If you're stuck at home and bored, turn on a radio -- like this beautiful 1979 Magnavox R436 -- and discover what kind of free auditory entertainment and enlightenment it can provide... except if you're in Norway.
I saw a meme (from Twitter) where someone saying "We need a live podcast to give us live updates regarding what happening in the world now" and some guy replies to the tweet saying "Radio...you are thinking of Radio... "
Also "Have you ever thought if anyone is listening to the same song as you and is on the same lyrics as you?" And the answer was "Yes, I'm familiar with the concept of radio."
While radio has ads, it sure proves one thing - Ads don't need to track users or run dubious code to be effective. Your FM/AM radio can't get infected over the airwaves either.
"You can get music, not only on FM, but also on AM." I'm an AM disc jockey, and love every minute of it. There's still a few (and there's becoming more and more) stand-alone and independently owned AM station, and that provides a freedom that you just can't get with corporate radio. Some of us are even....are you sitting down?....actually live, and local. On the AM band you just may find something quite rare; do to not being corporate, some of us get to play whatever music we choose to play. Thanks for promoting radio. It's nice to know that maybe someone is still out there....lol
I have a show here in Houston on AM 950 (corporate). My dream is to syndicate to local home-grown stations. If you ever want some content I'd be happy to send you a nice clean backlog of over 150 episodes, most an even 39 minutes, 4 segments.
I love sitting outside in nice weather and just "trolling" The AM (MW) and even SW bands for random local (but distant from me) stuff! I know there are internet feeds for many (even smaller) stations, But that lacks the thrill and romance of picking up the actual signal 100s or 1000s of miles away! Even growing up in Pittsburgh, Some of my favorite rock stations in the 60's and '70s were AM stations from Canada.
I live in a falling-apart, depopulating city in central New York but the radio here is great: Three (3!) public/college/NPR-type FM stations playing, between them, classical music 24/7, jazz all night, 2 hours of "golden age" radio programs nightly, the usual assortment of "public radio" programming, etc. Three FM channels share between them all the Yankees games. Free. On radio -- baseball being the ideal radio sport. So yeah, if you're fortunate not to live in a dead zone of AM right-wing talk shows and religious programming, radio is still an astonishing value.
Right wing talk shows and religious radio have their place. Not everyone has easy access to a church in their area, especially if it's super rural. Also, someone somewhere has to balance out the hard left wing radio stations like NPR.
@@vhfgamer I'm not sure you know what hard left means lol. NPR isn't calling for an armed Marxist revolution. Think what you want but let's be accurate.
@@Austin-gj7zj Heh that's funny. You realize that Karl Marx was the father of communism, which is the very thing the left is pushing. Oh they call it socialism, as if that's somehow better. It's just Diet Communism. And one might argue that the "summer of love" burning and rioting was just that, an armed marxist uprising. One that was promoted by certain politicians on the left.
@@vhfgamer Whatever happened to just skipping over the 1130s/1280s/1570s (our local conservative stations) of the World? If that's not the content you're after - just like ppl can skip over NPR News and former Air America stations if they aren't looking for that? PPL just LOOKIN' to be offended.
@@rasoirwolf It's less an issue of simply skipping over it, and more an issue when the whole entire band is plugged up with nothing but one or the other... thus denying people the option of choosing.
I found an old Panasonic radio that looks kind of like that but has no clock. It has wood grain and was made in Japan. It was in the dumpster. The only thing wrong with it was someone cut the power cord. It is in fantastic condition & sounds great! You can't beat those old radios from the 70s with the wood grain!
I'm always shocked when I go to someones house and they don't own a radio. I'm almost 40 and I have lived on my own since I was 25 and I've always had a radio-mini Hi-Fi component stereo in my kitchen. In fact I NEVER turn it off! Not even at night! On the rare occasion if the power goes out briefly and I come home and the radio is off I immediately turn it back on. When my sister finally moved out on her own the first thing I did was went to the Sally-Ann and bought her a Sony ghettoblaster from the mid 90s...and she never turns her's off either. The radio keeps you in the loop as to what is going on in the community and even with the internet and all the other new tech I personally would feel disconnected from world without my stereo in the kitchen. I also have a Panasonic ghettoblaster that I got for Christmas in 1994 that I keep in the bathroom to have the radio on while I'm showering and getting ready.
