- cross-posted to:
- android@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- android@lemmy.world
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I hate this idea. FM channels have more advertisements than they have music. And there’s no technical way (yet) that I know of to automatically block said advertisements. Advertisements have driven the world into madness, as now anything that requires them to stay profitable either jams them into everything, or has a huge focus on rage-bait in order to get people to listen/watch/click. This rage-bait has made our world more angry, more divisive, and more chaotic than ever. Fuck advertisers.
It’s not like you have to use it. My phone has it, I’ve used it to listen to local football games while camping. Worked great. Some people like to have the option to use it though.
There are some channels that aren’t like this if you’re lucky enough to live in an area with something like NPR stations, college/highschool stations, or donation funded music radio.
I just built a website that makes it easy to find and stream community radio stations (which you refer to as ‘donation funded’) There are over 100 stations listed. Just choose from a drop-down and hit ‘play’. Looking for more beta testers https://AlternateAirwaves.com
Oh that’s awesome, thanks for doing that!
If you live near a University, tune in to the local student radio.
It’s usually run by the University without ads.
I rock out to WPTS radio in Pittsburgh and both WUOG and WPPP in Athens, GA.
I love our local university radio. They actually play jazz sometimes. It’s basically mindless pop, frozen in time 90s, or you can pick between new country and even newer country where I live.
Our local college has an alternative rock station that radio students come on air. Minimal ads with great music and personalities.
Imma just leave this here: https://www.campus-fm.com/
There is also WSOU in northern New Jersey. Seton Hall’s Pirate Radio.
The emergency channel has no ads…
I hate it when this hypothetical radio app downloads itself and turns itself on every time there’s a radio ad break!
What, you don’t like watching two 15 second ads before every youtube video, which has a minute+ dedicated time to talk about today’s sponsor?
Ublock Origin and SponsorBlock makes youtube bearable.
Forget all that. Just use LibreTube (with Piped API disabled) and FreeTube
I could use public radio.
That’s not all radios for sure. For example the Bulgarian Radio 1 seems to be almost exclusively music. Sometimes there are advertisement blocks that are long, but usually it’s just music. Then there may be local stuff like college radios (e.g.: KGRG) that won’t have as many advertisements, if any. In Slovakia there used to be Rádio Anténa Rock that was also mostly music as well, but they shut down as it wasn’t profitable. They are now owned by Bauermedia and operate as “Rádio Rock” with only 3 low-power FM transmitters which barely cover 2 cities. At least they’re in DAB+.
Anyway, there are some radios that do not have as many advertisements.
The reason they had FM in the past was because broadcasters lobbied for it to be a requirement.
There are gaming phones, phones with crazy cameras, and iPhones where the lack of features is a feature. What I wish to have is a phone with as many features and functionality as possible.
That includes (but not limited to): IR blaster Headphone jack MicroSD card slot FM Radio RGB Notification/Status LED
Rather than a slim phone with a glossy finish that will pick up scratches right away unless wrapped in a phone case, the outer cover of the phone should be rugged and replaceable. Like with old Nokia phones. I don’t care about few extra grams, or another millimeter of thickness. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
I was hopeful about the Fairphone at first, but they started removing features as well.
“You don’t need practical capabilities, you need to be an obedient consumer.”
—OEMs
When I changed in my iPhone 3g for an original Galaxy S, with barometer, I thought that by the iPhone/Galaxy 10 we would all be rocking tricorders. What kind of crazy sensors would they jam in by then? Zero. Here we are at generation 15 with no additional cool sensors.
FOUR cameras, however!
My guess is that eventually the back of the phone will be completely covered by cameras.
It’s intentional. They’d like to drop features to cut on design and manufacture costs, while taking out features most of the target audience doesn’t really care about. Some of these are just greedy. Phones used to rely on microSD expansion, but once you drop this option you could charge for additional space much more than what the equivalent microSD card would cost. You can also stop shipping phones with chargers because most people have them anyway. This is pure profit as the customer is paying the same price, but doesn’t get a charger.
As for other features, they probably dropped them because people just didn’t care enough.
