[HN Gopher] Congress wants AM radio in all new cars - trade grou...
___________________________________________________________________
Congress wants AM radio in all new cars - trade groups say that's a
mistake
Author : jackalo
Score : 62 points
Date : 2023-05-23 15:25 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| elromulous wrote:
| While it's true AM radio is very easy receive, I imagine it's a
| much less effective use of bandwidth compared to the amount of
| information (the shannon kind) modern digital communication can
| cram on there, no?
|
| Wouldn't it be better to repurpose those frequencies for country
| wide digital broadcast that could also send other data during
| emergency situations?
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| [dead]
| riskable wrote:
| AM radio's band isn't suitable for modern high-speed
| communications. The most you can extract out of it is ~1200
| bps:
|
| https://www.diffen.com/difference/AM_vs_FM
|
| Even if you multiplexed all possible amplitudes into one it
| still wouldn't be worth it for (two-way) digital
| communications.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| That seems unintuitive given that we had 56K modems running
| over telephone systems also designed to carry human-audible
| audio.
| icehawk wrote:
| The SNR from an AM radio station at about ~30mi is 13dB and
| if you plug that into the Shannon capacity calculation for
| regular 15kHz AM radio (not HD AM) you get about 57kBps at
| ~100mi, that drops to 4kB/sec.
|
| 56K modems also had the advantage that the noise floor for
| the downstream direction was much lower than the upstream
| direction.
| ianburrell wrote:
| The radio bands are small. Each AM HD station uses 30 kHz
| which gives 40-60 kbit. That isn't enough for full fidelity
| music. And that is using more than one frequency since
| analog AM is 10kHz stations.
|
| AM band uses a large frequency range, 530-1700 kHz, but the
| total bandwidth is small, slightly more than 1MHz.
|
| Telephone is bad compared to AM and really bad compared to
| FM or CDs. Human voice fits in much smaller bandwidth than
| music.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| > Each AM HD station uses 30 kHz which gives 40-60 kbit.
| That isn't enough for full fidelity music
|
| That's part and parcel of station management's
| programming decisions for HD Radio subchannels on the AM
| band, hence the focus on ''talk''.
| poo-yie wrote:
| One is going over the air and the other was going over
| copper lines. I don't know if that makes a huge difference,
| but I suspect it makes some difference (especially in
| inclement weather).
| MrRadar wrote:
| Indeed. The US "HD Radio" system has AM support in addition
| to FM and on AM it can broadcast up to 60 kbps (though most
| stations chose a 40 kbps mode with additional error
| correction to improve reception)[1]. Digital Radio Mondiale
| [2] (with the unfortunate acronym DRM) is another competing
| digital system system that can be used in the AM and
| shortwave broadcast bands, supports similar bitrates.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio#AM
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Radio_Mondiale
| jalk wrote:
| I guess that figure is set by some ancient standard for
| transmitting bits semi reliable on AM, which doesn't employ
| the same encoding tricks that modems did. POTS lines had a
| max baud rate of 2400, and the higher speeds were
| accomplished by encoding more bits pr baud. Parts of the
| modem noises was to establish which encoding scheme to
| uses, based on capabilities of the two devices and the line
| quality. AM broadscasting can't really make such
| handshakes, so my guess is that 1200 bps was some lowest
| common denominator.
|
| edit: wasn't too clear that I meant to say that the 1200
| bps must be from an old standard
| sgwizdak wrote:
| There are areas in the US that do not have cell/data coverage
| where important road information updates (think mountain pass
| conditions) are broadcast over AM radio.
| paulddraper wrote:
| > (think mountain pass conditions) are broadcast over AM radio
|
| This isn't the scientific theory, but I drive the mountains a
| lot and AM consistently dies much sooner than FM.
|
| Can't explain it, but 100% true.
|
| EDIT: I live in Salt Like City area and drive through the
| Wasatch Range on a near weekly basis. # of receivable AM
| stations goes to zero nearly immediately.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| AM can be untrustworthy in mountains too. Many factors play
| in such as how the landscape is actually laid out, the make-
| up of the rock in the mountain. How signals bounce off the
| rock, etc. It for sure isn't fool proof. I wouldn't think
| that much better than AM unless your close to the tower. AM's
| big advantage is being able to travel farther on less power,
| but the low frequencies don't have good penetration power.
| This is why the Navy uses radios that runs on 900+ MHz for
| shipboard radio, 900 MHz (UHF range) has less distance, but
| better penetrating power through steel decks. Compared to
| frequencies that AM operates (HF range). Then there are
| atmospheric conditions and the cycle of the sun. At a solar
| maximum sure, but at a solar minimum, probably not.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Day time vs night time? In the evening while camping in
| Canada's north in flat or mountainous terrain I've sat beside
| a fire with a portable radio and tuned to certain high power
| U.S. stations on the AM radio band. The locals will tell you
| it is not uncommon. As for reception in a moving vehicle in
| the daytime, any number of fields or other conditions may be
| causing the dropouts but in general AM radio propagates
| vastly farther than FM for a given Effective Radiated Power
| range specified in the station's license.