I'm 51 and I grew up with radio. I was born in Southern California and can remember distinctly driving past the KSON radio tower the moment my mother heard that Elvis was dead. She started to cry. Back then it was Dolly Parton, Crystal Gayle and the good, old country. I remember cruising Sepulveda Blvd with my uncle listening to Ricky Don't Lose That Number and cruising along in an old Impala. I remember sitting under a blanket listening to Key Largo by Bertie Higgins during a hurricane warning when we lived in Hawaii. The radio was a constant companion through about 100K of technician traveling miles. Radio has been as soothing as a cigarette and as infuriating as government pork spending. What a glorious medium.
I bought a crystal am radio kit, and me and my son put it together, he is 14, and he was blown away that it didn't even require power of any kind to operate.
I always worked in maintenance, and every maintenance workshop has a radio receiver. It´s like a requirement, no radio, no workshop. It´s the most reliable way to feel that you´re not alone. It feels like you are hearing something that actually is alive, something that is happening in real time, It´s like hearing a piece of a distant reality. Sometimes a miracle happens: One of your favorites songs comes on the air. When that happen, it makes you feel happy because someone, somewhere, is listening exactly the same song, in the same radio station. And then, you sing along with a smile on your face.
If you find this amazing, picking up TV channels for free without cable, satellite or an Internet connection just hook up a metal stick called an antenna will absolutely blow your mind!
@@jesusgavemeaids I just checked (via a re-scan) and I get 58 ATSC (digital) OTA stations, Not all are HD (then too, the SD channels play older SD TV programs anyhow). But Yeah 58 channels with a non amplified $8 G.E. "rabbit ears" in Lil'ol Pittsburgh,PA EDIT ALL of the Broadcast network channels (ABC,CBS,NBC,FOX, Etc) are all HD.
I have an antenna and a Roku. The ONLY "paid" subscription I have is Prime (But I have Prime for the free shipping,not the TV!) I get all the TV I could ever use with OTA and just the FREE content on the Roku! (Including RU-vid on the 50"!) I own my music and movies on Mp3 and DVD/BluRays. I Don't pay for Radio, I don't pay for TV. What has been missed in the past few years is that there is MORE free Television now than in the "good old days". Pittsburgh alone went from 7 OTA channels to over 50 OTA channels since ATSC digital TV took over from NTSC analog.
I put up a roof antenna at work and ran the co-ax cable down 5 floors through a pipe chase to our shop for the radio (which we’ve all been enjoying for years). The other day a contractor was ripping stuff out of the pipe chase and I had to warn him not to rip out the antenna wire. He looked kind of confused and said “what’s the matter, doesn’t the shop have WIFI?” It occurred to me, this guy has probably never had a radio in his whole life!
Wow that’s nice, this really goes to show how technology unfortunately is making people forget about radio, weather it be AM/FM/SW or even amateur radio, I’m 19 and just got my technician license, got it for 10 years and I’m afraid it’ll be phased out before the license even expires
They'll keep broadcasting OTA so long as there are listeners - the Internet Streams and Apps like iHeart do help keep the stations alive I think and thus their OTA signal alive. Unless it's NPR or the CBC, it's all about money - if they make most of their money from the stream, they'll still keep the OTA signal online.
I have my radio on my kitchen counter......when i go to bed.....listhening too this .....is comfort.it keeps me up too date.....its a companion.....may radio live forever....such a wonderful classic.bravo too all disc jockeys keeping this alive......rick.
I have a similar radio. It is a Zenith (my brother worked for a Zenith dealership and he got it wholesale). It was a Christmas present for my graduate school room in 1981. Real walnut, a six inch speaker, separate controls for the treble and bass, a tuning meter and a "bass booster" (i.e. a hole in the back) and slider controls. Even though it's not stereo, it sounds amazing.