It seems to be incredibly difficult to design a phone from scratch, and that’s why we only see a handful of manufacturers, with the small endeavors being able to make something that looks obsolete by the time it rolls out and even then it takes a few months to overcome all the bugs and glitches. Fairphone is the closest we’ve got, but it’s still far off and strays further with each generation.
I actually meant to reply to your comment but replied to the main thread by mistake, I had the same frustrations with modern phones losing features, and even fairphone dropping the 3.5mm jack was a wtf decision to me. See my comment on the ulephone 18t, it had virutally everything I wanted in a phone.
That includes (but not limited to): IR blaster Headphone jack MicroSD card slot FM Radio RGB Notification/Status LED
My Poco F2 Pro has all of those but microSD slot (none of my recent phones have had it, and I’m starting to miss it right now with 128 gb of base storage) and the IR blaster has saved my ass more than once!
I still have my LG v20 because of this. I’d love to upgrade but nothing that’s come out since even comes close.
I still have my V10 and v20. My v60 is better though. Definitely some trade-offs but I will argue that v60 is better
V60 was the best phone ever, represent!
Yea, I wasn’t ready to upgrade yet when the v60 came out. I guess I should have said “nothing I looked at to upgrade has come close” looking at it now though the non removable battery is a deal breaker.
Still have stacks of batteries for my V10 and v20. I thought it would be a deal-breaker too but it’s not as bad as I thought. The huge battery they put in the v60s really been lasting. I do admit I prefer to wirelessly charge slowly which possibly helps.
The v60 is the best phone ever.
All the features, very fast, 2 screens.
My v35 was on par and had the back fingerprint, but otherwise the v60 was the ultimate phone.
Non removable battery is a pretty big deal breaker IMO especially in an era where every subsequent phone is more and more stripped down.
No, the v60 was truly incredible, and the battery especially.
I upgraded to a zfold 3 and the battery life is garbage now.
But when the battery wears out you’re fucked if you can’t find an upgrade. I’m on my 3rd battery on my V20 because I can always just pick up a new one (or at least as long as someone makes them). I’m not saying the v60 wasn’t a nice phone. Just I don’t want one that’s lifespan is limited by the battery. That is a big deal to me.
Disappointed Moto Mods didn’t catch on. The obvious approach of “skinny phone with minimal features but you can slap whatever you like onto the back (radios, projectors, beefy batteries, gamepad, etc)” - just makes sense for me. I loved my old Moto Z.
I’ve been saying this for a while now. FM radios and such are invaluable in emergency situations.
There have been times in the past where I’ve lost power to my house. No internet, no electricity etc in the middle of an emergency weather situation. I had to rely on battery powered radios to learn about what the situation was elsewhere and how long we’d be stuck etc. There is basically no reason why this can’t be incorporated into phones, aside from the fact that phone makers would rather you use Apple Music etc. It should be legislated for I believe.
One reason is that every implementation I’ve ever tried relies on using the wired earphones as an aerial and Apple magically convinced everyone that having a 3.5mm port is somehow a bad thing.
Exactly. The real plea here is “bring back 3.5mm ports.” I’m afraid of the day my old phone dies because I have this fear that even cheap-ass phones are going to abandon 3.5mm headphones for cheap, unreliable, garbage bluetooth trash.
Just double-checked. My current smartphone that I partially picked for it’s 3.5mm socket does have built in FM radio that works great and only functions with earphones plugged in.
Just buy a $15 FM radio. Especially since you can’t charge your phone when you have no power, but a small radio takes AA batteries which can sit in a drawer for 10 years until you need them.
You’d think so but every device around my house that I “put batteries in it and forget it” when I need it I find the batteries have exploded and the device is ruined (regardless of the decade on the expiry-date label of the battery). So my plan now is to keep the device separate from the batteries like it’s a freaking handgun and make sure my phone is charged so I can use its light to make my way to the drawer where we keep the batteries.
Alkaline batteries are the crappy ones that leak. Get the more expensive lithium batteries, or go full on rechargeable ones, and you can leave them in without worrying about your device getting ruined.
Rechargeable batteries self-discharge and get damaged if left unplugged for too long, and explode if left plugged in. They are not ideal for something you want to pack away in an emergency kit.