| hguant wrote:
| Generally AM is used in mountainous areas because it's MUCH
| cheaper than FM, and those areas don't have the population
| density to make FM stations viable.
|
| It's also used for natural parks, and anywhere you might need
| updated, local, information, again, because it's so cheap and
| because receiving is so easy.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Vast areas of the Americas are barren of any FM radio reception
| but receive AM well. The manufacturers that want to drop AM
| radio seem to find that fact inconvenient.
| MrRadar wrote:
| I would like to see this, and I would also like to see an
| expansion of the FM band (with support for it in cars also
| mandated). Low-VHF TV channels 4-6 are adjacent to the existing
| FM band and are not really suitable for digital TV broadcasting
| due to the type of noise they experience (there are very few TV
| channels which still use those frequencies, and the most of the
| ones that did post-digital transision used channel 6 to broadcast
| as pseudo-radio stations since most FM radios could receive the
| analog audio of channel 6). That's 18 MHz of spectrum which would
| nearly double the size of the FM broadcast band which is getting
| quite croweded in many markets with the FCC allowing AM stations
| to broadcast low-power FM translators to try to help their market
| share.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| The iBiquity IBOC system (a.k.a. HD Radio) now owned by DTS, as
| implemented in the North American FM radio band, features
| multiplexing of 2 or 3 subchannels per station across the
| existing band, so expanding the FM radio band has already been
| made a non-starter or moot point.
| MrRadar wrote:
| The sound quality of "HD Radio" sucks. It's like listening to
| 96 kbps MP3s off Napster back in the day. Also, cheap FM
| radios still don't support it because 1) it's a US-specific
| technology and 2) iBiquity charges (charged?) obscene
| licensing fees for it. Doing a quick search on Amazon, the
| cheapest "HD" radios are around $75 vs $10 for the cheapest
| analog-only models.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| I'm not sure how that relates to the issue of AM radio
| being dropped by car manufacters, but IMHO the U.S. ''not
| invented here'' syndrome seemed to give iBiquity too much
| of a head start over the more open global digital radio
| formats, so I agree with your points.
| thrillgore wrote:
| [flagged]
| m348e912 wrote:
| It's a bad take to factor in "content" into your opinion on the
| "medium". Talk radio has been moving to FM for some time, and
| there is plenty of AM/FM simulcast stations as well as
| additional programming made available via HD Radio. Suppose for
| a moment that AM was primarily driven by NPR type programming,
| would you still feel the same way?
| taylodl wrote:
| So you're hunkered down in your home's tornado safe spot. How's
| the AM radio in your car going to provide you updates? It's not.
|
| That's why you should have an emergency radio. They even make
| models that are hand-cranked so that you don't even need power.
| They also have flashlights and distress signals.
|
| There's no need for Congress to stick their noses into matters
| they obviously haven't thought through.
| ars wrote:
| It's you that has not thought things through.
|
| Without AM radios in cars there will be no AM stations left,
| they'll shut down.
|
| Your hand cranked radio won't do you much good.
| taylodl wrote:
| Apparently you don't know the USDOT runs an AM station called
| the Highway Advisory Radio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tra
| velers'_information_station...
|
| There's nothing special about AM radio from a sending
| information to the populace perspective. If people are only
| listening to AM radio during emergencies then according to
| your thinking those same stations would be shut down.
|
| No, let's cut through the BS. This is about a GOP-led
| Congress legislating the ability for their constituents to
| continue being able to listen to conservative talk radio and
| trying to, not so cleverly, frame it as assisting people
| during an emergency.
|
| It should be easy to see it doesn't add up.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| > If people are only listening to AM radio during
| emergencies then according to your thinking those same
| stations would be shut down.
|
| What? Sports radio is still very popular. I catch the
| baseball game that way sometimes.
| ars wrote:
| Because presumably there would never be talk radio on FM,
| oh no, definitely not.
|
| > This is about a GOP-led
|
| Yes, a GOD-led bipartisan thing.
|
| Dude, you see conspiracy theories where there are none.
| taylodl wrote:
| I should have also pointed out that NOAA operates the
| National Weather Radio and operate more than 1,000
| transmitters in the U.S. and U.S. territories that
| continually provide weather updates and forecasts for your
| area.
|
| That hand-cranked radio? It receives NOAA weather
| broadcasts.
|
| Once again I say this GOP-led Congress is engaging in
| sleight of hand to maintain a market for conservative AM
| talk radio.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| So artificial market creation by Government mandate?
| KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
| The BOM for a an AM radio is a few dollars only, what's the point
| of even lobbying? An antenna coaxial and a superheterodyne
| circuit on the main radio baseband (modern cars all come with a
| cellular connection) is all you need. You barely need any new
| parts, the existing components can be modified to support the
| feature.
| vvoid wrote:
| It's not to trim the BOM, it's because electric vehicles emit
| copious amounts of interference. It is easier to drop AM radio
| than suppress the RFI.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/10/business/media/am-radio-c...
