Nice work. I'm in two minds, though, as it's more lockin for the inferior DAB (inferior to DAB+).
Bloke in shed starts own DAB radio station - with Ofcom's blessing
A three-month experiment in Brighton has proved that Digital Audio Broadcasting can be cheap and easy to transmit, opening the way to community and local stations – and perhaps a pirate or two. The experiment was carried out by Ofcom broadcast specialist Rashid Mustapha, though in his own time and at his expense. Despite that …
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Wednesday 7th August 2013 21:01 GMT M Mouse
I might be more positive about Radio 4 Extra if the stream was of sufficient bitrate to allow for stereo.
When it was BBC 7 and only played reruns of vintage content recorded in mono, it served its purpose on DAB. However, they've been commissioning new material (no doubt recorded in stereo) and then playing it on mono R4 Extra ...
If ever there was a case of squeezing a quart into a pint pot, it's the BBC switching R4 to mono whenever there is audio running on BBC Five Live Sports Extra. BBC R3 is at 192 kbps on DAB, R2 and 6Music are 128 kbps, and yes, you can notice...
Sorry but DAB just isn't good enough for music and the commercial stations consider DAB a bit of a Fail... cost wise they are laying out extra to provide DAB for a small listening audience compared with FM.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 09:45 GMT Andrew Newstead
Re: Why bother
Not so limited, perhaps.
I recently bought a new music system and it has DAB as it's default receiver choice. I set it up and it seems to be quite effective. I think it's true to say that more and more HiFi systems are equiped with DAB straight off the bat so we will probably see the same kind of take up that occured with digital TV when Freeview digital tuners became built in to new TVs, a default switchover.
I am aware of the argument that states that the dedicated music system will die out as more music moves on line. I'm not convinced by this, I feel that there will continue to be a demand for seperate music systems as there are quite few people out there who still don't use online music providers or radio for various reasons. I myself still prefer the quality of sound produced by CD's over MP3 (not really explored FLAC yet, a bit inconvenient to use) so for the time being a dedicated music system still has a place in our house.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 11:48 GMT Mage
Re: Why bother
Useless for really portable use. FM & AM are better. DAB is a dinosaur.
DAB+ is NOT better, just cheaper as they fit in more stations.
DAB isn't "green" for Receivers or for a single channel of transmission rather than a bunch of stations multiplexing the data to the COFDM modulator. FM was popular BEFORE the patents ran out and they are still trying to promote DAB.
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Wednesday 7th August 2013 07:52 GMT Graham Dawson
Re: Why bother
Even at a high sample rate, lossy digital compression is effectively audio compression. It normalises everything; you lose the clarity and peaks and deep bass just plain disappear. On any remotely decent hifi system you can hear the difference and you don't have to be some audiophile or freakish mutant or the idiot who spends a squillion quid on a gold-plated, jewel encrusted cable to do so. I noticed it one day playing the Master and Commander soundtrack. The CD version had this incredible deep thump in the bass that was missing from the ogg and mp3 versions I played over the same speakers. Even a q10 vbr ogg was missing it.
Of course if all your CDs are the hopelessly compressed, pumped up noise they sell so often these days then of course you're not going to hear a difference - a bit more lossy compression really won't make any significant change to that - but if they've been put together by a competent sound engineer then the difference is as between night and day.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 10:15 GMT Alan 6
Re: Why bother
It's not so limited at home any more, digital; listening at home is increasing rapidly.
Where it is limited though is in cars, there's still too few cars with DAB as standard, they only seem to come as massively overpriced options.
I sat in many, many expensive cars at the weekend and hardly any had a DAB radio fitted as standard kit, as far as I'm aware it seems to be just Mini, who've been fitting them as standard since 08 reg, and Ford who are leading the way.
DAB in cars is mostly OK, I live in the arse end of Lancashire, and my DAB equipped Mini copes pretty well in most areas I drive, although it always drops out as I drive past Lancaster Uni on the M6, I don't know if it's caused by the thick stand of trees by the side of the road, or some dodgy kit they're running in the Uni
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 19:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why bother
The thing is, outside the UK and to a limited extent the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries, DAB is pretty much unheard of in the rest of Europe and the World.
