Free Republic

On Wednesday, Norway will become the first country in the world to start shutting down its national FM radio network in favor of digital radio. Norwegians have had years to prepare, but the move is still catching many off guard. FM radio and Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) has existed side-by-side since 1995, but officials with Norway’s Ministry of Culture have decided that the time has finally come to retire the older transmission medium. The FM apocalypse starts tomorrow morning in Nordland, the country’s north. Beginning at 11:11 am local time, the FM network will be taken down in a gradual...

In just a matter of weeks, Norway will tune out FM radio for good and become the world’s first country to switch over to digital-only transmissions. Norway's government has decided that the nation’s FM airwaves will fall silent from January 11, 2017, starting in Nordland and gradually moving south. After nearly a century of the analog system, which revolutionized music listening with high-fidelity stereo sound compared to mono AM transmissions, the changeover to Digital Audio Broadcasting’s advanced version (DAB+) will render the country’s almost eight million radio sets obsolete. Although it has been in the works for years, most Norwegians...

The Fox affiliate in the Orlando area is going to do a hatchet job on general aviation airfields tonight. Their breathless, stupid lead in (done appropriately by the typical bubble-headed blonde) goes something like this: "They provide easy access for the rich and their airplanes but are Florida's small airfields attracting terrorists to launch small airplanes against commercial airlines!!!!"Calling Phil Boyer.