An inexorable trend over the last decade or more has been the displacement of AM radio stations from the low and high frequency bands. The bandwidth and thus the sound quality of these frequencies puts them at a disadvantage compared to FM and Internet streaming services, and the advantage of HF over long distances is reduced by easy online access to foreign content. The world has largely shifted from these technologies since the early 20th century, leaving them with increasingly niche services.
Fortunately for medium and long wave enthusiasts, there is a solution for their decline in the form of DRM or Digital Radio Mondiale, a digital circuit that provides clearer sound and a range of other services in the same space as the standard AM channel size. DRM receivers are a bit rare and usually not cheap, so news about DRM receiver for Android application from Starwaves it’s really very interesting.
DRM uses a licensed coding scheme from the Fraunhofer Institute, and this product is followed by a line of hardware DRM receivers that Starwave has developed using their technology. It uses the Android device as an interface for each of a number of SDR receivers, including the popular RTL-SDR series. It supports the VHF version of DRM, although we assume that since the best chance of finding a DRM channel to experiment with is HF, an HF-modified RTL-SDR will be needed. We think this is an interesting development, because the growth of DRM is a situation with chickens and eggs, where there must be enough receivers in the wild for TV operators to consider it viable.