Radio is just amazing and no matter what feature it got it was always compatible with all other older radios. FM Stereo got added. Still 100% backwards compatible. RDS was added. It was still 100% backwards compatible. Pilottone recognition for Traffic information was added. It was still 100% backwards compatible. Now look at digital radio. DAB was introduced… DAB+ was introduced… it was NOT backwards compatible. DVB-T for digital TV was just the same… Analog Radio technology was built to last and it just works amazingly. Even if you have a bad reception you can still hear something in the noise. With digital that's not possible. As soon as some bits of the digital stream are missing, you hear nothing or nasty glitches.
HD Radio makes more sense than DAB to me, it's still on the FM sidebands, and the HD1 Channel at least is backwards compatible with the analog, if you lose the HD signal, it just fades into the analog one but HD2 and HD3 streams are more like DAB, they'll dropout and glitchand have no backwards compatibility. HD on AM is similar, it can fade back into the analoge AM station, but it messes with adjacent channels quite a bit, still backwards compatible. Our ATSC is the same way for TV, but I don't experience it much being 12 miles from the major transmitters, even indoor antennas work.
There are over 15,000 analog AM (MW) and FM radio stations in the U.S. So at least as far as the "States" go, I don't think radio is going away any time soon.
I don't think so either, because the vast majority of us did not buy into the whole HD radio crap with the overpriced receivers, and limited number of HD radio stations.
@@CommodoreFan64 I have an "HD" radio. To me it's an add-on to "real" radio. I use it for some of the AM stations that simulcast on HD when I can't get the AM transmission (like at work, where there is too much interference for ANY AM reception. ) By now HD radios SHOULD be a lot cheaper than they are. It's not really promoted all that much, So it could go the way of Stereo AM from the late 1980's. Regular AM and FM though, marches on! During this whole Coronavirus outbreak, 80% of my news is STILL coming from.....Regular AM radio!
@@jamesslick4790 I'm using alocal AM station that has an FM simulcast, as well as being able to be streamed on Tunein over the internet, I'm also using alternative media like BitChute, Infowars, independant RU-vidrs who don't care if they get demonetized for going against the MSM, some local news because of my work, etc..
@@CommodoreFan64 A couple of AM stations that I listen to have FM simulcasts, But (ironically?) They are WORSE for signal and sound quality VS the actual AM signals!,LOL. PS: Speaking of alternative media, Although it's not as "big" as it was, Shortwave can still yield some unique programming.
@@jamesslick4790 Speaking of SW I have a Rolton T50 Portable World Band Speaker I found at GoodWill for $5 in the box that does FM/AM/SW & Mp3 via the Micro SD card slot, plus it has a little LED flashlight(good in a pinch but that's it), and is rechargeable via Micro USB, but it's SW reception is far from great, but I've picked up a few religious stations, it's best pick up is local FM by a long shot. So it stays charged up, and ready during the spring, summer, and falls months as here in my neck of the southeast we can get some crazy Thunderstorms, Tornados, and Tropical Storms/Hurricanes, so it saves me from running down the battery in Moto G7 phone using it's built in FM tuner.
I was telling a young person (Gen Z) about my concept for a music/news/entertainment audio streaming service covering most genres, that would require no credit check, sign-up or log ins (Privacy! Yay), Did NOT need WiFi or Cellular service and would be FREE (Mostly Ad supported). They thought this was a revolutionary concept! Ironically this person was also from Pittsburgh,PA Home of KDKA radio, who is celebrating 100 years of doing this exact concept. Wait till they find out that you can "stream" HD video content for free the same way!
Yeah but they were probably thinking about a service where you could choose what to listen to I think most people are familiar with the concept of radio
@@cystonks5374 Could Be, But I specifed NO LOG INS or SIgn UPs. That would preclude any hope of individual control (how would the stream "know" to whom to send the content? (although in THEORY a radio station's "request line" iS a form of -placebo!- control, lol.) Plus there would be no internet or other "network" connection, therefore pretty much a 1 way stream of "data". Plus don't think that people ALL are familiar with the fact that Radio is STILL a "thing". There are people who don't realize that FREE OTA Television still exists!
