Dropped radio phone calls

newcavanman

As someone who is on the road for work, I listen to the radio a lot, particularly talk radio. Over the last few years a lot of the phone line interviews appear to be done over Zoom or something similar. The failure rate on these calls seems to be horrendous, resulting in trying to reconnect via an old fashioned phone line if possible.

Two things, do other listeners find this incredibly frustrating and knowing this why do radio stations persist in using this system?

Antenna

this has been brought up a good few times here in the past few years:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058181931/dropped-calls-on-radio-talk-shows

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058159804/dropped-calls/

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057316668/rte-1-and-telephone-lines

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058010498/we-seem-to-be-having-trouble-with-that-phone-line/

+ probably other threads too

L1011

Mobiles sound **** awful on phone hybrids, and drop really easily due to interference. Older phone hybrids - and 'older' can mean kit still on the market - detect some of the noise on mobile calls as a sign that the line is gone.

Use of Zoom and similar is because mobiles sound awful. Its also why stations often look for whatsapp messages - one directional but broadcast quality.

Ger Roe

This has been a bug bear of mine for several years now, particularly with Morning Ireland. I text in a complaint most times when they drop an interview or have to take an unscheduled ad break to call the person back on the landline that they should have used in the first place, or when we have to suffer through bad quality audio .... or random dropouts. Tech issues are acceptable if the source is from the war front in Ukraine, less so if it is a contributor zapping in from home on a laptop that they only use to browse Facebook on.

Unfortunately, the tech, particularly over internet, is not reliable enough for live broadcast when you do not have direct control of what equipment and software your called party is using. No one should be put on air unless they have, and know how to set up, a good quality mic and headset and have reliable hardware and up to date software. It is not just a radio issue either, we all have HD TV's now and increasingly chat shows or news reports include content live from someones kitchen table, in visual quality that is worse than a 1970's NTSC conversion to PAL.

I would like to see some stats for how robust and reliable the cell network is for call handling and quality - if it sounds crap and drops out for general customers, then the radio stations are also going to get caught out. The options for using landlines on radio now are far fewer than they used to be and will be gone completely when VOIP overtakes the legacy PSTN platform.

I still have a landline at home, it is always there, especially in power cuts and emergency situations when the mobile network becomes overloaded. The landline has stood up when internet and cell networks have failed - as it was designed to do. It is a good zombie apocalypse prep measure, but it is going to be taken away soon (see 'copper switch off' link below) , so I will have to resort to short wave radio broadcasts when the world ends.

If you need me, give me a shout on 6280Khz.... 😁

https://www.comreg.ie/industry/electronic-communications/migration-from-legacy-infrastructure/