|
| Technical point, you generally would not be able to recover an
| AM broadcast signal from a cellular baseband. You might be able
| to get it from a direct sampling receiver (some RTL-SDRs can do
| this), but it implies additional band filters and of course an
| antenna.
| K0balt wrote:
| While it is true that there are other modes of emergency
| communications, AM radio relies on nearly zero infrastructure
| integrity.
|
| As long as a broadcast station has diesel or batteries and hasn't
| burned to the ground, it can continue to deliver urgent and life
| saving information to millions of people over hundreds of
| kilometers, despite the complete failure of all other
| intermediary infrastructure.
|
| An high quality AM radio costs about 25 cents to integrate into
| existing infotainment systems, plus the cost of the coax and
| antenna. Realistically speaking, we are talking about less than 5
| dollars in additional expense at scale.
|
| That's cheap for a communication system that is extremely robust
| in the face of the worst possible types of disasters and
| emergencies.
|
| Cell phone and data networks are fragile by comparison and
| subject to congestion and other issues. An AM radio in every
| cellphone would be a software-only fix, as long as you used the
| headphone or charging cable as an antenna lead.
|
| Software defined radio means just about any modern
| microcontroller can act as a radio receiver over a broad spectrum
| of wavelengths for Pennie's in additional components.
|
| This is about capture of the infotainment environment in
| vehicles, not the one to five dollars needed to include AM
| broadcast technology.
| throw0101b wrote:
| See also previous discussion, "Ford to drop AM radio in new
| models, except commercial vehicles":
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35416627
| gumby wrote:
| If there were a crisis I'm not sure it would occur to me to try
| AM radio, or any radio, nor would I know _where_ to tune (I guess
| I could search).
|
| Back in the '89 Bay Area earthquake I did think of this, and the
| FM stations were broadcasting the emergency signal and told me
| where to tune to. But back then tape or radio was generally the
| choice anyway. I haven't listened to broadcast radio in 20 years.
| mountainofdeath wrote:
| I mean, AM radio is basically dead (as is FM radio). Most of the
| stations are foreign language, talk-shows and and in at least one
| case in the USA, overt foreign propaganda by an unfriendly
| nation. I imagine the radio spectrum can be repurposed for better
| uses.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Really? Here in Germany there are a ton of stations left that
| send over radio.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I listen to AM radio every day along with very large numbers of
| other people. It's far from dead, at least in my part of the
| US.
| jmclnx wrote:
| >I mean, AM radio is basically dead
|
| Not where I am, yes some stations have the crazies on them. But
| the small City where I live has an AM Station. At least daily,
| it interviews a local politicians. All other stations focus on
| the politicians in the nearby State Capital or National
| Politics.
|
| It also plays a bit of middle, right and left wing shows along
| with music from the 50s. And on weekend evenings it plays old
| serials from the 20s--40s.
|
| So it is rather unique and gets decent ratings due to its
| programming.
| idontpost wrote:
| > AM radio is basically dead (as is FM radio)
|
| This is pretty out of touch. Drive-time AM radio is still a
| HUGE market in certain places. Think Rush Limbaugh et al.
| Although, that might be what you mean by "overt foreign
| propaganda by an unfriendly nation", the fact remains that it's
| 1) hugely popular by the numbers, and 2) directly beneficial to
| the certain congressional vermin.
| poo-yie wrote:
| Rush Limbaugh is basically dead.
| aspectmin wrote:
| One might suspect that this is the real reason they are
| pushing it?
| KerrAvon wrote:
| It seems to be bipartisan, so no.
| i2cmaster wrote:
| I still use mine.
|
| There are a lot of safety/whether/info stations run by the
| government. I don't carry a smartphone so that can be really
| valuable.
| indymike wrote:
| > talk-shows
|
| This is what the whole thing is about.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| Sports radio is still very popular, and exists mainly on AM
| radio.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This seems like a strange hill for automotive manufacturers to
| take a stand on: I can't imagine that the bill of materials for
| the AM radio is anything but tiny.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Originally it was a diode, a coil and a speaker. They're more
| complicated these days. But yes the attraction was simplicity.
| KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
| If you want a challenge, implement a superheterodyne signal
| processing stack in GNUradio or python.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Consider how this will silence Conservative talk radio and it
| might then make sense.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The co-sponser of the bill interviewed for the article is a
| Democrat, so this doesn't seem politically motivated.
| mindslight wrote:
| If you're referring to the far right rabble rousing, that's
| also on FM these days. It doesn't really make sense to refer
| to a movement trying to tear down US institutions as
| "conservative".
| gwill wrote:
| to the best of my knowledge, the issue is EVs emitting
| frequencies that interfere with AM radio, so instead of adding
| shielding or figuring out how to retain the integrity of the AM
| signal, they've opted to just remove the antennae all together.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Seems odd to let businesses and manufacturers determine their
| own pricing incentives to you?
| topspin wrote:
| This is _not_ about the BOM for AM radio components. It 's
| about sidestepping the R&D costs and BOM costs of the stuff
| needed to keep electric motors, switching power supplies, etc.