DAB is total trash in most circumstances, all the breakup hell of digital tv combined with low bitrate mono audio, yeah I feel bad for fm radio owners there.
It's so weird how in the US the AM band is still used regularly for commercial radio broadcasting, whereas here in Finland and most other Nordic and European countries AM was abandoned during the 90s.
I am from Norway and shutting down FM is one of the most stupidest things Norway has ever done. DAB which we use now, is a old dying technology that actually in many ways are worse than FM. One is that the sound quality is lower than on FM.
Your government was cheated into implementing the DAB switchover by WorldDAB, a profit orientated organisation which has, for years, been feeding the public with false information about the merits of their obsolete technology. The Swedish government has published a very sobering pamphlet regarding the results of their own, independant survey on DAB. public-service.net/docu/DABillusionsPSR.pdf
AM Radio stations are cheap to operate, cheaper than FM. That's why farmers rely on AN because it's a cheap frequency to operate and radios with AM are cheaper to buy.
I have a Zenith Royal 50 from 1960 that was my grandfather's, then my mother's, and now it's mine. It may not be the best example, but it is still clean and in good working order after 60 years.
I have one of these old R436 radios among my small but growing collection. Foam grille has a small dent near the bottom, the power button is very finicky (needs a light tap or two above it after pressing it in), and the knobs could definitely use some deox-it, but it still works wonderfully. They don't make 'em like they used to. I still prefer the sound of my old '60s Zenith tube table radio, although I tend to use it less to preserve the tubes and caps.
I grew up listening to the radio. Mom always had her kitchen table radio on daily to her favorite station. Dad had his in the car, my sister and I, ours in our respective bedrooms. To this day, I'd be lost without listening to my favorite stations on my now vintage 70s Realistic (Radio Shack) AM/FM single speaker kitchen table radio (or my Sony pocket AM/FM radio). No monthly or yearly streaming costs, or electronic tracking! Signal is everywhere around. Not satellite or wifi connections necessary! But I do miss my late 50s Emerson white, tube powered, table radio!
True. Streaming is nice and all but there is something nice about listening to a local radio station. The liveness and localness of it. Plus it's free. 0 subscriptions, 0 fees, 0 downloads. And if you listen to publicly funded stations you get no commercials.
Of all the electronics I own, The radio would be the LAST thing I would give up. It's still the easiest, most reliable source of music and news around. Cell service goes down, Cable goes down, Radio chugs along. When I first moved out (as a 17 year old!) I didn't have a TV for a year, But I Damn sure had an (el cheapo!) AM/FM/Phono!
The UK was going to ditch AM/FM in favour of DAB/Digital but because so many radio listeners refused to switch the BBC radio realised that it would lose its audience overnight and continued analogue broadcasting. Norway...why?
Because the Norway parliament members who passed this measure were conned into doing so by faked statistics from WorldDAB and Bauer Media, two proft orientated organisations. The Swedish government was somewhat smarter and started an independant survey. The feasibility and future of DAB look rather bleak when you read their memorandum, read for yourself on the following links public-service.net/docu/DABillusionsPSR.pdf public-service.net/docu/DABFactsSweden.pdf P.S. Hongkong has recently shut down all DAB transmissions, not enough revenue generated to cover costs..
Ah, I see someone else watched him too. Yeah, I know Clint would have loved the radio for the wood grain. I'm thinking about joking about the fact of sending the radio to Clint. :D
About a year ago I was at Savers and came across a GE Super Radio 2. Had a sticker on it for $5. Had some drawings on it with sharpie but those came off easy, every thing else was in great condition. Didn't even have to open it up. Use it all the time. It sounds great.
I love Savers. My late wife and I used to get so much retro junk from there back in the day. Big old Seventies lamps, rotary dial telephones, even a console TV. Dirt cheap too.
It's actually in many ways, more reliable for live news or weather updates than the internet. Info can just be uploaded right then and there, wheras internet all the different news sources upload different articles and it can be a pain.
