Comparison: Over the air listening on FM vs. streaming audio on Android phone

I have had my HTC Android phone for just about a year now, which is enough time to learn the device’s strengths and weaknesses.  I have done a fair amount of listening to the audio, watching youtube videos, and playing .mp3’s to give me some idea of the technical quality and operational issues.  Like anything else, these are general observations.  Some radio station’s streams sound better than others due to the effort those stations put into audio quality.

The listening test was done with a set of Sony earbuds, which sound far better than the small speaker built into the phone.  For ease in streaming audio, I used the TuneIn Radio application for Android by TuneIn Inc.  For this test, I only listened to FM broadcast stations, both streaming and over the air.

The over-the-air tuner is the stock factory radio in my 1997 Jeep Cherokee.  I would rate the radio average in every way.  The actual tests were done driving around on interstate highways and other major roadways.  There were a few instances where I had to give up on the Android phone due to traffic and driving considerations.

My Android phone has an FM tuner installed in it, however, it is really useless.  I get only local stations, and then their audio is all hissy and for the most part unlistenable.  The HTC FM tuner uses the headphone wire for an antenna, which may be a part of the problem.

Here is a chart of my observations:

Category evaluatedAnalog FM radioStreaming via Android
Overall Station SelectionOnly those stations that can be receivedAny station that is listed in TuneIn Radio App*
Almost unlimited, worldwide*Can press the preset or scan buttons on the radio without taking eyes off the road*Only those receivable signals limit it to a few well-programmed stations, the rest being garbage
Available formatsOnly those stations that can be receivedAny station that is listed in TuneIn Radio App*
Ease of useVaries depending on location, and can be quite annoying, especially in mobile environment.  App also occasionally locks up and needs to be restartedRequires squinting at a small screen and pressing several little boxes to get to the desired station
Annoying commercial avoidanceSee above on preset and scan buttons*Very difficult to change stations quickly
Quality of soundGood to excellent, depending on the station’s signal strength*Fair to good, depending on the bit rate and network congestion, some stations sound very good and some can sound very bad
Drop outsOccasional picket fencing with distant stations, otherwise, non-existent*Requires data plan with smartphone, some plans cap data amounts, can be fairly expensive
ExpenseFree, radio came with the vehicle, no paid data service needed*Requires data plan with smartphone, some plans cap data amounts can be fairly expensive
Overall enjoymentGoodGood

*Wins category.

I am having a difficult time assigning the overall enjoyment as well as an overall winner.  On the one hand, it was very cool, driving down I-84 in Danbury, CT listening to Howlin’ Wolf on New Orleans’ non-commercial Jazz station, WWOZ.  On the other hand, it was a right pain in the ass to get to that point, in rush hour traffic.  By the way, WWOZ’s web stream is excellent, audio-wise.

From safety and ease of use, the FM radio in the Jeep wins hands down, I just don’t know how many more times I can listen to the same Led Zeppelin song on i95 (that used to be I-95, frankly I thought Steve Jobs copyrighted the lower case i).

The dropouts were also a concern, mostly taking place in the section of I-84 going through Putnam County, NY.  I don’t know if my cell carrier needs to beef up its data coverage in that area, or if there were just a great many users on the network checking their e-mail, etc.

If they could sort out the ease of operation problem and get rid of the dropouts, streaming audio over HTC Android would win hands down.

I like my smart phone the way it is, thank you.

The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters), in trying to reach a settlement with the music industry, has decided that cell phones are part of the problem. No kidding, the fact that smartphones like the iPhone and Android do not have FM tuners seems to be a part of the negotiations, even though the cellphone industry has nothing to do with music royalties.  The argument is, more people will listen to, and more importantly, buy music if they have an FM tuner in their smartphone.

I don’t know about that.

My HTC Android phone does have an FM tuner, it also has a metal detector.  I have found both the be novel applications.   Even though I work in radio, I have used the FM tuner twice.  Technically speaking, I find it to be adequate.  In order to receive anything, a pair of headphones or earbuds has to be used, because the headphone wire acts as the antenna.

