Mar
24
Written by:
3/24/2009 8:33 AM
The NAB, in its fine Radio TechCheck newsletter, this week noted that advances in cell phone design may turn out to be an “important breakthrough” in efforts to get FM reception into more phones.
Its engineers reported on two new cell phone products that include integrated FM antennas, the
Motorola ROKR EM35 and the
Nokia 5030, the latter being marketed first in Europe.
Listeners can use wireless bluetooth headsets or bluetooth-enabled speakers for listening to the radio. “Until now, virtually all cell phone-based FM radios required listeners to use a wired headset or wired speaker whereby this wire would serve as the antenna for the FM radio,” the newsletter states, and it reported on the advances in IC technology that have helped to make such phones possible.
“For example, Silicon Labs, an innovator in the design and manufacture of ‘mixed signal’ ICs (those that process both analog and digital signals on a single silicon ‘chip’), has introduced a family of FM receiver ICs that support integrated antennas, digital audio out, worldwide FM band support and Radio Data System (RDS) technology, all on a single chip measuring 3 millimeters on a side. Silicon Labs’ ICs use a patented tuned-resonance technology which allows integrated FM antennas constructed of printed circuit board (PCB) traces, loops, stubs or other devices to perform as well or better than the headset-cord wired antennas they replace.”
The NAB technical newsletter noted other portable devices that are incorporating integrated FM antennas, like the Alert FM receiver and “smart” watches used with Microsoft’s MSN Direct FM subcarrier-based service.
Not only do these developments make devices easier to use, but an integrated FM antenna cell phone is better suited to deliver emergency alert messages, NAB notes, “since the FM radio can now function without a headset being plugged in.” It reported that cellular carriers are developing ways to provide alerts to customers through broadcast SMS text messaging (though that’s not in the immediate offing because of the work and cost involved).
“NAB believes that FM radios in cell phones will provide a vehicle for cost effective, near-term, easy and convenient access to alert messages being sent over the Emergency Alert System,” it added.
NAB is right about this and I’m glad to see more coordinated efforts over the past year or so by the NAB FASTROAD folks and others to push harder on getting FM into more devices. If we want radio to be part of consumers’ lives, we need to get radio where the consumers are.
Where that all will leave AM, of course, is another story.
3 comment(s) so far...
FM Antenna Inside
Having taken a passive stance regarding delivery opportunities for radio broadcasting for so long now, it is no surprise that we look at this inclusion of FM radio in cell phones as a good thing.
Has it occurred to anybody else that teaching our listeners they don't need a radio only speeds the transition to consumer acceptance of mobile phone delivery of "radio" programming? Once the majority of listeners use smartphones (the transistor radios of the times)to receive programming, why would cell phone manufacturers need to include FM radio receivers in their systems?
Digital convergence is already driving consumers to cell phones. Before the majority of radio sets in the world wear out, they will be in the same category as stand alone fax machines, scanners, low cost cameras, GPS units, clocks and watches, CD players, paper calenders, folding maps and printed instruction manuals.
If radio aggressively improves its content, cell phones are a path to the future.
By Chip Morgan on
3/27/2009 12:13 AM
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FM Antenna Inside
Yeah...
If an engineer(s) can develop an antenna for FM, why not AM?
"Sounds" like the same silly road taken in analog versus digital. "Quality and content" continue to take a back seat to "artifacts and rap..." or whatever the majority of FM is programming, now.
-T
By Ted Jenne on
3/27/2009 5:33 AM
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FM Antenna Inside
Bravo for the tech people. The future IS cell phone technolgy and this is just the first quantum leap forward.
Good for radio's best 'eye and ear on the trends' journalist/editor Paul McLane for jumping on this light-speed bandwagon!
Dale Tucker
Tucker Broadcast Surplus
Sacramento
By Dale Tucker on
3/29/2009 2:47 PM
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