| in new electric vehicle products from murdering the low end of
| the radio frequency spectrum.
| bcrl wrote:
| The radio costs very little, but the antenna needed for AM has
| to be much larger than for FM to get similar performance. I can
| imagine that auto manufacturers would love to get rid of the
| cost of installing the antenna by only supporting Bluetooth.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| AM radio antennae of the ferrite coil or rod variety are tiny
| and have been in widespread use for over a century.
|
| http://www.hard-core-
| dx.com/nordicdx/antenna/loop/amloop.htm...
|
| If locating it within the electric vehicle's superstructure
| is not suitable to the manufacturer it is not difficult to
| put one in a stubby sharkfin roof mounting as is done with
| GPS, mobile phone, and satellite radio antennae.
| MrRadar wrote:
| I believe the issue is more that the increasing amount of EM
| noise in the AM band from electric auto components
| (particularly EV power inverters) means they would have to
| invest more engineering in to filtering that noise out.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Good. With a fairly modest amateur radio setup I can pick up
| electric and hybrid cars moving around half a kilometer away,
| without really trying.
| woodruffw wrote:
| That's helpful context, thank you!
| jhoechtl wrote:
| That's the reason, yes. That makes cars mote expensive.
|
| On the other side there are levels for unwanted radio
| emissions, how do the cars pass them? How do cheap cell phone
| chargers pass them? Or is nobody looking at this?
| ke88y wrote:
| _> On the other side there are levels for unwanted radio
| emissions, how do the cars pass them? How do cheap cell
| phone chargers pass them? Or is nobody looking at this?_
|
| Regulators do pay attention to automotive components. I'm
| sure some of the cheap chargers don't bother with FCC
| Certification Testing.
|
| The TL;DR is that unintentional and even intentional
| radiation must remain under certain field strength and/or
| power limits. That's why you're allowed to use those little
| aux-to-FM radio dongles to transmit on licensed spectrum,
| for example.
|
| A "useful lie" explanation of the rules goes something
| like: "If the interference generated by the car stays
| within a very small radius (say, the car itself, or less
| than a few meters around the car) then the FCC doesn't
| care."
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| > How do cheap cell phone chargers pass them? Or is nobody
| looking at this?
|
| You will build a prototype with all the filters and let it
| pass EMI tests in national laboratory. Then you will start
| supplying consumers with much cheaper electronics but in
| same package like your expensive prototype. Who is going to
| look into ultrasound welded plastic box? Nobody.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Compliance can be easy if you're designing a form of
| Faraday cage. Just make sure the car captures enough of the
| noise within its frame and you've got a pretty good start.
| Your car will comply with most (far from all) EM
| regulations as long as it doesn't disturb things outside
| the car.
|
| The AM radio exists within the car. It probably even exists
| within the parts of the car that normally just get a metal
| box around it to shield the components. It's also very
| sensitive by its nature.
|
| It's hardly an impossible feat, but car manufacturers will
| save every penny they can. Pretending to be "on your side"
| against the damn oppressive government forcing them to
| build provisions for areas without cell reception will
| probably also score some points with the public which
| mostly lives in areas where you don't need AM radio for
| important information.
| ke88y wrote:
| _> Compliance can be easy if you 're designing a form of
| Faraday cage. Just make sure the car captures enough of
| the noise within its frame and you've got a pretty good
| start. Your car will comply with most (far from all) EM
| regulations as long as it doesn't disturb things outside
| the car._
|
| This complies with existing regulations. The proposed
| regulations state the AM radio needs to work from within
| the car. So this wouldn't be sufficient according to the
| proposed rules.
|
| _> It 's hardly an impossible feat, but car
| manufacturers will save every penny they can._
|
| Good? I don't want to pay a tax on every new car purchase
| in order to subsidize owners of AM spectrum and their
| rapidly dwindling customer base.
| throw0101b wrote:
| > [...] _means they would have to invest more engineering in
| to filtering that noise out._
|
| Wouldn't this mostly be a one-time charge, and then just
| cookie-cutter the solution going forward?
|
| (I say this as someone living in Toronto, Canada, where we
| have streetcars/trams with overhead wires, which play havoc
| with (AM) radio when they go by.)
| JohnFen wrote:
| > means they would have to invest more engineering in to
| filtering that noise out.
|
| Maybe they could take some of the money they're wasting
| making horrible things like touchscreen controls and use that
| to do some useful engineering instead.
| jalk wrote:
| And here I was, thinking they all did touchscreens because
| they were way cheaper and can easily work across different
| car models
| JohnFen wrote:
| Yes, I should have said "actually useful to the
| customers".
| mrguyorama wrote:
| What are the customers going to do, buy someone else's
| car that also has a terrible touch screen from the same
| manufacturer?
|
| American businesses are hell bent of ignoring anything
| but the dollar sign at the bottom of the balance sheet,
| and since they all use the exact same value and
| prioritization system, they can all do the exact same
| thing without technically colluding, preventing any
| consumer from ever doing the free market thing and buying
| something better.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > What are the customers going to do, buy someone else's
| car that also has a terrible touch screen from the same
| manufacturer?