That being said, I cannot count the number of times I have used Pandora or other online audio applications.  Several times a day at least.  Why?  Because the content is better.

If consumers want FM tuners in their cellphones, they will ask for them.  Cellphone manufacture’s will gladly comply, and make them.  The real problem is, most people don’t care about radio because most radio programming is boring and uninspired these days.  Let me paraphrase that:

HELLO, BROADCASTERS!  ARE YOU LISTENING?  YOUR PROGRAMMING SUCKS!

Offer a better product and listeners will return.  If there were a compelling reason to build FM tuners into cellphones, it would already be done.  Forcing the cellphone manufacturers to do something they don’t want to do will simply drive up prices.

The NAB has led the radio industry astray for years now, we really should stop listening to them.

Remotes using a Smart Phone

I was fooling around with my HTC  Android phone yesterday and discovered something that has a definite use for radio remotes.  An Application called Hertz will record .wav files, which can then be transferred via e-mail or ftp to the studio and played back on the air.  The program is pretty slick, it allows sample rates from 8 to 44.1 kHz.

I made a sample recording, the microphone in the HTC phone is okay, a better microphone would sound better.  After it was done, I emailed it to myself and listened on the laptop.  The email took about 4 minutes for 20 seconds of a 32 kHz .wav file.  One could cut that down by choosing a lower sample rate.  I have found that 32 kHz is the minimal acceptable sample rate for analog FM.  Anything lower than that sounds choppy.

In another potential use, a news reporter could use this to record audio to save and transfer to a computer using a USB cable.  The recording time limit depends on the size of the SIM card and the sample rate.  Additionally, my HTC Android phone will detect and use WiFi networks, where available, for data services.  Using a WiFi network will avoid those 3G data charges and also increase download/upload speeds.

My Verizon plan has unlimited data transfer, so it really doesn’t matter what sample rate I use, your mileage may vary.

Couple the Hertz app with the VNC app mentioned previously, and a person could do all sorts of things remotely with a radio station.  The Hertz app is available for free download from the Android app store.

VNC for Android phone

With the advent of computer file storage and automation came unmanned operation.  Unfortunately, what often happens with unmanned operations is somehow the engineer becomes responsible for station operation and ends up getting all the phone calls when anything goes wrong:

  • Traffic forgot to transfer the Sunday log and the station is off the air at 12 am Sunday morning.  Call the engineer.
  • Part-time DJ didn’t read the directions on merging logs, call the engineer.
  • Windows has encountered a problem and needs to reboot, call the engineer.
  • The server has locked up, call the engineer.
  • Silence sensor, engineer’s phone number

I got sick of driving to the radio station when things got out of whack with the AudioVault, so I installed VNC on all the machines.  From that point, I could log on from home and see what the problem was.  It was great, when traffic goobers up the log transfer, I called the traffic director at home and had her go in a fix it.  Untrained operators, called the program director.  Unfortunately, I don’t have Bill Gate’s phone number, so the Windows issues are still on me.

All of this was great as long as my laptop was around.  Being married, however, I had to occasionally listen to my wife, who insisted that we not take the laptop to dinner or the movies with us.  There were those occasional times when it would have been nice.

With the purchase of the Android phone, however, I no longer have to worry about that.  Android VNC is a free app that allows an Android phone to connect to any VNC server application.  The user can save all the VNC connection information on the phone.  It has several mouse options including a touch pad, touchpad mouse, mouse trackball, etc.  It connects to most VNC servers: incl TightVNC, RealVNC on Win and Linux, x11vnc, and Apple Remote Desktop on OS/X. 0.4.3.  Special commands such as ctl-alt-del are available through the menu.  It is also fully zoomable.  All in all, I can do almost anything with the Android phone that I can do on the laptop.  My wife is thrilled.

It is a time saver.