Video killed the radio star. Or should I say radio killed the radio star. Here in Germany there are no broadcasts on AM anymore. And the different stations on FM play the same program over and over again: the best of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s. It's really bad. At least on DAB+ there are some variations if your lucky enough to get a good reception.
@@stefanfriedt3450 in the UK the old regional FM radio stations have consolidated into a few corporate owners all running the same basic playlists - but now we've got local community FM radio stations that still play some interesting stuff... even if you get the 60's show it's not the same old 60s tracks you've already heard 1000 times - DAB is more a tool of the cookie cutter corporate stations here.
Agreed. They do actually make digital portable TVs, but ATSC doesn't handle poor signal as gracefully as ntsc, by which I mean it's effectively unusable without a totally perfect signal
Same here man. I wish there were UHF / VHF transmitters for TV like those FM transmitters for audio. USB powered or battery powered with switchable PAL / SECAM / NTSC standards. I have an RF modulator but it's still not the same as you really need to connect the device via coax cable... it does not really broadcast.
Get a set top box or something with a rf in and rf out , then plug a bunny ears Ariel to the out apparently that works, there are RU-vid vids explaining how to do it
@@KRAFTWERK2K6 Get a VHS player/recorder with an RF output and analog or digital inputs if you can. I've previously set up a PC with an old graphics card having S-Video output, connected to a VHS recorder, and the VHS recorder is outputting the signal from the PC on its RF output, which I've amplified and hooked up to an antenna. Voilá, you've got your own broadcasting station that reaches about 500m. Legal? Hell no. Does anyone care? Nope.
Happened at work. Coworker trying to stream the governor's Covid meeting. What channel is doing it!? There's a radio on your desk. Pretty much any AM station you can pick up will have it. Oh, right.
Radio, the way it should be. Anytime I go anywhere, I always carry one with me and a lot of in home listening is done routinely as well. Great video and nice set you have there! I sure hope they don't cut away the AM/FM analog signals altogether at least in my lifetime. As I write this comment, there is already an AM station in Maryland which broadcasts its audio in all digital signal, operating on an experimental license from FCC. I can only hope HD radio doesn't kill my hobby.
I like having the Internet and think life is better because of it, but I also appreciate a good classic radio and the occasional late winter night with a glass of wine in one hand and tuning around the dial with the other.
I have been and still is an active listener of the airwaves from 160khz to 5Ghz,, I love am am stereo fm ssb rtty cw and the terrestrial effects of the am bands especially in afternoon and evening. My favorite portable radios are Freeplay eyemax wind up radios.. (I have restored over a dozen that are in my collection) I will never give up my radio(s) To those disk jockeys that play music and programs on the radio I salute you by listening.. de ki4wqn
You know what? i actually recently bought a brand new stationary radio a little while ago because i never really had one available that could just sit next to me on my Table for when i wanna tune in at any given time. So far every radio i had was either just battery powered or built into some audio system. It's a little chinese "retro" style radio with an vacuum tube inside and its glow alone is part of this relaxing experience. And due to it's wooden case the sound is also very nice (unlike most mock up retro radios). FM reception is good but i guess for AM the place i chose for it is not the best but it still picks up a lot at night. It is a NO-025 type radio which seem to be sold as OEM devices by some tech brands.
I'm a radio head, I have a table radio collection. I like the real-time aspect of radio, practically free(have to pay for electricity, or buy the solar panels, etc.) I have some vintage consoles, TOTL vintage receivers and speakers also. It would be terrible for me if the US went digital unless they offered some kind of conversion box like they did with TV. btw I just pressed "buy now" on an on-line auction, the model in your vid, I was looking for info about it before I decided to buy it. I like cleaning up and saving this older quality stuff.
Radio is on 24/7 in the house. Even go to sleep listening to "the all night jukebox" on 740 CFZM which plays a mix of 1930s through 1980s music, with very few commercials!