Almost everything in an emergency kit expires. But many name brand alkaline and non rechargeable lithiums are now rated for ten years shelf life. In addition there are rechargeable eneloop branded batteries rated for slower discharge rate.
Yes, but there’s a difference between “expires” and “leaks all over the inside of my emergency radio”. And they don’t make it to half their stated lifespans once put into a flashlight and the flashlight goes into storage.
Im addition to being able to take AAs, my FM radio has a solar panel and a hand crank to recharge the included rechargeable battery, which can charge a phone in a pinch. Win all around!
one of those windy radios you crank for a bit would be better for emergencies
A weather radio is even more useful. It usually has FM as well, but getting National Weather Service alerts can be vital.
Yes… but… this becomes one of those things that everyone should buy to be prepared but few actually do or they forget.
I keep a little crank-chargeable radio in our emergency kit but most people don’t. If the cell networks go down (and they usually do in severe weather and most other big emergency situations) most people will lose all of their access to information.
You can make your battery phone last a lot when you are not using the display and disconnect from any networks. You can also have some powerbank around. Emergencies won’t necessarily find you in home or wherever your radio is stored in. You keep your phone with you most of the time, chances are, if an earthquake happens, for example, you’ll have your phone with you. Been there.
I wholeheartedly agree, but I don’t think there’s any saving it at this point. Car manufacturers are dropping it from new models and that’s the only actual AM/FM radio most people actually buy these days.
Same thing happened to the phone network. It used to actually be possible to call 911 when the power was out. The central stations all had battery banks and diesel generators. Unless the lines were cut, you had service.
I wanted to tag on to your post. I’ve been without power for weather stuff too a few times and one thing i learned was that my cheapie 40" TV would only pull 10-15watts with backlight all the way down. With a small battery bank you can go a good while on that and tune into your local station via OTA. It was very watchable especially given the only light around was my candle.
For a couple more watts you watch shows off your memory stick as well once the event is over and you are just waiting for the power lines to get fixed… my phone drained nearly as much but to be fair i left the radio enabled so it was hunting for a tower.
Just something to consider for your gear if you live near the coast or in Texas. Battery banks are pretty cheap.
I’m glad battery backup can keep the internet going for a long time but I also have data to use and never get close to making a dent in it. If service providers went down though I do have several radios around the house. I don’t go anywhere but I’d I did i would carry a little radio lol. That being said, I miss my smart phone and flip phone that had radio on it. I don’t care about headphone jacks but I definitely would love radio.
The components to make the phone able to decode FM radio take place. Which, in such small device, is valuable. If you really need FM radio for emergency situations, why not take a dedicated miniaturized FM radio receiver?
Not sure if this is still the case, but in the past the FM radio functionality essentially came “free” as part of either the SoC or modem. Since it used headphone wires as the antenna, the death of the headphone jack pretty much killed any purpose for including it.
FM radio was integrated in even smaller phones 20 years ago. And the tech to “decode the signal” is already present in today’s phones. FM are radio signals, just like NFC, Wifi, Bluetooth and cellular.
I’ve come to the realization that the phone I want is a Nokia 3310 “brick”.
- Infinite battery life
- compact size
- headphone jack
- indestructible
- no spyware
- no social media
- T9 texting
- no software updates
- Snake
- Brick Breaker
You can buy one right now.
You mean like a 20 year old one? Would it even work?
Yeah. It’d probably still have charge too.
I found one in the back of a drawer a few weeks ago, it turned on straight away. I didn’t have the right size SIM card to try and use it fully sadly.
Come the apocalypse there will just be cockroaches and old Nokias.
You cold dredge one up from the bottom of the ocean and it would still pick up a signal.
If a signal exists. Those blazing fast 2g towers ain’t super common nowadays
Don’t forget the twinkies!
Wasn’t it like 2g cellular?
Many operators around the word are ditching 3g but still keeping 2g.
It is main/backup connection in so many iot and older automation devices that it won’t be going away anytime soon.
And yes, both my 2110 and 3310 I alternate in my cars glove compartment can still call emergency services number without sim card.Even when they shut down 2G access it will probably just be commercial use but they’ll keep it for emergency service. It still has excellent coverage and the infrastructure is more trouble to remove than it’s worth.
