Can You Listen to Phone's Radio Through Bluetooth EarPiece

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ghostgunna@mail.tpg.com.au - 28 Apr 2006 05:44 GMT

Hi guys.

Some mobiles have a built in radio. Is it possible to listen to this
radio through a Bluetooth headset?

Thanx 4 looking.

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Kym Kim (Noturyulo) - 28 Apr 2006 05:50 GMT

> Hi guys.
>
> Some mobiles have a built in radio. Is it possible to listen to this
> radio through a Bluetooth headset?

Normally no, unfortunately.

The handset normally uses the headset cable as an antenna. Some phones won't
even activate the radio function unless something is plugged in.

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Jeremy Quirke - 28 Apr 2006 12:30 GMT

>> Hi guys.
>>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> The handset normally uses the headset cable as an antenna. Some phones
> won't even activate the radio function unless something is plugged in.

The quality wouldn't be particularly great either.

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Tony Lathouras - 29 Apr 2006 01:59 GMT

>>> Hi guys.
>>>
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> The quality wouldn't be particularly great either.

Why is that? Do you mean because of the quality of the usual bluetooth phone
headset? The reason I ask, I notice bluetooth "cordeless" headsets being
advertised lately for normal hifi/portable device etc.

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Simon Templar - 29 Apr 2006 02:38 GMT

>>>> Hi guys.
>>>>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> headset? The reason I ask, I notice bluetooth "cordeless" headsets being
> advertised lately for normal hifi/portable device etc.

There should be no problems with the Bluetooth side of things, although
if it is only the small type that hang on one ear it won't be stereo.

The problem will be with no connection like a normal wired hands-free
there is no antenna and as such the radio feature will still be disabled.

The prime reason for disabling the radio feature without a wired
hands-free (acting as an antenna) it will not receive a signal for the
FM radio and of course people would jump up and down complaining that it
doesn't work.

One possible idea would be to see if the Bluetooth will still work with
an old wired hands-free plugged in, if it does you can always cut the
ear pieces off and shorten the wires a bit. But NOT too much or the
antenna will be in effective!

--
The views I present are that of my own and NOT of any organisation I may
belong to.
http://web.acma.gov.au/pls/radcom/client_search.client_lookup?pCLIENT_NO=157452

73 de Simon, VK3XEM.

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Rod Speed - 29 Apr 2006 03:20 GMT

>>>>> Hi guys.
>>>>>
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> The problem will be with no connection like a normal wired hands-free
> there is no antenna and as such the radio feature will still be disabled.

Have fun explaining how the very small battery power FM
radios work fine without anything plugged into them at all.

> The prime reason for disabling the radio feature without a wired
> hands-free (acting as an antenna) it will not receive a signal for the FM
> radio and of course people would jump up and down complaining that it
> doesn't work.

Clearly its perfectly possible to design an FM radio that doesnt need that.

> One possible idea would be to see if the Bluetooth will still work with
> an old wired hands-free plugged in, if it does you can always cut the ear
> pieces off and shorten the wires a bit. But NOT too much or the antenna
> will be in effective!

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Simon Templar - 29 Apr 2006 07:56 GMT

>>>>>> Hi guys.
>>>>>>
[quoted text clipped - 30 lines]
>> pieces off and shorten the wires a bit. But NOT too much or the antenna
>> will be in effective!

Yes that's easy to explain also. The average pocket FM receiver have
built with a ferrite rod antenna inside which the designer of these
phones has opted not to do, possibly just to keep the size of the phone
down.

--
The views I present are that of my own and NOT of any organisation I may
belong to.
http://web.acma.gov.au/pls/radcom/client_search.client_lookup?pCLIENT_NO=157452

73 de Simon, VK3XEM.

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Rod Speed - 29 Apr 2006 08:08 GMT

>>>>>>> Hi guys.
>>>>>>>
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
>>> cut the ear pieces off and shorten the wires a bit. But NOT too
>>> much or the antenna will be in effective!

> Yes that's easy to explain also.

We'll see...

> The average pocket FM receiver have built with a ferrite rod antenna
> inside

Correct.

> which the designer of these phones has opted not to do,

You dont know that with all of them.

> possibly just to keep the size of the phone down.

Or possibly they dont all use plugged in stuff for the antenna effect.

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Jeremy Quirke - 30 Apr 2006 02:52 GMT

>>>> Hi guys.
>>>>
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> phone headset? The reason I ask, I notice bluetooth "cordeless" headsets
> being advertised lately for normal hifi/portable device etc.

Yes. Mono FM has a much wider audio bandwidth (15kHz) and decent SNR,
dependent on the input SNR of course.

The standard BT headset uses either u-law or a-law coding on a 64kbps
channel, meaning an SNR of (u=255) <40dB, bandwidth < 4kHz.

Bluetooth can also use a variable-slope delta system (CVSD) which is more
difficult to analyze, but from the bluetooth specifications:

For Bluetooth audio quality the requirements are put on the transmitter
side.
The 64 ksamples/s linear PCM input signal should have negligible
spectral

power density above 4 kHz. The power spectral density in the 4-32 kHz
band of

the decoded signal at the 64 ksample/s linear PCM output, should be more

than 20 dB below the maximum in the 0-4 kHz range.

So the bandwidth in either case is not close to FM.

The high quality headsets you are talking about (and possibly the OP) use
the A2DP profile (Advanced audio distribution profile) which allows high
quality stereo data to be transferred (they use the 'data' channel of
bluetooth, not the voice (SCO) channel) using common audio compression
techniques (in fact in addition to the bluetooth-specific SBC codec, MPEG
audio can also be used). These would indeed work with FM, but the antenna
problem remains (ferrite cores are out of the question).

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Tony Lathouras - 30 Apr 2006 08:53 GMT

> The high quality headsets you are talking about (and possibly the OP) use
> the A2DP profile (Advanced audio distribution profile) which allows high
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> audio can also be used). These would indeed work with FM, but the antenna
> problem remains (ferrite cores are out of the question).

Thanks for that... clears it up nicely..

I was just very curious about the quality of the headsets (stereo) and the
posts were not too clear as it was a cross between the attributes of
bluetooth and FM as opposed to the quality of bluetooth alone.

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