|
| Well, what I do (not only because of this, but those
| touch screens certainly contribute) is to not buy new
| cars.
| jalk wrote:
| I'm with you on that
| paiute wrote:
| You can't sell AM radio subscriptions, I would imagine the
| demographic that listens to AM would likely pay for something
| in its place.
| explaininjs wrote:
| Personally, I'd never buy a car without AM radio. It's often the
| only signal available when out in the wilderness, and even within
| civilization it's the only readily accessible chunk of the EM
| spectrum that seems to still allow free speech. (edit: would love
| to hear people's experience with CB/shortwave/ham/etc radio)
|
| I don't know that we need legislation guaranteeing it, but I'd
| hope the invisible hand of the market sides with me anyways.
|
| That said I don't see myself getting a new car regardless, at
| least not one made after the law requiring a television screen in
| your field of view while operating multi ton machinery at 60+ mph
| was put in place.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| > It's often the only signal available when out in the
| wilderness
|
| I've found satellite / XM radio to be far more reliable when
| driving in remote mountainous parts of the Sierras.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I'm wondering where you are that there is free speech on AM
| radio. Stations have licenses granted by the government, and
| stations get fined if they broadcast anything untoward. Any
| sort of wired communication has freer speech than that.
| jcalvinowens wrote:
| I was going to ask the same thing... it's hard to understand
| that viewpoint, in my mind broadcast radio is one of the
| least free forms of speech that exists. Most of us would get
| fined for broadcasting a typical lunch conversation.
| explaininjs wrote:
| I was specifically comparing it to other forms of broadcast
| em radiation, obviously an E2E encrypted signal
| conversation will allow you to say more, but both the
| audience and stage are far smaller.
|
| Specifically, in the "wild west" hours (10-6) many AM
| stations will open up the phone lines to start an open
| dialogue with anyone who cares to join in, regarding just
| about anything they care to discuss. The types of people
| that call in and the topics they bring up are often very
| different from what you encounter online, and certainly
| miles away from what you'll see on network television or
| any other form of mass media.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Probably relevant to this opinion is that AM radio is a
| cesspool of blatant conservative lies and rage bait. It's
| what the angriest folks on the right pay attention to.
| That's why it's "Free speech" despite being the single most
| regulated form of communication.
|
| No other form of "speech" needs a license, yet they think
| it's the free-ist there is.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Funny how you sound exactly like a former right wing
| talk-radio fan neighbor I had.
|
| The only change would be in the dog-whistle words he
| would use and the media.
|
| Change AM radio for Hollywood, right for left,
| conservative for woke and you both are basically the
| same.
| explaininjs wrote:
| Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.
|
| > AM radio is a cesspool of blatant conservative lies and
| rage bait
|
| That exists to be sure, but it most certainly does not
| describe the entire spectrum across the entire country.
|
| > It's what the angriest folks on the right pay attention
| to.
|
| Some might, but there's plenty online who are much
| angrier. Do we condemn the whole internet as well?
|
| > That's why it's "Free speech" despite being the single
| most regulated form of communication.
|
| I can think of many more regulated forms of
| communication, for instance any S1 filing. The only thing
| you can't say on the radio during wild west hours is
| overtly sexual content.
|
| > No other form of "speech" needs a license
|
| Plenty of other areas need a license, for instance the
| entire rest of the electromagnetic spectrum, barring a
| few small holdouts.
|
| > yet they think it's the free-ist there is.
|
| It certainly provides the most-channel hours during which
| the microphone is open to the most people to be broadcast
| to the most listeners. I openly admit other forms of
| communication allow for more types of content, but none
| so freely-accessible to both listeners and speakers.
| explaininjs wrote:
| USA. Regarding the government, from 10pm to 6am the only
| thing prohibited is "Obscene content", which is that which
| "appeals to an average person's prurient interest; depicts or
| describes sexual conduct in a "patently offensive" way; and,
| taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political
| or scientific value".
|
| I haven't yet found myself in want of that sort of material.
|
| At least not in audio-only form...
|
| https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/obscene-indecent-and-
| pr...
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Personally I'd buy whatever car I want and add a radio if I
| cared that much. I'm not so single issue I would force a
| limitation on myself like that. But then having grown up in the
| USA from the 70s to now I love cars way more than I love AM
| radio.
| explaininjs wrote:
| Most new cars are so tightly integrated to make replacing the
| radio a non-option, at least not economically while
| preserving the same ease of use.
| callalex wrote:
| But they all finally have AUX inputs so you can plug in any
| portable radio you like.
| kawfey wrote:
| I would buy a car without an AM radio. In fact I'd buy one
| without FM or AM. I always use my phone (or ham/cb radio) for
| audio entertainment, and never do i ever turn on the actual
| radio.