I mean how many g’s are strictly necessary
I mean as many gs as the network still strictly supports…
In the US we recently shut off the 3g network so, at least 4.
Well it is a Nokia so…
The device itself is not the concern as much as the network connectivity
Depending on where they are in the world 2G networks might still be active. In Europe they’re still on for a few more years in most countries.
No. I don’t know of anywhere that a 2G network is still available to use. Some still operate it for emergency calls but that’s it.
You can deploy your own 2g base station with openbts and some cheap software-defined radio hardware. Don’t crank up the signal though so you won’t run afoul with the government agencies that regulate radio spectrum in your country.
It’s anybody’s guess but if the battery hasn’t crapped out it probably would.
I have a bunch of old Nokia’s whose batteries puffed up and I can’t use them anymore but I also have some that are still ok.
Oh and they’d have to also find the charger for it.
Everyone talks about how great Nokia bricks are, but you actually do have to be careful not to drop them or you might damage the floor.
T9, back when you could text and drive without ever taking your eyes off the road.
Oh you still can with Swype 🙂
You still can, and nowadays we even have a word for it: distracted driving.
Some of these I get, but I don’t get the T9 thing. T9 was so bad! It took ages to type many words. Today’s predictive keyboards are miles better.
Also, no software updates? Sure, every now and then there’s a shitty update, but most updates are great. New features and especially bug fixes are amazing. Used to be that if something had a bug, you just had to deal with it. There’s no guarantees it’ll be fixed today, but many companies do fix their bugs at least eventually. The ability to iteratively develop is huge for software quality. These days, unless you’re developing something that absolutely cannot fail (like a mars prober or radiation therapy machine), it’s widely agreed upon that iterative design is superior to “waterfall” design of trying to plan it out all ahead of time. Part of why is so you can get feedback continuously instead of only after you’ve committed to months of tech debt.
When T9 was all we had, we got real good at it.
No software updates mean they have to get it right the first time, which they always seemed to manage.
Dr Who vs Daleks. I think it’s krobot on linux.
Why? Have you heard radio? Every station is just a glorified shitty playlist that they cycle through a dozen times a day
Because if the cell networks fail, right now there’s no backup method to get crucial information to everyone’s hands.
Radio are an easy secondary, really long range mechanism to get information INTO disaster stricken areas when normal means of communications have failed.
Back home we had a local station, felt like a way of tuning into “the city.” Very few breaks outside of their pledge drives once/twice a year. Listening to the Jazz station here on short drives these days. Very few ads, and some pretty gnarly shit. College radio stations are also pretty easy to find and escape that ad insanity.
Don’t let radio and broadcast TV die quite yet, it’s still very viable, especially as we sort out net neutrality and failsafe systems in cases of emergency.
That’s what happens when we “removed regulations” and allowed Clear Channel (aka iHeartRadio) to buy up most every major station in the country.
However you can still do short range FM transmissions yourself, as a lot of people do with elaborate Christmas light displays, plus it’s useful in emergency situations.
plus it’s useful in emergency situations.
Yes, in case of emergency, tune to a Clear Channel station so they can tell you how the emergency is the fault if the Woke Left.
every major station in the country.
Which country?
Probably the US, since they just assume everyone would know they’re talking about the US.
And crazy levels of advertising to boot.
Emergencies that would normally sever other means of communications. Think natural disasters that interrupt internet access. Usually radio stations are the first to come back up, and priceless at times where information is key.
Where I am we’ve got the BBC local radio network and they’ve got some amazing local music shows for each region granted all is available via their now locked down sounds app
In Atlanta we have a pretty nice jazz station (WCLK). The station that NPR took over (Album 88) was a university station and they still play stuff in the evening I think. There can be good content but it is heavily reliant on where you live. Come to think of it, WCLK is a university station as well. So I guess you have to have universities around.
Maybe if you live somewhere with good radio stations… the radio is pretty much dead here. Nothing but Christian talk and static.
And ads… You forgot ads… Never ending ads…
I switched to satellite years ago (when there was two competing services) because I once had an hour long drive and didn’t hear anything but ads the whole way. I was fed up with it.
I now pretty much use Spotify because XM and Sirius merged, so now there’s only the one service, and they immediately cut features, introduced ads, and jacked up prices. So I cancelled.