Aren't too many stations that will play both Eddie Murphy's "Party all the time", Beach Boys and Ella Fitzgerald in the same hour. Only station I know of which is even better is CJNE 94.7 from Nipawin, Saskatchewan which is a privately owned station has an insanely diverse "non-corporate" playlist covering 1930s to 1990s, everything from classic rock, dance music, big band, heavy metal, new wave, hip hop, country... there is no predicting the next song! Very few commercials.
This has always been a thing with me - record companies will complain long and loud about those pesky kids stealing their latest hit songs, when in fact one can simply flip on any radio, or RU-vid, and start recording, for free, and legally. This has been the case since radio was first invented for heaven's sake.
I mean, they still have reels of tapes, spools of wires and those huge 16 inch records of radio programs from the 30s and 40s, they were rerecorded and released on cassettes, my Dad had a lot of them and now they're on RU-vid and stuff - so recording radio has gone on by stations and listeners for many, many years.
I absolutely love radio. So much so that I have a period correct 70’s 80’s studio in my apartment which I transmit from. And yes, radio is great to have. It’s easy to take for granted how lucky we are to have it.
My grandpa has a quonset hut for his farm. I found out there an old circa 1972 Panasonic table radio out there. It apparently had been out there for over 20 years but he managed to bring it back to life. All it has is like a bent coat hanger for an antenna but it's gets decent FM and acceptable AM. Has this nice light up tuning dial that moves up and down. Even has the 70's style fake woodgrain.
My mom had a similar Magnavox radio no clock, blue dial and red led attached to the dial pointer that glowed brighter as you tuned to get the strongest signal. Had it for years.
A lot of those old Japanese made radios were built like tanks and last forever. In my Grandpa's quonset hut, I found a Panasonic radio from 1972, and according to him it sat out there for 20 years. It still works just fine. They just don't make them like that anymore.
Mmm very stylish. I am a fan of the all over design. Wood grain smooth sound and magic lighting system. Heading over to do a bit of window shopping. Safe regards and 73's Lee in Liverpool.
I'm from Pittsburgh,PA and I spent plenty of time in the 60's and '70s listening to CHUM,CHML and CRFB those would come in BETTER sometimes than our LOCAL "suburban" stations, LOL!
As a kid who have grown up without a computer or internet at home, I discovered the wonders of radio, and actually started to collect them. But back then there were interesting programs on air, like radioplays, book readings, live theater play broadcasts etc. Nowadays almost all of that is gone, and in my country, all you get in most radios is government propaganda... (all the stations use the same news source that's basically ran by our manipulative government). So yeah, I still listen to like 3-4 stations regularly, but radio has become much less entertaining here in the last 10 years sadly :-/ Btw, I thought this is some kind of retro-looking, but recent radio, never thought it's 41 years old! It's in amazing condition! And red LED was quite cutting edge technology back then. Cool find! :)
I don't believe FM radio is in any danger of going away anytime soon. I am concerned, however about AM radio -- so many radios made now have no AM band. Clock radios are FM and aux, now, not FM/AM. I remember when the FCC stepped in and mandated that radios over a certain price point had to have an FM band; now, the situation is reversed. perhaps, now, the FCC needs to mandate that radios have a broadcast AM band. Just thinking out loud, here.
I have a decade old Sony Dream Machine which has a simple manual AM/FM dial. And a newer boombox with good AM and FM. I have a travel radio that can get both 10 and 9 khz of AM. Though AM is sadly sort of on its way out. FM will be here a while though.
I’m 24 and grew up around the time iPods became popular. But I still rather listen to my Walkman, too this day I still listen everyday. We have a great station in Tucson 101.7 The Drive.
Dang, just wanted to take some time to appreciate this channel. It's been over 4 years since I've been subscribed to it. I remember as if it was yesterday when I stumbled on this channel trying to get my first retro computer to connect to my tv; I remember it was such a hassle and the excitement didn't let me get through the process lol. Anyways, glad to know this channel is still up and strong!
