Radio and radio - Funk und Radio

Despite the increasing use of smartphones and portable computers for Internet access, radio and radio are still useful for travelers as a source of information and a means of communication. Often you get access to regional news and music, on the high seas you can receive weather faxes and satellite images on shortwave and those who want to hitchhike can find potential ridesharing opportunities faster via the truck drivers' CB radio.

The heyday of multilingual international broadcasting from medium and short waves is over. Although technically excellent shortwave receivers ("world receivers") have become available cheaply, the international foreign services that used to populate the shortwave bands have adapted to listening habits and practically only offer their services on the Internet. In crisis or disaster areas, it has now become difficult to get reliable news from home via shortwave when the Internet or mobile phone network has collapsed.

radio

VHF

VHF (or "FM broadcasting band" in English-speaking areas) is now the most widespread radio technology worldwide. VHF radio is operated worldwide in VHF band II between 87.5 MHz and 108 MHz. Some countries only use parts of it. Only in Japan and some countries of the former Eastern Bloc, as well as in Brazil in the future, frequencies will still be in other frequency ranges used.

For technical reasons, the transmitters of the VHF radio have a range that only extends as far as the optical horizon - the long-range transmitter systems are located on high mountains, in remote valleys filler transmitters have to cover gaps in reception, which increases the operating costs for the radio stations. Long journeys lead to the transmission range of different stations broadcasting the same program, the radio has to be readjusted.

In Europe is RDS Widely used, the program name is transmitted digitally with the broadcast signal and is evaluated by most car radios, for example. Signals that the station is transmitting traffic information ("TP", traffic programs), broadcast when a traffic report goes over the airwaves, an additional inaudibly transmitted signal ("TA", traffic announcement) which the program switches over ("AF", alternative frequency) or interrupts the current CD to play the traffic report.
Outside of Europe, RDS has not yet established itself across the board; in the USA, the system called RBDS was introduced with a delay of several years.

Portable travel radios that evaluate the RDS signal (and are extremely helpful for finding a station in the full FM band) are rarely found.

Shortwave

A world receiver

Radio signals that are sent in the shortwave band (KW or SW) can be received almost worldwide under optimal conditions, as these frequencies are reflected by the stratosphere and the earth's surface and the signal can "hop" around the earth. This means that you can theoretically receive radio stations from all over the world on shortwave, in practice one station can at least supply the neighboring countries or neighboring continents.

However, depending on the weather, day and season, different physical effects lead to waves spreading better or worse at certain frequencies or bands. The decisive factor is how the stratosphere interacts with the solar wind. Every 11 years, when the sun has reached its maximum activity and has many sunspots, during the so-called "sunspot maximum" you can listen to radio stations that are particularly well away on shortwave.

Changing reception conditions, fluctuating signal strengths, crackling interference from electrical devices, and difficult frequency settings on the cheaper shortwave radios have led to shortwave reception being a niche for technically savvy listeners for a long time. At the end of the nineties, comparatively inexpensive, highly sensitive shortwave "world receivers" with good frequency reading accuracy and storage options came onto the market.
This development came too late and the bad reputation of the quality of shortwave broadcasting with the use of cheap radio had already led to the fact that the number of listeners collapsed with the advent of the internet and internet radio and the international shortwave services stopped their programs for cost reasons. switched to a website. The domestic radio program can now be heard around the world by means of streaming, but a sufficiently broad and stable internet connection that is expensive abroad is a prerequisite.

The international shortwave broadcasting services have practically abandoned the waves entirely German wave, Radio Austria International or 'Swiss Radio International are also a thing of the past, as are the powerful German-speaking foreign services from the most famous travel destinations, which used to broadcast travel information and German-language news. Only a few state broadcasters from emerging countries, religious stations and private providers which broadcast niche programs (hobby-related programs for shortwave listeners) with low transmission power for Europe remain on the shortwave. Also the Voice of America, the BBC London or Radio Moscow no longer transmit on shortwave to the target area Europe. and limit the program hours continuously.

The marine radio has completely said goodbye to the shortwaves, for fishing cutters and yacht owners, occasional sea weather reports and weather faxes are still broadcast, which can be received with SSB-compatible receiving systems. Furthermore, numerous amateur radio operators are active on shortwave, trips to remote travel destinations to activate an amateur radio station can even be the reason for a vacation trip.

Medium wave

In the past, local medium-wave programs could be received throughout Europe in the evening and night without any problems, but the public broadcasters have now practically completely abandoned medium-wave broadcasting for cost reasons, the transmission systems have been dismantled and only a few transmission masts remain as historical - Technical landmarks are preserved and are considered a cultural asset.

Digital radio

With digitization, broadcasting has completely changed its face. The digital transmission led to the improvement of the transmission quality (it is only "all or nothing", either the music is playing or there is silence) and the possibility of transmitting additional information, such as the title of the current song, which can be displayed on the radio.

As a rule, VHF band III, which was previously used by analog television broadcasters, is used for digital broadcasting. In Europe, digital broadcasting has followed DAB standard enforced differently. While in Switzerland several program bundles in the DAB standard can be received almost nationwide and in Norway VHF broadcasting is to be completely switched off in favor of DAB at the end of 2017, nationwide coverage is not yet possible in other European countries.

The problem is the effort involved in digitally decoding the transmitted streams, which requires a powerful processor in the receiver. Because of the high power consumption DAB receivers can usually be found for mains operation or as a car radio. The battery requirements of the portable DAB radios have so far been too high for continuous operation during the holidays, sometimes a set of batteries is exhausted after 16 hours.

Usual standards are

  • DAB, the most common European standard
  • DAB , is an extension of the DAB standard with a higher degree of compression of the data streams. The receivers are backwards compatible with DAB, but if you have a DAB radio only, you cannot receive DAB. DAB technology is already built into most modern German car radios.

other digital radio technologies are

  • DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale), a system for transmitting digital signals on the frequencies of the earlier AM broadcasting (medium and short wave), has not caught on and has been largely abandoned. In India the local shortwave stations were converted to DRM operation for national supply. Due to the high effort involved in decoding, truly portable devices were always rare, heavy and expensive.
  • digital satellite broadcasting via the "Worldstar" satellites was abandoned for cost reasons.
  • There are other digital standards such as HD radio in North America, T-DMB, a variant of the DAB standard in [South Korea], and ISDB-tsb, which is used in Japan.

Wireless

Legal

CB radio / "trucker radio"

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