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Norway to be First Nation to Switch Off National Analog FM Stations

posted by martyb on Tuesday April 21 2015, @03:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the digital-killed-the-fm-star dept.

"gewg_" writes:

The Government of Norway announces

[April 16], the Ministry of Culture announced a national FM-switch off, to complete the transition to digital radio. Norway is making [a] historical move into a new radio era, being the first country in the world to decide upon an analogue switch-off for all major radio channels. With DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) and digital radio, listeners will be provided with more radio channels and greater diversity in content.

[...]The DAB-coverage in Norway now exceeds FM-coverage. DAB provides Norway with 22 national channels, as opposed to five channels transmitting nationwide on FM.

[...]Switch-off starts in Nordland county 11th January 2017 and ends with the northernmost counties Troms and Finnmark [13th December] 2017.

Official announcement in Norwegian. Also covered at Ars Technica.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by danomac on Tuesday April 21 2015, @06:54PM

    by danomac (979) on Tuesday April 21 2015, @06:54PM (#173628)
    FWIW, I noticed the opposite: I had channels that were always fuzzy in analog, and now in digital they are crystal clear. The signal didn't get any stronger, it's still half of what other channels are. On the weaker channels, I have seen artifacts, but I've only noticed an occasional artifact (every ~20 hours of programming I notice one), and it's never dropped out completely. For me, personally, the occasional artifact is much better than a fuzzy picture.

    I've also been in really heavy downpour and haven't noticed artifacts. I'm about 40 miles from the tower, and I don't have line of sight to it.
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  • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:45PM

    by Alfred (4006) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:45PM (#173962) Journal
    Wish I had that kind of reception here. I have one real channel that doesn't have some issue in the once a minute timeframe. I guess if I included the odd channels like the all black and white westerns all day channel it would bring the quality average up.