If you were to drive through continental Europe, your digital radio reception would be very patchy to say the least, mostly limited to around major cities. The rest of the time you would get no stations at all, unlike normal FM (limited range but plenty of stations to choose from), AM (limited quality, full of crackling during thunderstorms, limited choice, but countrywide range for European-sized countries), or SW ("This is London"... those were the days!)
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 09:48 GMT Danny 14
Re: More stations than listeners?
I have DAB in the car. It just came with the car so i wasnt going to complain. It has a weird quirk (due to my wiring lots of extension cables for various chargers in the car) that DAB craps out when I plug too many things into the 12v sockets (or maybe the crap ebay plugs that generate noise more likely).
Anyway, in my recent trip down the M6,61,60,62,1 I did miss DAB R5L cricket so it does have its uses. also having to retune FM on such journeys is a pain too.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 10:01 GMT Chris Miller
@Danny
'retune FM' - I can't remember having to retune FM in the car since RDS came in decades ago, though I came back South from Carlisle a couple of months ago on the pretty route (avoiding the M6), and there are some real FM blackspots near places such as Orton. A mate has a new Ford with factory-fitted DAB and he reckons he can get from Bucks to Lands End without any reception problems, so coverage (or radios?) must be getting better.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 10:23 GMT Lunatik
Re: @Danny - On retuning
My impression is that car radios have actually gotten worse at following RDS AF in the past 15 years.
I never used to have any problem but cars nowadays don't seem to handle it as well as they used to, or stations (mainly, it has to be said, endless bloody Heart, Magic, Galaxy, Real etc. crud) just don't implement properly.
In any case, DAB is little better as stuff drops in and out of MUXes as you drive about.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 19:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @Danny
"FM channel hopping is instant and with RDS automatic."
I think, as per a couple of comments already, you meant "was instant" not "is instant".
I've had RDS radios in car and at home for a very very long time.
In the last year or so since losing my ten year old Peugeot which had a nice but not particularly sensitive RDS/FM radio, I've used two VAG cars. One had actually a remarkably good FM radio - very sensitive, used to regularly pick up BBC Derby and BBC Oxford traffic reports (e.g. via RDS TP/TA) in suburban Birmingham. But although RDS auto follow is referenced in the manual, it doesn't seem to be implemented. The other was no better in that respect.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 13:51 GMT MrT
12v adapters...
... are probably the cause of it - I bought a few for several cars and was careful to pick ones that had good reviews in that respect - not had a problem with Belkin single USB, Griffin twin USB, or even a generic brand twin from Amazon marketplace (last one is not in a DAB-equipped car though). However, some just put out so much RF noise that they can even overwhelm FM, or put out a really loud hiss. My commute takes me right past a TV mast, which will also do it for FM and DAB over about 300m radius.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 12:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: More stations than listeners?
"But really? DAB - does anyone care?"
The BBC do - they've got to justify spending license payers' money on a system that's not fit for purpose.
OK DAB/DAB+ modes 2,3 & 4 are of use for national broadcasters in countries like China, Australia, India but why bother for a small country like the UK?
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 11:03 GMT g.marconi
As a totally free and high-quality method of radio reception DAB is excellent. Most developed countries have used it for years and it has become very popular. It was available in north america some years ago (at least in Canada) but it was dropped for some reason that most people suspect was pressure from the fee-paying satellite-radio providers. There is no point in being negative about somethin just because you cannot have access to it yourself !
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 10:09 GMT John Styles
Hoorah!
I look forward to the pirate DAB radio. The FM pirate that turns up in Oxfordshire from time to time adds to the gaiety of nations. Ah, bless the youth that can say things like 'a big shout out to the Chinnor Massive' without any sign of irony. What it is to be young.
Does anyone remember Thameside Radio (the London Sunday evening land-based pirate) doing a pirate TV thing one Christmas - it was quite a powerful signal, I could get it in Amersham (1984 according to Wikipedia which sounds about right to me)?
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 10:12 GMT Jon Green
DAB? I'll just get out of my car first...
So - how many car radios handle DAB? Exactly. I'd bet that a lot of community radio's listened to in the car, but 95+% of car users don't have a DAB radio.
