Q. Where is the fm radio ?

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Postal Psycho

Senior Member
Jan 28, 2012
305
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91402
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
And what does that have to do with anything? Not trying to be a jerk, but that is not proof, nor even hard evidence to suggest what you theorized. Nor does it disprove my theory. Unless, somewhere buried in the 1000s of posts is something convincing (and if there is, maybe next time link to that), I have to say that proves nothing.

Notice the IMO which has been edited there a few hours ago?
 

pogotv

Member
Sep 25, 2007
34
0
Sorry, I have no science to base my comments on. Just me spouting off.
Beleive me if there's a way I would be the first to try it.
I can and do appreciate and respect all developers on this Site
;)
 

cajunflavoredbob

Senior Member
May 1, 2010
9,938
6,465
Your Basement
And what does that have to do with anything? Not trying to be a jerk, but that is not proof, nor even hard evidence to suggest what you theorized. Nor does it disprove my theory. Unless, somewhere buried in the 1000s of posts is something convincing (and if there is, maybe next time link to that), I have to say that proves nothing.

To clear the air here, the FM radio is built into the SoC. Our hardware is identical to the international model in that respect. The FM radio is either grounded out or disconnected on most US models of smartphones. Considering the very minor cost in enabling the SoC for FM tuning (generally <2¢ per unit), the logical conclusion is that the carriers are holding the US FM market ransom for monetization. This opinion is further confirmed based on Sprint Wireless' decision to begin including an FM radio app in the future with their smartphones. The plan from them is to monetize the service by adding features within the app to allow users to purchase songs that they're listening to. The previously linked post to mikereidis' thread is a great one with a good bit of information on the subject.

Granted that the monetization claims are all speculative and slightly bias at present, the evidence to support the claim is growing. For further examples of the US carriers squeezing more money out of US subscribers than anywhere else, one only needs look at the rest of the world's cellular carriers for example.

As for my claim of the FM radio being built into the SoC, but not connected, please refer to the Exynos 4 (4112) documentation. More simply, without going through the trouble of looking it up, just notice that the international model uses the same SoC as our model, and it has FM radio support.
 

daveid

Senior Member
Jan 5, 2009
1,891
356
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
To clear the air here, the FM radio is built into the SoC. Our hardware is identical to the international model in that respect. The FM radio is either grounded out or disconnected on most US models of smartphones. Considering the very minor cost in enabling the SoC for FM tuning (generally <2¢ per unit), the logical conclusion is that the carriers are holding the US FM market ransom for monetization. This opinion is further confirmed based on Sprint Wireless' decision to begin including an FM radio app in the future with their smartphones. The plan from them is to monetize the service by adding features within the app to allow users to purchase songs that they're listening to. The previously linked post to mikereidis' thread is a great one with a good bit of information on the subject.

Granted that the monetization claims are all speculative and slightly bias at present, the evidence to support the claim is growing. For further examples of the US carriers squeezing more money out of US subscribers than anywhere else, one only needs look at the rest of the world's cellular carriers for example.

As for my claim of the FM radio being built into the SoC, but not connected, please refer to the Exynos 4 (4112) documentation. More simply, without going through the trouble of looking it up, just notice that the international model uses the same SoC as our model, and it has FM radio support.

Thank you for providing some key details. I am used to older phones where the fm was separate from the SOC. And, was not aware of the integration. The conclusions are logical, though the evidence is lacking. It would be nice to know if this is similar to the lte support on our model, or if it is physically disabled.
 

cajunflavoredbob

Senior Member
May 1, 2010
9,938
6,465
Your Basement
Thank you for providing some key details. I am used to older phones where the fm was separate from the SOC. And, was not aware of the integration. The conclusions are logical, though the evidence is lacking. It would be nice to know if this is similar to the lte support on our model, or if it is physically disabled.
LTE is on a separate chip. Exynos 4 does not have support for LTE, so it isn't included in some models, like the international version.
 

GN2Rabbit

Senior Member
Dec 19, 2012
87
16
I have talked with samsung about this issue. They said that our phones have the hardware but not the software/firmware to utilize it. Also originally tmobile advertised the fm radio on their website. But according to samsung it's carrier disabled

Sent from my SGH-T889
 

andslide

Senior Member
Nov 6, 2010
117
10
Well then lets find the trigger and activate this b*tch

Sent from my Galaxy Note 2 on XDA
 

h3ck

Senior Member
Oct 7, 2007
471
127
Otizzle
I don't want to be the party pooper here, but I just want to make sure you guys understand that the problem is hardware related, not software related.

Going along with this, just because the hardware is present, doesn't mean there is an absolute way of utilizing it. Case and point is the undetermined issues with wireless charging (there is still speculation on whether or not the hardware or software is to blame for the wireless charging mod not working on some models).

If the components are there and grounded or disconnected, no amount of software will change that. Unless there is an official statement from the carrier(s) or Samsung, I wouldn't hold my breathe.
 

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    Doesn't the international version have fm radio? Although I have to confess... never got spirit fm radio to work on this phone. Worked fine on my G2. I just can't understand why tmobile would leave it out when some of the other models have it. Maybe to sell more data plans, huh? ;)

    You are going to hell for turning your back on htc. Lol jk i expected htc droid dna or htc butterfly on your list. But right now i believe note2 is the best.
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    Wikipedia says they didn't include the FM tuner with our version of the phone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Note_2 . The N7100 version has the tuner. Like the other poster above, I'd love to be wrong but I think that if the phone had an FM tuner it would have been found by now.
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    I don't want to be the party pooper here, but I just want to make sure you guys understand that the problem is hardware related, not software related.