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Enjoy FM Radio On Your Cell Phone

thesj said:
FM radio does not work well on cell phones.
Click to expand...

You'd have to have a pair of earbuds plugged in. The wires are the antenna as well as for audio.
 
thesj said:
FM radio does not work well on cell phones.
Click to expand...

That's what I used to think. Then, we were issued new company phones with FM chips. They work very well. It's not a XDR-F1HD with an 8-element Yagi -- but it will pick up anything you'd get on any other radio with an indoor antenna, and then some.

As KeithE4 says, you do need to have a set of earphones plugged in. Mine will refuse to launch the FM app if no phones are attached.
 
I have a cell phone with an FM chip. It too refuses to launch the FM app if no phones are attached.

If you are at a high enough altitude and completely still it will work.

If I'm walking around, it is completely unlistenable and fades in and out constantly.
 
thesj said:
I have a cell phone with an FM chip. It too refuses to launch the FM app if no phones are attached.

If you are at a high enough altitude and completely still it will work.

If I'm walking around, it is completely unlistenable and fades in and out constantly.
Click to expand...

Well, I just did a bit of testing with mine. Stuffed it in my fanny pack, got on the bike, and rode six miles into town. Tested with three stations:

90.3 WPLN-FM; 80,000 watts/345m at 28 miles.
100.1 WRLT; 200 watts/360m on the same tower as WPLN.
97.5 WZZP; 6,000 watts/100m at 31 miles in the other direction.

- WPLN was nearly rock-solid for the entire trip. There was one brief burst of noise, well under a second. WPLN is also reliable reception inside the house. The FCC's propagation curves predict a signal of 72.8dBu for WPLN at this location.

- WRLT was pretty noisy, I'd say less than full quieting for about 70% of the trip and not copyable (I wouldn't understand the call letters in an ID) for about 20% of the trip. It was actually full-quieting about 30% of the time inside the house, among computers. Remember, this is a 200-watt station 28 miles away. The FCC's propagation curves predict a signal of 47.2dBu for WRLT at this location.

- WZZP was 100% copyable and full-quieting about 75% of the time. Didn't try WZZP indoors. The FCC's propagation curves predict a signal of 48.2dBu for WZZP at this location.

70dBu of signal is "city grade", what a station is required to provide across its "city of license". 60dBu is* "protected contour", the FCC will not authorize any new service that would interfere with an existing station in a place where it provides 60dBu or more of signal. WRLT and WZZP are obviously well below this service area -- as far as the FCC's procedures are concerned, these stations cannot be received here.

In other words, signals that should be receivable here are, and so are some signals that *shouldn't* be receivable!

Again, the "big rig" -- or the car radio -- would do a lot better; all three stations would be 100% rock-solid full-quieting. Of course, I can't carry the "big rig" with me, and I can't bring the car into my office with me!

* it's 54 or 57dBu in some cases, but not here in Tennessee.

Propagation curves don't take terrain into account, which is a risky thing to not do in Tennessee, but I do live in a relatively flat area.
 
Many of the newer Motorola Droid phones (Droid 3, Bionic, etc) have an FM radio chip but no app comes on the phone to use it. All you have to do is install an app that was ported from earlier Droid phones and the tuner becomes useful. The FM chip even has some RDS support although its not implemented well in the app. It picks up PTY just fine but has a hard time with scrolling messages.

You'll need headphones for an antenna, but at least the Motorola app allows you to switch to speaker output. You can't expect that good of reception with headphones, but it does an okay job. It gets the local signals just fine.
 
Mine is VERY good. Even I was surprised. I had expected a radio barely larger than a matchbook to have the same radio receiving quality (on top of the other crap.) It has RDS (plus alternate frequency search for repeaters/translators) and fantastic selectivity. It can easily pick through the most crowded area of the FM dial with ease.

However, like thesj mentioned, unless the radio is in one area and not moved around, the reception goes to hell with motion on the more distant/weak stations.
 
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