And that's the way it's likely to stay, for now. Few people are changing their car radios - not least because many of them these days also run the in-car displays, and users don't want to lose that. Even brand new cars don't have DAB: I just checked the Renault site, for example. Not one mention of it.You want a Ford Mondeo? DAB will be another £350. Fancy it? Me neither.
I'd love this to change. The extra range of stations is great, even if the "burbling water" in low signal areas isn't. But for the time being, the sensible place for community stations will remain the limited range of FM frequencies still being made available, and this DAB experiment is likely to remain just that - an interesting experiment.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 10:23 GMT Alan 6
Re: DAB? I'll just get out of my car first...
The bubbling mud effect is handled well in my Mini, as soon as the error rate reaches a certain level it just cuts out, but it's happening less & less as the transmitter power is being pumped up.
As for them not being supplied in cars, this is a real issue. I was at Carfest over the weekend and each car I checked had no DAB as standard, this applies across the range from Kia to Bentley (there was no Rolls stand, so I couldn't check them).
If you want one as standard it's just Mini and some Fords, the rest range from £150 to £7500 options. Yep, if you want DAB in a Bentley you have to opt for the NAIM audio pack which costs more than a new Dacia Sandero...
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 10:26 GMT Neil Barnes
Re: DAB? I'll just get out of my car first...
Which is, all in all, a ridiculous state of affairs.
DAB is/was designed for a *moving* receiver. It uses a transmission frame that can tolerate a 15% timing overlap from and adjacent transmitter on the same frequency and carrying the same programme. The intention was originally (I believe) to have a large number of low-frequency transmitters.
So we make DAB in cars effectively aftermarket only, use only the main transmitters, and complain that it doesn't work with a stationary receiver indoors...
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 10:51 GMT Yet Another Commentard
Re: DAB? I'll just get out of my car first...
I did consider getting an iPod sized one to plug into the car's audio "in" jack so I could get the cricket back while driving.
Even that is expensive - £50-£100 for one, and I don't know how good reception would be stuck in the glove box where it would live, tuned to its one lone station sipping power from the 9V socket.
There is a Pure one that rebroadcasts the Decoded DAB as FM for use in a car. How nuts is that? I need a radio to turn the radio broadcast into another radio broadcast so I can listen to it.
An aside, why have car makers dropped AM and LW from their receivers?
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Wednesday 7th August 2013 00:23 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: DAB? I'll just get out of my car first...
There is a Pure one that rebroadcasts the Decoded DAB as FM for use in a car. How nuts is that?"
I have that. Pure Highway. Sticks to the windscreen just above the dash on a bendy stalk and comes with stick on clips to route the power and aerial wires in place.
I'd intended to also connect the line out to the cars line in but the FM re-transmission works great so I never bothered with the extra wire.
Changing channels on it is more of a fiddle and I don't like to do that while driving other than using the preset buttons and I can control all the other audio from the steering wheel buttons (CD/mp3, USB stick etc). This means I use FM for most radio and just use digital for R4Extra and Planet Rock.
Also, as others have said, Ford seem to have DAB built in as standard on low-mid range cars. When mines in for a service I get a little Ford courtesy car with DAB.
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Wednesday 7th August 2013 08:58 GMT Robert E A Harvey
Re: DAB? I'll just get out of my car first...
>An aside, why have car makers dropped AM and LW from their receivers?
Because they are part of a dark and terrible conspiracy.
or
Because they can't be bothered to suppress plug leads any more
or
because they are designed by juvenile members of the pink-trouser brigade with no knowledge of the world beyond rap music and bright orange socks, and have not even heard of long wave.
or
because Blaupunkt is having a laugh at our expense selling junk to half-wit buyers in large corporations who are so far removed from the consequences of their decisions that they are quite likely to put digital Radio Mondiale in there next.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 11:01 GMT Len
Re: DAB? I'll just get out of my car first...
Quite a lot has changed in the last twelve months. DAB is now standard in all Minis, BMWs, Fords, Volvos and Audis. Most other brands have it as standard on some models and as option on others: http://www.getdigitalradio.com/digital-radios/in-car/manufacturers
Last quarter 35.4% of all new cars changing hands have a DAB radio standard and at the current rate it will be 50% by the end of the year. At the same time car sales are have increased quite a lot recently after years of slump (UK car industry raises annual sales forecast, www.ft.com/cms/s/0/14a401e4-fe6f-11e2-97dc-00144feabdc0.html) so by this time next year DAB usage in cars will look fairly different.