You mean as soon as two competeting companies merged to create a monopoly it caused massive problems? Who could have guessed!
FTC had no problem with that, but Microsoft buying Activision possibly making Call of fuckin’ Duty an Xbox exclusive was something they got all in a huff about.
God damn jackasses. 🤦♂️
I bet when you canceled you got harassed for years after with weekly letters in the mail begging you to sign up. Every time I’ve bought a car I’ve had to deal with this same bullshit.
I canceled my satellite radio subscription in, oh, 2017 I think?
Yep, 3 years of harassment.
This is tangential to the conversation but have you heard of Radio Garden? You can listen to radio stations around the world. As for “good radio stations,” I’m partial to college radio stations like 90.7 FM in NYC. They have a lot of freedom with their playlists.
Yeah, but you use the Internet for things like that; not an actual FM radio.
I listen to those stations in my car or on my alarm clock at home. But I suggested Radio Garden in case you wanted to listen to stations not in your area. Do you have public radio or college radio available?
Would be great for an apocalypse
Careful now, that same kind of wishing gave us a plague, lol.
Then you’d need to include a headphone jack since the headphones acted as the antenna.
Good.
It’s funny how the few who’re totally sold on Bluetooth go “ugh, but then you’d need a headphone jack” as if it isn’t an upgrade for others which wouldn’t affect their ability to use Bluetooth at all.
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But what’s the problem with having an analog component?
Also, your last claim is weird, because the headphones will ultimately require an analog signal, so, it just changes the place where the conversion is made, either in the user device, or in a digital circuit inside the headphones, and the cable diatance is small enough for adding interference. Your better sound experience is probably due to manufacturers making better sound actuators, not due to the digital data transmission. Try some really cheap bt headphones, and you will see what bad quality is.
Not an expert on this but, but AFAIK having the analog component inside the device is exactly the problem, as all the components in there cause electrical interference that you can’t really shield against inside such a tiny device. It’s similar to how the built-in PC audio is often quite bad compared to even the cheapest external DAC.
Indeed, interference is the greatest enemy of analog signals. It’s not impossible to shield, though. Other parts are already shielded, but I can see how it could have become more challenging.
Btw, I thought it was more related to frequency than components size, but now I’m confused, I will look more into it when I have more time. Thanks for bringing this into the topic.
Not to mention it’s a form factor that requires a considerable amount of space. That for the majority of users is doing nothing but taking up that space for no reason. Every phone without a headphone jack is capable of getting a jack with a simple dongle. What I love are the people who have absolute no problem with a dangly cord around their neck but lose their shit if you have to connect a 1 inch piece of wire first. They act like it’s a bag phone you attach to your side. And as far as audio fidelity goes the DAC inside a cell phone is nearly always garbage and you’ll need your own DAC anyway which is easy to obtain when it can be powered by your phone.
Yup. What I’d actually like to see is a secondary USB-C port becoming much more common. USB-C is just much more universal and if both ports support charging it also helps device longevity since you can still charge if one breaks. My handheld emulation device has two and it’s been handy several times already.
I’m not an expert either, but the DAC on my Galaxy S10 sounds amazing. It’s just a question of whether manufacturers bother implementing it properly.
It doesn’t make it at all harder to waterproof the devices. Sony has been making them for a decade now (IP57 in 2013 on the Xperia Z), Samsung didn’t have any issues with the S10 line either. This is just a lie manufacturers tell you to sell bluetooth crap.
I see myself wanting to listen to music in situations where the data signal is bad more often than I want to use my phone underwater or something.
get radio.garden or another app
This requires an expensive (in my country) data plan and cell tower service.
Then get a $10 transistor radio instead of a cell phone
Digital headphones have better sound quality than analog headphones, too.
There’s no such thing as digital headphones.
I wonder if wired USB-C Headphones could work the same?
I’m going to chime in here to plug the ulefone power armor 18t I just got. I was pretty nervous to get a chinese phone as I’ve only had samsung and lg phones before, but this thing legit blows me away. Not only does it fully support every band that my carrier uses (rare even for phones made for the US market), but it has:
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Replaceable battery that lasts 3+ days between recharges
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Extremely rugged, IP69 waterproof and designed for underwater photography (physical shutter button and diving camera app)
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3.5mm jack, sd card slot, FM radio (with built in antenna - no headphones need to be plugged in), and an RGB notification led
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Dimensity 900 chipset that beats a lot of the snapdragon chips on the market.
