Radio Stations

One of the less known facts about the game is that it has its own Radio System with more than 10 radio stations to choose from. Majority of the players don't know about it, therefore they keep listening to the same, default radio station all the time. All of the stations have fully licensed songs, although some of the tracks are Nadeo Originals.

To access the hidden radio wheel, the player has to press "[", "R" and "Q" simultaneously. This is one of the main reasons such a small portion of community know about the feature.

Below is the list of all the radio stations with their descriptions:


 * The Classic FM

The Classic FM is the default option in the game. It contains original Nadeo songs, such as "Pulp remix", "Start Off remix" or "Tictac remix" - commonly know as the "Sumo Song". These songs give off a happy but technical vibe, often blending features of other genres such as Acid, House or Ambient.


 * Five-0 FM

Five-0 FM is dedicated mostly to the 1990's underground Horrorcore Rap era. It combines big variety of the classic "Gangster" rap classics. With artists from both East and West coast, together with few South, Memphis based ones the station allows players to fully experience the tough and often dangerous times of 90's America. Biggest names featured in the radio are Three 6 Mafia, Mobb Deep, Eazy-E or Blackout.


 * DramaBase 20.0 FM

DramaBase is one of the most popular radio stations out of these. Mostly because of it's fast-paced and hypnotizing Drum&Bass records which succesfully allow player to fully immerse himself in the high speed gameplay, DramaBase finds the biggest audacity in the FullSpeed community, along with Technical. The station does contain a lot of early UK DNB/Jungle songs (like Photek's "Infinity") along with some newer tracks from around the world.


 * 66.6 FM

Easily the most controversial radio in the game - partly due to it's name which by the cristian part of the community was called 'Satanic'. Music-wise we can mostly hear new wave of Drift Phonk, popular especially amongst the Russian and Brazilian players. Due to it's usage of loops and popular hooks from the 90's rap, as well as the famous Cowbell from the Boss DR-660 drum machine, 66.6 FM has plenty of haters among the Five-0 radio fans.


 * WildPhrase FM

WildPhrase FM distinguishes itself from other stations by mainly hosting podcasts. With the average podcast episode taking from 1 to 2 hours, the radio has its biggest group of fans in the Trial community where driving for half of the daytime is the standard. We can hear various real-life podcasts - such as popular Joe Rogan's Experience or The Ben Shapiro Show - as well as Nadeo's trackmania oriented one - "Life of 'Mania" which they are still hosting to this day every thursday at 8PM.

WildPhrase once emitted a special 10 hour episode of Nadeo's "Life of 'Mania" as a celebration of $$t^3$$.Mike_446's release of his 100th trial map named "Everything at Scotland", on which they discussed every single one of his maps.


 * Agony 99.0 FM

Agony is the more Atmospheric and Serious radio station. Having a great selection of Dark Shoegaze, Norvegian Black Metal and Ambient classics, it received massive critical acclaim from various music experts in the game. Due to the songs being very touching, a lot of players tend to listen to the station's spotify playlist while they are outside of the game, for example while driving, cleaning the house or just contemplating.

Because of the station's melancholic and almost depressing nature, most of the Nascar style enthusiasts turn on Agony FM, as its very corresponding to the style's never-ending and tiring vibe.


 * Pop FM

Pop FM is nothing more than what you expect. Just a typical radio with currently popular songs from around the world. With their choice of tracks from artists such as PitBull, David Guetta, Marshmello and many more, it never fails to attract a lot of listeners. One of the biggest features of the radio is that they change the songlist entirely every month, which makes the radio never boring. Pop FM is also the only radio on which players can advertise their Manialinks.


 * The Tribe 25.45 FM

The Tribe is another very popular radio. This one concentrate mainly on newer wave of Hip-Hop, Rap, Drill and Trap. Pop Smoke, A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti or Bones are few of the names that can be heard on the radio. A big feature of the station is the fact that it's hosted by Aristos Petrou and Scott Arceneaux, widely known as ''' $uicideBoy$. ''' With them announcing the hottest releases from the recent weeks, The Tribe reaches a really big portion of Trackmania Community - especially the younger generation who often spread the freshly released songs on their social media such as Tik-Tok or FaceBook.

Functionality
Even though it might seem absurd that there were radio stations in a game made in 2006, it couldn't have been achieved without a radio antenna, which the player received with their copy of the game.

Before talking about the antenna, here's some context so you understand:

Transmitter
The Trasmitter is one of the two most important things that makes radio stations function in the first place. It is an electornic device which creates electric oscillations of high frequency, changes these oscillations by either amplifying or modulating them with a useful information signal, and transmits them using a Transmitter Antenna, using either of these two modulation types:


 * 1) Amplitude Modulation (AM)
 * 2) Frequency Modulation (FM)

Amplitude Modulation (AM)
Amplitude Modulation, or AM for short, is a modulation process in which the amplitude of the carrier signal changes, whereby the change is proportional to the modulating signal while the frequency remains constant.

This modulated signal is transmitted through some sort of media to a receiver.

The pros of an AM signal is that it can transmit radio waves in a large radius, which makes it possible for someone to listen to a radio station whilst being hundreds of kilometers away from the actual tower.

The cons of the AM signal is that it is only MONO, meaning it can only transmit one channel (Left or Right)

Frequency Modulation (FM)
FM is a type of modulation where the carrier frequency changes proportionally to the useful modulation signal. The amplitude remains constant in this case.

Signal Path
To make it simple, the signal path from the source to a receiver can be split into these key things:


 * Sound source (Microphone, CD Player, Computer, Magnetophone, etc.)
 * Mixer
 * Stereo Coder
 * Link
 * Main Receiver
 * Receiving Antenna
 * Radio Reciever

By law, high-power transmitters may not be located in residential areas, and there are requirements for the installation of antenna poles, so transmitters are often located in suburbs or outside cities, due to the side effects that the radio waves can have on humans. (Skin cancer, blindness, loss of limbs).

The pros of this form of modulation is that it can transmit STEREO, so both the LEFT and RIGHT channels, which makes for a much cleaner and crispier sound.

The cons of this form of modulation is that the range is not as big as the AM modulation.

Receiver
A radio Receiver is what any person who actively listens to the radio should use to listen to their favorite radio stations.

This device is fairly complicated, but by the most important thing is the antenna on top of the device, which receives the radio signals from the transmitter, and plays them back via the dedicated speaker thats on the actual radio device.

Stereo Coder
The stereo coder is a device which "codes" the signal that the Transmitter emits.

This device allows compatibility with stereo and mono receivers.

Practically, before the signals pass through the transmitter in the classic Stereo format - the LEFT and RIGHT channels - the Stereo Coder "codes" the signal in two channels, but in the form of LEFT + RIGHT, and LEFT - RIGHT.

When the signal reaches a mono receiver, the device takes only the first channel, in this case L+R, and on a MONO device, we hear a full MONO signal.

On the other hand, Stereo receivers have something called a "DECODER", which takes both of these signals, and decodes them in a way where it takes a sum of the sent channels to the FIRST CHANNEL.

So:


 * (L+R)+(L-R) = L+R+L-R = 2L (which means that there is only a left channel, which we would need in this case)

and for the second channel, it takes their DIFFERENCE;


 * (L+R)-(L-R) = L+R-L+R = 2R (so only the right channel, which we would need in this case)