Of course, it will take some time before 50% of all Britain's cars have DAB but there is a fair bit of momentum, finally.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 11:24 GMT D@v3
Re: Sorry, but no.
Definitely not standard in all fords.
Very recently brought a new fiesta (zetec, so fairly high up the spec list). No DAB. USB, Bluetooth. SYNC, but no DAB.
Was an option, for several hundred more pounds.
From what i saw, none of the models, except maybe the Titanium (highest end) mondeo had DAB as standard
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 11:41 GMT Len
Re: Sorry, but no.
That's odd, Ford's announcement to add it to all models was widely publicised:
Ford to set DAB standard from 2012 (http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/ford/mondeo/34622/ford-set-dab-standard-2012)
Ford to offer DAB radios as standard by the end of 2012 (http://www.t3.com/news/ford-to-offer-dab-radios-as-standard-by-the-end-of-2012)
Ford to Standardize DAB Radios Throughout UK Product Line by Late 2012 (http://radiomagonline.com/digital_radio/ford-dab-radio-standard-uk-2012-0406/)
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 12:14 GMT D@v3
Re: Does seem odd
from this (from your first link)
"Digital radio offers more stations and improved sound quality, and is already standard on all Fords bar the Fiesta and Ka. It will be fitted to these car in the summer, and to commercial vehicles over the next 12-18 months."
Printed 2011, you would imagine that to be the case, but unless it is very, very well hidden, I can assure you it's not there. FM, and AM (I think) long wave (good enough to get test match special at least), but no DAB.
I'm actually tempted to print a few of these off and head down to my dealership and see what's going on
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 12:43 GMT Len
Re: Does seem odd
Very strange indeed. Ford's announcement was widely reported back then in a variety of media, from IT and consumer electronics to broadcast and motoring media.
I'm almost tempted to believe your local car dealer is trying to charge you for something that comes standard. They would never do that, would they?
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 21:07 GMT Len
Re: Sorry, but no.
There you go, this is for the UK. I expect them to do the same in Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and soon the Netherlands too.
A3 - http://www.audi.co.uk/new-cars/a3/new-a3/audio-and-communication/dab-digital-radio.html
A4 - http://www.audi.co.uk/new-cars/a4/a4-saloon/specifications.html
A5 - http://www.audi.co.uk/new-cars/a5/s5-coupe/specifications.html
A6 - http://www.audi.co.uk/new-cars/a6/a6-saloon/specifications/se-equipment.html
A7 - http://www.audi.co.uk/new-cars/a7/a7-sportback/specifications.html
A8 - http://www.audi.co.uk/new-cars/a8/a8/technology-as-standard/dab-digital-radio.html
Q5 - http://www.audi.co.uk/new-cars/q5/q5/specifications.html
Q7 - http://www.audi.co.uk/new-cars/q7/q7/specifications.html
Although Audi announced to have DAB standard per April on all models (http://www.dealerupdate.co.uk/dab-radio-for-all-audis/) they apparently have supply issues which delayed DAB on the A1 and Q3: http://www.a1-forum.co.uk/a1forum/viewtopic.php?t=17262&p=106732
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 10:24 GMT Tanuki
The free-radio movement would love there to be a "digital switchover" to DAB from FM - because it would then free up so much more FM bandwidth in which they can pump out their bangin' choons !
As to DAB, well recently I dug out my old DAB radio and did a "full rescan": I was surprised to see that the only COM Mux it was able to receive was still advertising a number of stations ('Chill', for example) which closed down years ago.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 10:47 GMT Neil Dawson
Chill's not dead
Chill is by no means dead. It's one of Global Radio's tiny little automated and (last time I checked) ad-free stations, a hang over from the GCap days.
It's still on DAB in London, on it's web stream and on the UK Radioplayer platform.
it has quite a following among the clubbing community (I'm told)
http://www.helpmechill.com/
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 12:10 GMT Phil O'Sophical
Re: Community radio - who needs it?
we need something like Sirius XM in USA.