There's a local station that I have that went from fully-automated oldies running off an XP computer to a completely-revamped local station, still playing oldies, but with local DJs. That and the NPR station are the only things I listen to. iHeartMedia has run everything else into the ground. Now please excuse me while I go scour eBay for this very fine radio, or maybe see if I can find a woodgrain Panasonic.
@@Autunite There's a couple that use a genuinely realistic sounding tts voice. Not that stupid "Daniel"(?) voice all the other ones use. But I still watch them.
Yup I love me some FM radio. I don't pay subscription fees. All I need is a power outlet or a battery. And if I want a custom playlist I can get a cheap transmitter on ebay or use a raspberry pi to make a short range station of my own.
I just love your videos sir. I adore my RCA VICTOR MODEL 8-RF-13. The sound is fantastic and the unit is very easy to work on. I think it is a work of art. I rarely watch TV. This is my go to as I work in the dark room, draw or paint, and fix vintage computers. I thank you for delivering content that I can enjoy, it is limited.
I love radio I stream too but radio is on every night and morning I love live DJ's it makes it fun if they are good, plus you feel ike there is someone listening with you with a DJ and knowing others are tuned in with you.
Absolutely an essential item to have around, even if just for information if there's ever a major failure of other communications! That's a really lovely design. Honestly though not something I use particularly often for entertainment anymore unfortunately. Most of the stations I like are broadcast only on DAB here, and it really is notably poor sound quality on most of them. Tolerable in the car if I've exhausted the CDs and my phone refuses to play nice with the stereo though!
oh my goodness, I have a radio that looks almost exactly the same as this, except my tuner is backlit and goes vertically, found it at a salvation army for 10 bucks
Congrats on 100k subs! I've been a subscriber since very early on and it's great to see that you've finally hit this milestone. Looking forward to future content.
The reason the US has not gone totally digital is the format for digital broadcasts is called HD Radio, a highly proprietary - and expensive codec. In Europe and the UX, their digital broadcasts use and open source codec.
I do still prefer radio (satellite, because screw annoying ads) to streaming services when I'm driving. I like letting someone else queue music for me, instead of having to fiddle with apps. Granted, having Bluetooth in my car makes streaming services much more appealing now, so I may change my mind about that eventually.
I still listen to the radio. There is a station that I like that plays music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s and now 90s I think. I was in a gas station one time and I heard a radio sing "big 104 FM" and then All star by smash mouth starts playing. I have an SDR receiver dongle that I also use with my phone to scan the radio spectrum and listen to stuff other than regular FM, sometimes police, fire, things like that.
SDRs are fun. Sometimes I can get lucky and catch some local HAMs talking to eachother. Great time, and cheap too, you can get one for like 30-40 bucks.
@@thatpersonwithamlpiconwhos2861 I got mine for around $20 on Amazon. Might be a little more now. I sometimes catch CB chatter while browsing around the spectrum. There is this strong signal Broadcasting pager traffic but it sounds like data bursts. I can decode it but not on my SDR. I have another radio that can pick it up but it's got that funky reverse phase simulated stereo which messes up everything.
@@coondogtheman There are multiple programs that can decode digital data recived from an SDR. One I use is DSD+. This program is used for decoding digital audio broadcasts. It supports a wide range of digital formats, and can auto detect which one is being used. As far as the pager data, there is a program called PDW that can decode pager data. Most likely the pager data is coming from a nearby hospital, so a lot of the data is most likely uninteresting medical jargon. (I also think intercepting these broadcasts is illegal, so do so with caution) www.dsdplus.com/download-2/ www.discriminator.nl/pdw/index-en.html
@@thatpersonwithamlpiconwhos2861 I'm not interested in the pager data signal, I have PDW on PC but what I'm more interested in is HD digital radio but there are only two radio stations in my area that use that. Curious if I could dump the stream if it's like a wav or mp3 file then I can edit/play it back later.
@@coondogtheman Huh, ive never tried to recieve HD radio signals through an SDR, but I bet someone out there has a program or plugin that would allow me to do so
Its stupid that some countries like norway phased out FM radio broadcasting just because they deem it "obsolete". When it will never be just because people almost always use fm radio in cars.
