With two huge glasses of Hefeweisen from tap.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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And that was before transmission issues ;)

Grant.

Whoops. Even more issues?

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Actually they were $150 when I bought it. It's $350 now because Sirius discontinued it yet it's still in pretty high demand. There was also a Stiletto SL10 which was the same thing minus the internal flash memory that allows it to double as an MP3 player; those were $99 back in the day.

The engineering on them isn't actualy all that impressive: They suffer from the dreaded lack of a good power-on-reset circuit that you've often mentioned -- if you pull the power and plug it back in too quickly, it'll just sit there dead :-(. They also run pretty toasty warm -- the first one I had died in under a year (and was exchanged for a new one under warranty) due to literally cooking itself, becoming less and less reliable over time. The battery cases are made of glued together plastic pieces which tends to pop apart a bit over time once the (Lithium Ion) battery expands a few millimeters with age.

But despite all those problems, as I say, they're still in demand since they were probably the 2nd best portable receiver Sirius made. The best one was the Stiletto 2 (the follow-up), and you'll notice that now that it's been discontinued as well, it goes for $500 new on Amazon:

-- ouch!

---Joel

Again? It's $13 (or $15, can't remember) per month. Additional radios are something like $6/mo up to six per account. Of course you buy the radio, too.

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

That looks pretty nice, although it's unforuntaely not the "style" I'm after: The SiriusConnect box there, literally is two separate "shells" and circuit boards that plug into each other -- the top (grey) half is a generic tuner module that all such SiriusConnect boxes use the same one of, and the bottom (silver) half contains the interface to go between the generic tuner module and the specific head unit you have. At some point Sirius decided to just split the box apart, letting you buy those two pieces individually, connecting them together with a mini-DIN cable -- this allows you to save the "investment" in the generic tuner module part... and that tuner can also be, e.g., one of the portable units like the Stiletto I have.

Thanks for going to the effort to take a picture. From checking around on eBay it looks like you can still get some reasonably good money for the thing!

---Joel

At least it doesn't squeal like our Rio stereo after a power outage. When we are home it's ok, you just power-cycle it. But when the dogs are home alone it can really annoy them.

The stereo is actually pretty good and we bought it when that mfg when out of the business. I just don't understand why they don't test this stuff more thoroughly, and then get some guys in who can do it right. They don't have to hire them.

Amazing. I never really understood the Sirius and XM market. Even back then the writing was on the wall that the web combined with 3G and 4G cell phone networks could eventually replace it. Ok, doesn't work out in the boonies but I think less and less people care about that. Nowadays everyone flies across those areas unless there is no other way.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

Maybe I'll just put it in the truck as originally planned... can't miss the most-popular news show of all time... "The O'Reilly Factor" :-)

KBAQ streams... Is there any performance differences between Media Player and MP3? I'll see if the Roku can get it... some pages work, some don't. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.

Ouch!

"Eventually" is still some time away -- even on I-5 there are still numerous where 3G/4G service is unavailable. Also keep in mind that 3G/4G provide no guaranteed bandwidth, so in other areas even though you effectively may have your Internet connection, the bandwidth and latency will be unacceptable for a good, solid audio stream.

Truckers will continue to be a good market for Sirius/XM -- they have to drive across those boonies, and even in areas with 3G/4G coverage, unless you have an unlimited data plan (and these are becoming harder and harder to obtain -- and more and more expensive when they are obtainable), it'll cost you rather a lot to use it.

People were thinking about satellite radio in the very late '80s and early '90s; it took then until the turn of the century to get the birds up and running (XM began broadcasting to the entire U.S. public on September 25th,

2001, and Sirius did so on July 1st, 2002. Together Sirius/XM now has more than 15 million subscribers (a lot better than HD radio, eh?), so even though I think you're correct that it'll slowly die due to 3G/4G, overall it's a concept that will likely end up having lasted at least a good 25-30 years, which certainly isn't half-bad.

---Joel