Sirius XM is crap. It's like having an MP3 player with someone else's short playlists on it, and it drops out every time you go under a bridge. A tree-lined road makes it unusable. I don't even bother to turn it on when I get a US rental car these days, I just take my own USB stick with me.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 12:32 GMT Len
Re: Community radio - who needs it?
I get the feeling that most Europeans' experience is based on renting a car in the US. A rental car where you usually don't notice the cost of the receiver and the monthly subscription fees. Sirius XM is an encrypted AAC+ stream, not Free to Air, unlocked by paying a fee. I seriously doubt Europeans, used to FTA radio, would pay subscription fees to listen to Heart.
Besides, Sirius XM uses relatively low bitrates. 32 Kbps is fairly common and high bitrates such as 64 Kbps are rare. (Sirius Satellite Radio still sounds awful after all these years - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-57471903-47/sirius-satellite-radio-still-sounds-awful-after-all-these-years/) Compare that to DAB+ bitrates on the continent which are usually in the 48 - 96 Kbps AAC+ range, making DAB+ sound better than Sirius XM.
All we now need is DAB+ in the UK.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 11:48 GMT Len
Re: Embarrass the broadcasters with proper quality
A pirate could also easily decide to use DAB+. All the kit described here can be used for DAB+ (it needs to be useful for the rest of Europe too, obviously) and it is just a setting in the software.
The only thing that might hold DAB+ back for community stations (apart from the sizeable number of DAB-only radios in the UK) is that licensing fees for DAB+ haven't been paid for with an open source solution (http://www.opendigitalradio.org). As the last DAB patents have now expired, it is slightly cheaper.
Of course, a pirate wouldn't be bothered by additional licensing fees for DAB+...
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 13:16 GMT Len
Re: Chicken / egg
I'm not sure the mux owners would care that much.
The solution presented in this report to prevent having to install expensive filters is using a very low power transmitter. This solution is useful for stations that just want to cover one town. I doubt the big mux owners are interested in anything smaller than an entire county.
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Wednesday 7th August 2013 07:44 GMT Andy 97
Re: Chicken / egg
The point I was making Len is that it means a potential DAB broadcaster can now circumnavigate all th at tedious back-haul to the central mux area (forget where it is, but someone will), pay a huge sum for a 64kbps allocation and spend the rest of the time adjusting the dynamic range of the audio to compensate.
The cartel that runs a majority of these facilities counts on an ability to charge for their investment.
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Tuesday 6th August 2013 19:04 GMT Herby
Data rates...
Can (and do) vary. Anything less than the 44.1 a CD uses is losing out something. Sure there are compressors, but most (mp3) are lossy, and throw away "details" of the sound. Thankfully there are some (FLAC comes to mind) that are truly "lossless" in their operation.
If you want to see the effects of a VERY low bit rate, try the traffic channels on your handy (USA) XM radio. It is truly terrible. Sure one can understand the voice, but it has NO high end, and takes a great deal of concentration to really "comprehend" the content.
FM is a better way to do things. Simpler radios and better functionality. RDS helps in this regard. The digital junk they promote here in the USA is a joke, and many broadcasters are waiting to just get rid of it. So, I (along with others) just wish it to DIE.
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Wednesday 7th August 2013 08:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
what was the point of DAB?
I never quite understood the DAB thing. I do have a DAB radio in the kitchen which is permanently tuned to Radio 4. But it could equally be a FM radio given that it never moves and the quality is only ever as good as a small portable mono radio can give.
As for the car, there is a standard FM radio. It works fine. When I'm on long journeys, I occasionally press the auto-tune button and all is well. The quality is as good as you could expect in a car full of engine and kid noise.
I'm guessing I'm reasonably representative of a large part of the UK radio listening public and I can't see any point in DAB. Am I missing something?
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Wednesday 7th August 2013 08:09 GMT DeliberatusFreeman
matchmaking for raspberry pi's.
Interesting; I should get in contact with this bright fellow.
I have a pi here with a program in it which I wrote, which turns it into a robotic radio station. It plays the NBC tri-tone (from the 1940's) a station identification, a random commercial, and then plays a randomly selected program from a randomly selected program library. It then plays another commercial, and repeats the loop 7 more times, then does a station identification.
My pi and his pi should cross their wires together and put something interesting to put on the air, like my 230+ hours of old timer non copyrighted radio programs.