|
| that said, a crank AM/FM radio lives in the trunk with my other
| emergency/contingency stuff (first aid, jumper cables,
| fixaflat, reflective thingies, etc)
| jmclnx wrote:
| >Unlike radio alerts, they can also contain an embedded hyperlink
| to guide the recipient to helpful information within seconds of
| receiving the alert; given that 85% of Americans with a cell
| phone own a smartphone
|
| Really stupid quote, who paid for the article. If an emergency,
| people may need to travel in their auto. Am I suppose to play
| with my Cell Phone while driving ?
|
| Also if a weather issue will Cell Towers work ? How will your
| Cell Battery get charged. Real dumb thinking. AM Radio signals
| can be heard many hundreds of miles, some even a thousand miles.
|
| So yes, to me AM is a must for dire emergencies.
| cssanchez wrote:
| Your comment is so true it hurts. I'm a puerto rican who lived
| through Hurricane Maria in the island in 2017. The hurricane
| took out our entire power grid and multiple cell towers for
| months. After the hurricane the only form of communication in
| my area was a single radio station and my family could only
| listen using car radios. Cell service took months to restore in
| my area. I just remember hearing that lonely radio host's voice
| every day for over a week with devastation in his voice as he
| shared the news coming in of the disaster.
|
| For us, the hurricane was literally an apocalyptic event and I
| can't imagine trying to keep my sanity if we didn't have radios
| or any communication. I can't imagine anywhere in the US going
| through that either.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| As a fellow Puerto Rican who also endured this,
| wholeheartedly agree
|
| In a total disaster, the only thing barely working is AM
| radio. I remember even during the hurricane listening to the
| only radio station available in AM. Their broadcast room was
| flooding, they were running on a generator and they were
| still broadcasting and reporting what was going on.
|
| Thinking about it today, listening to that radio station was
| terrifying. I remember they were taking calls from people
| almost about to drown from flooding, clamoring for any sort
| of emergency response... which was unlikely to arrive. It was
| an apocalyptic moment.
| badRNG wrote:
| There are alerts that I'd like to receive on my cellphone, but
| where I live I will be spammed with persistent, loud alerts
| that genuinely are disruptive to my life. Constant amber alerts
| for places hundreds of miles away. The last message I received
| was an all out manhunt looking for someone who had shot a cop
| over 150miles away on the other side of my metropolitan area.
| After that I turned off emergency alerts completely. They
| bothered 7 million people with that alert alone.
|
| If my phone only told me of tornado warnings, hurricane
| warnings, evacuation orders, etc I'd leave it on all the time.
| I'd like to know these things, but I can't have both knowledge
| of these alerts and sanity due to local government's
| irresistible appetite for bothering me every time something
| barely news worthy happens.
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| I also like the implication that 15% of Americans without
| smartphones are just unworthy of continuing to live in disaster
| situations.
| deprecative wrote:
| Maybe it's harsh but if you can't be bothered to get
| equipment necessary for survival why should anyone else care?
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| What I'd like to see is a polling effort to see what
| percent of people have and know how to use their AM radio,
| vs percent with smart phones.
|
| A quick google suggests 87% of the world's population has a
| smart phone. Less than that percent of people own a car
| (cause kids dont have cars, maybe access to a car is
| sufficient?)
|
| Of course all this also comes down to resiliency and the
| better question of "Why not both?" -- a quick search on
| alibaba suggests you can get an AM radio for about $2, I
| doubt it adds more than $2 to a car manufacturer's cost
| (fully loaded with engineers parts distribution etc)
| e28eta wrote:
| Other articles on this topic I've read mention EMI being
| a problem, and so I suspect it's more than $2. For
| example, from the Verge in March:
|
| > Ford was joined by BMW, Mazda, Polestar, Rivian, Tesla,
| Volkswagen, and Volvo in staking out the position that AM
| radio is incompatible with EVs, citing electromagnetic
| interference from the powertrain. Indeed, Tesla made this
| same argument when it removed AM radio from its vehicles
| back in 2018.
|
| > According to a Vice article from 2016, the problem is
| when the interference gets picked up by the radio:
|
| >> EVs are powered by a rechargeable battery, electric
| motor, and a frequency converter that controls how much
| power the car's electrical motors put out by turning
| voltage on and off thousands of times a second, basically
| chopping up energy. This process causes electromagnetic
| interference that gets picked up by the radio.
|
| I'm in favor of AM radios in cars
| bombcar wrote:
| If you've ever had to try to explain something to someone
| on how to use a smartphone in a rush, it can be
| absolutely painful.
|
| Whereas in an emergency situation the cop can lean in the
| window, turn the car radio on to the correct AM
| frequency, and tell the driver to listen for updates.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| The smartphone is a government spy device so its not
| surprising they want to make more reasons to get one.
| theodric wrote:
| Because you can't fucking afford it. Not everybody makes 7
| figures.
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| Smartphones are certainly not "necessary for survival" by
| any means.
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| If you need someone to explain to you why you should care
| about other human beings, you might be the problem.
| gopher_space wrote:
| The people who live in areas prone to natural disaster all own
| portable radios specifically because other forms of getting
| info are unreliable. Your edge cases aren't something that
| needs to be addressed because the people involved have already
| addressed them without resorting to "autos".