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12 fucking GB of RAM… yes, 12…
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Wifi 6(ax)
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Wireless charging and reverse charging
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A fucking 60x magnification microscope? (Why???)
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A FLIR thermal camera (Just because, why the fuck not)
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Runs mostly bloat free stock android
All that for under $600 (on aliexpress)
The only thing it’s missing is an IR blaster, otherwise this is the best phone I’ve ever had, bar none. It is a chonky beast though, be warned.
This has really changed my view on Chinese electronics, especially at a time when phones for the western world are losing features and functionality all the time (including stuff from South Korean). Turns out capitalism isn’t that great for innovation!
As a former fan of ulefones:
They’re great as long as they work, but I already had two ulefones where something broke internally physically and the IR-blaster blasted non-stop, even after the phone was off. Never had other significant problems, tho.
Damn, this seems like exactly what I’ve been looking for… Shame I’m finding it a year late.
One last really important point you didn’t mention is how long do they serve security updates for?
Yeah I’m not looking for Chinese spyware on my phone’s from a company that will no longer exist in 3 months.
Removed by mod
Honestly this is amazing. If only it wasn’t so big…
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i remember old ipods could listen to the radio using the headphones as an antenna and i thought it was the coolest thing in the world. listening to a live feed like that is so much more…viscerally satisfying than just streaming a song or even listening to internet radio, where it could easily be just a computer. it’s nice knowing someone is actually creating a show for you in real time
Sadly 95% of the shows are just computers with a pre-loaded playlist. Still fun to know though that you are listening with a lot of other people together.
The shows don’t really exist anymore. At least not in my area. Well over a decade ago they were all replaced by playlists and commercials.
You could check out NTS Radio - so many shows from a very wide variety of genres, and they have an archive of every episode
Only a couple of the final pod nanos had built-in radio, the other iPods all required additional hardware to be plugged in. I found that the hard way with an iPod classic… Even my shitty flip phone had built-in radio with an earpiece connected lol.
Uh, no. It entirely depends on the station. My wife has radio stations in her car that sound almost 100% prerecorded and edited together - I can never tell if someone is actually talking now or if it’s just a snippet from a previous recording. However, if I listen to a very specific radio station from my home country, which I can only get via internet stream, it still feels like listening to the radio. The way of listening has nothing to do with it, it’s all in the station’s programming.
Why? ClearChannel has all but ruined it.
Remember, not everyone lives in the US.
There is a conspiracy with the iHeartRadio music festival.
How many people do you know who get hyped up to go see an amalgamation of 6-15 year old bands with no new music?
ClearChannel (and therefore iHeart) sells advertising enmasse so that messages and products can be pushed the largest groups. They hype up the music festival like its a great big deal, and then they give away tickets.
I genuinely wonder how many people paid for tickets vs. “won” tickets from one of the 9 different radio stations that cover their area.
I’ve had family win and go to the event. I don’t recall what they thought about the event or which bands were there… But the event definitely happened.
Oh it happens. But very few people buy tickets. They win them because iHeart Media packs the event with giveaway tickets. They spend months hyping up the event, and then say that the tickets sell out in minutes. It’s false hype and false demand.
Ah, got it. I misunderstood your comment a little bit. Makes you wonder what they gain from it at all then no?
They included that in their reply:
ClearChannel (and therefore iHeart) sells advertising enmasse so that messages and products can be pushed the largest groups. They hype up the music festival like its a great big deal, and then they give away tickets.
Basically, the bands and holding the event are cheap (the bands selected are not in high demand and thus cheap booking) in comparison with the profits of hosting a subliminal ad show with a (happily) captured audience.
Note that this is my interpretation of the other poster’s message I thought I’d chime in with, I have no first or even second hand knowledge on this topic.
You should listen to Pitchshifter’s Infotainment album here’s a link Infotainment
Wait, you guys don’t have FM radio on your phones?
