Now Switzerland seems to be intent on pushing DAB(+) and abandoning FM
radio in the near future. Much better quality, more space for dozens of
stations, and additional features for hip young people!
Except that:
1. hip young people use their flatrate data plans for listening to
internet radio and watching dancing cats (therefore increasing load
on data networks, requiring additional capacity -- but that's for
another rant...)
2. digital broadcasting is shitty if you have interference, like in a
moving car or train
3. instead of 80% shitty of 10 stations in total I will be able to
listen to 90% shitty of 50 stations in total -- progress!
While travelling in the train on Monday, I tried to listen to the news
on the radio. These fancy new trains are well shielding radio signals
(nothing new, as fifteen years ago it was already difficult to do
amateur radio QSOs from trains), and so you get noisy FM reception of
the main official Swiss stations, or very intermittent reception with
DAB.
But I much prefer the noisy FM, because it's still easy to follow.
Although worse than AM (or SSB, but that's apparently not for the
plebs), FM still deteriorates in a decent way, whereas DAB like all the
digital stuff either fully works or fully not. And it's _f.cking
annoying_ to listen to chopped audio!
I assume the push for DAB simply is because commercial users would like
to get more frequencies to flood us with shit, and DAB allows for that.
I don't believe it is really advantageous or required for the
listeners. And don't tell me the sound quality is insufficient for the
majority of people listening to the radio while driving, riding a bike,
a train, taking a shower or while cooking their dinner!