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Indeed. An AM radio for emergencies should be part of your
| emergency kit, not your car. If you can't use your car
| because there's no fuel, but you need to move, say evacuate,
| that AM radio in your car is no longer useful for getting
| info.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| Unrelated but I wish electric automakers used the electromagnetic
| interference of their motors as an engine noise, since after
| watching some videos of Teslas picked up on the AM frequency it's
| quite a nice sound
| jhoechtl wrote:
| Bad idea as long as a massive engine sound is kinda cool.
|
| I am a short wave enthusiast and EV electromagnetic noise is
| bad.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| I mean I don't imagine it would be modifying the motor itself
| to be throwing off anymore radiation than usual, rather
| capturing the noise already being produced and sending to a
| speaker in the cabin somewhere
| JohnFen wrote:
| Only if there's an off switch. I certainly wouldn't want
| that sort of noise. Ideally, I'd hear no noise whatsoever
| from the car when I'm inside of it.
| thewebcount wrote:
| I have no preference either way to keep or get rid of AM radio,
| but I have to wonder, do people under 30 even know what AM radio
| is or how to tune into it? Just like with manual transmissions
| and cursive writing, it's probably something they've never had
| any need to do. Does it help in an emergency if you not only
| don't know _how_ to do it, but also don 't know _to_ do it. I was
| born in the 70s and listened to plenty of AM radio, but for the
| last 30+ years AM radio has basically meant "low quality far
| right talk and religious programming maybe with some country
| music on the side." I haven't even thought of turning on AM radio
| in literally decades.
| alocasia-1 wrote:
| I often see signs instructing to tune to whatever AM for
| weather info, so I don't think it's that far fetched. Kids
| learning to read ask questions about stuff they see.
|
| And FWIW, I was in line for a drive thru PCR covid test in late
| 2020 at a fair ground and they were broadcasting the
| instructions on an AM station, informing us by sign to tune in.
| [deleted]
| nkotov wrote:
| I turned on AM during a cross country road trip. It was fun
| exploring for an hour before switching back to bluetooth.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| In my state (Washington) we have signs over most of the coastal
| highways and mountain passes saying "tune to XXXX AM when
| lights are flashing". So I am certain under 30's in Washington
| State know this.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I think they should enable AM radio when the car is parked. If
| the electric motor isn't running, the interference shouln't be an
| issue.
| topspin wrote:
| Unfortunately that's not the case. There are other devices
| (heaters, AC, etc.) that need power at different voltages than
| the primary battery, so there are switching converters. Some of
| those are rather noisy. One of the many youtube hams that also
| happens to have a Leaf points out that despite applying
| comprehensive body grounds, line chokes and other measures a
| Nissan Leaf's AC will zero out most of the HF bands when he is
| operating mobile.
| salad-tycoon wrote:
| Question to the knowledgeable group here, is AM radio frequency
| useful for anything else? Would terminating commercial radios
| benefit any other industry?
| formvoltron wrote:
| AM radio is low frequency radio, right? Good for long distance
| but you can't pack too many bits into it.
|
| Perfect for finding lost objects / dogs / cats. Weather
| announcements.
|
| What else??
| creeble wrote:
| Not good for finding lost dogs / cats unless hey carry a very
| large battery and antenna.
|
| Good for long distance, but only with a band-matching antenna
| (and plenty of power) at the transmitting end.
|
| But fantastic at reaching multiple simple receivers
| simultaneously over a very wide area with voice-quality
| transmission when you do.
| bradfa wrote:
| I believe AM commercial radio broadcasts in the USA are
| medium frequency, not low frequency. My AM radio tuner on my
| desk goes from 530 to 1700 kHz.
|
| Making good antennas for this frequency range generally
| requires rather physically large antennas as the wavelength
| is quite large, so finding objects is not really a good use
| of these frequencies.
| [deleted]
| throw0101b wrote:
| See previous discussion:
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35416627
|
| Bad weather, traffic, mountain passes, etc.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > is AM radio frequency useful for anything else?
|
| Emergency broadcasts.
| ewgoforth wrote:
| You do see signs saying tune in to XXXX Hz to hear
| information about road construction, air port traffic, etc.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Pretty soon this will be...install our app to access the
| latest road/construction information...
| massysett wrote:
| And do you actually do this? Whenever I do, the station
| isn't working.
| ars wrote:
| I do it all the time, never once had a station that
| didn't work.
|
| Usually it's just a a couple boring boring words on a
| loop.
| r00fus wrote:
| My 2017 Ford defaults to turning on the radio by default at
| around 30s after you start driving unless you've opted for
| another form of audio (like CarPlay which it supports).
|
| Given the various different balance levels of spoken vs. music
| vs. ads, this has scared the bajeezus out of me several times and
| I am considering just unplugging the damn thing.
|
| Not all UX is as bad as that, but I'd rather just not have the
| radio in my future car.
|
| Also anything co-sponsored by Josh Gottheimer (a notoriously
| corrupt congresscritter) has me doubtful to start.