Most scrappy overpriced phones doesn’t have mini jack so no antenna to get radio
For emergency purposes, mandate cell tower batteries with solar supplement.
And generators for bigger hubs.
Cellular internet is critical infrastructure now.
Same for ISPs. My internet wifi has battery backup, so as long as the ISP stays up we are good.
Cell towers nearby all went down during the last big power failure. I could hit one distant tower that still had power, but the signal was weak, and the tower was swamped. It could barely push data.
Next big earthquake will be a total shitshow if that’s not fixed.
I have battery backup for my modem and router as well. Also my doorbell has a battery (for installation without access to wiring). This means I can still get motion alerts while my power is out lol.
high end ones dont even have headphone jacks for starters
Google realized they aren’t good enough at software development to prevent their phones from randomly stopping audio playback when using headphones, so they removed the plug for them in hopes no one would notice.
That’s a weird claim. Do you have a source?
I think it’s a joke
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
My source is that I made it the fuck up
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
That’s not a big deal. There are many external DACs that work great. And there are many DACs built into phones with headphone jacks that are awful.
My old Motorola X4 used the headphone cable for its FM antenna. The radio didn’t work without it.
My current Moto G works the same way.
I can’t think of a phone I’ve owned that hasn’t done this, even as far back as my O2 Ice
Imagine if every American had a shortwave radio transmitter in their pocket. Endless September for hams
As a ham, ugh.
I dream of it being more common to have radios in everyone’s pocket, but it needs to be accompanied by some level of education on how to use it.
Maybe the price of the transceivers would go down, at least, lol. I have a general license and I just mess around with a Baofeng for the most part because I cannot justify buying a better radio. Tempted to get a QCX-mini or Pixie kit for a project… Unfortunately the like… $1000+ transceivers are just way out of budget for me, and I’m not sure I’d get enough use out of it to warrant the expense.
I hear you. I have a handful of HT’s, all are 2m/70cm, same as the baofeng’s… I have an alinco and an ailunce, plus two baofeng’s. I picked up a small 20W mobile unit for my car, around $100 or so, all told, plus an antenna. Maybe $150 for everything? A little less?
I’ve been looking at the software defined radios on Ali Express for HF stuff, all low power. I think less than 10W, but you can go global on 10W on the right band with the right conditions. They’re usually up for around $350 USD? They’re small too. Good for POTA. I think they can go from 6m up to 40m. Something from the big brands that can do that is usually in the 1200+ range. I think that’s similar to what you’re talking about. Someone local here that I’ve met has one and he’s been lighting up parks constantly with it.
I want to experiment with DMR more. My next project is to build a hot spot, since the closest DMR repeater tower is a bit too far to pick up. I can sometimes get it at the lakefront (it’s across Lake Ontario from me, in Toronto VE3WOO if I recall correctly), and I’m in the Niagara area.
I would like to get a DMR repeater in the area and I’ve been talking to a local club about it. So it may just be a matter of time. In any case I’m weird. I use FM a lot still since that’s what all the VHF and UHF stuff around here uses. There’s some fusion/dstar stuff but no DMR.
I’d imagine no phone would have transmission ability, or at most transmit like a Walkie talkie
There are some ham radio call phones that can transmit. They’re pretty specialized and not cheap, but they exist… around $1200 for what is essentially 3+ year old phone hardware (with software to match … Android 9-ish) with a built in transceiver… I like the idea, but I’m not paying that much for a very old phone because it happens to have a ham radio built in.
The current ideas with adding radios to phones is almost entirely to pick up broadcast radio, like am/FM. Nothing fancy.
ITT: people who have never heard of college radio stations
I’m people ITT. what’s a college radio station? I’m imagining the illegal setup Hal had in that Malcolm in the middle episode.
It’s a radio station at a college. They are usually public access and therefore, the content is free form.
I’d like to shout out community radio as well! Your town or city probably has one or you can stream them online. Local DJs playing whatever they want with no ads, just music. I volunteer for a couple and they’re really fun to be a part of.
There is no such thing in France. Only crap between lots of ads.
When I was at uni in the early 2000s in the UK our uni radio was internet only. I would assume that’s something that wouldn’t have gone backwards in the last 20 or so years.