| nkotov wrote:
| Had a similar issue with a RAM 1500 - even if you have the
| source set to aux or BT, it defaults when turned on to FM
| radio. Always at full blast too and takes a couple of seconds
| to respond before you can switch source.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| That's the worst, when it turns on instantly but doesn't
| respond to PHYSICAL VOLUME KNOBS for several seconds. My
| mother's Rav4 did this.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| That's because they are software knobs. Do you think
| they're still potentiometers in the analogue speaker
| circuit?
| anoonmoose wrote:
| I don't really wanna get into a political flamewar but I think
| for a person to be accurately called "notoriously corrupt" I
| should pretty easily be able to find...I dunno, at least an
| accusation of corruption somewhere, if not some actual
| punishments for actual corruption. This dude's Wikipedia
| article doesn't even have a "controversy" section...hell, I
| tried searching his name plus the word "corrupt" and still
| couldn't find anything that justified that. Just one breathless
| opinion piece from Jonathan Chait about how people voting for
| Gottheimer would be better served by the opposite party.
|
| fwiw, I had never heard of him before I looked him up. If I had
| to guess I'd say your label was based on some combo of
| political donations received and political positions taken but
| that seems like standard to below average corruption for
| Congress to me lol.
| m348e912 wrote:
| I have never heard of him as well.
| Supermancho wrote:
| I found reports, easily. Google: josh gottheimer bribes
|
| What on earth did you search for that you turned up nothing?
|
| https://theridgewoodblog.net/representative-josh-
| gottheimer-...
| anoonmoose wrote:
| Did you, though? Is that a report? Or, is it a press
| release, written pseudonymously, on a local blog no one has
| ever heard of, that only quotes one of Gottheimer's
| political opponents, who is accusing him of doing something
| that is extremely common? Note that last part- even if I
| took every word of that as gospel truth (which I have no
| reason to do), what is "notoriously corrupt" about doing
| something that I think we all think most of Congress is
| doing?
|
| I searched..."Josh Gottheimer corrupt". And that certainly
| didn't come up. But again...that's not a very convincing
| link. It's literally just his opponent saying "he's
| corrupt".
| r00fus wrote:
| Gottheimer is a creature of the swamp - someone who
| doesn't attend town halls, who avoids any challenging
| press engagements, and basically sells his vote to
| corporate $$.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| ...and? You just described several hundred members of
| Congress. There's nothing notorious about any of that.
| It's swamp-standard.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Actually he just described thousands of memebers of
| congress in any country that has one. Corruption is the
| most globalized thing you can imagine.
| rideontime wrote:
| Honest question: is he your "congresscritter"?
| logdap wrote:
| [dead]
| aquanext wrote:
| AM radio is a tried and true technology. It's super simple. I
| think at the very least they should come to a compromise in which
| certain emergency frequencies are available/accessible in all
| cars.
| Accujack wrote:
| They should expand the use of the AM band to include low speed
| digital transmissions, and make it a standard for data
| interchange between vehicles and for warning of road
| conditions, local alerts, accidents, etc.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| In Japan, GPS head units in cars receive such data over FM
| radio.[1] Nowadays your phone usually provides a data
| connection to the head unit, but it's still nice to have this
| official information provided.
|
| [1]https://www.vics.or.jp/en/start/indicate/index.html
| devonbleak wrote:
| So people without cars are supposed to do what?
|
| Fast forward to the first emergency that actually needs this and
| you're gonna see a bunch of asphyxiation deaths from people
| running their cars in the garage to listen to the last AM radio
| they have.
|
| If they really want to keep AM radio viable start a public
| awareness campaign about its importance and make radios available
| for free.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I'm fully on board with keeping AM radio around. I think it's
| immensely valuable. But considering that the FCC has already
| eliminated a number of very valuable things through frequency
| deallocation, I think we need to face up to the real
| possibility that AM radio is next in line for the chopping
| block. It's a real shame, but here we are.
|
| I advise people to get a shortwave receiver. They're
| inexpensive, and are actually even better in emergency
| situations.
| poo-yie wrote:
| Agreed! It reminds me of the days when we had POTS for
| telephone service. It was great to have when there was an
| extended power outage.
| poo-yie wrote:
| It is possible to have an AM radio that's not inside a car!
| Many homes have portable radios that are battery operated.
| Especially in areas that are prone to very severe weather.
| babypuncher wrote:
| The problem is there are parts of the US where cell signals
| and FM cannot reach but AM comes through just fine.
| Particularly mountainous regions, where weather and safety
| reports are important. Telling people driving around these
| areas to keep a second radio running in their car seems kind
| of stupid when the functionality can be included in the head
| unit for pennies.
|
| Preserving AM radio is important for a few reasons that go
| beyond cars. AM broadcasts have exceptionally long range with
| relatively little power. Transmitters and recievers are among
| the easiest circuits to build completely from scratch, as
| there is no arcane or proprietary knowledge needed to decode
| the signal. For these reasons, maintaining AM radio
| infrastructure is an important insurance policy in case of
| natural disasters or other major public safety events, even
| if it is something 99.99% of people will not interact with on
| a daily basis.
| MrRadar wrote:
| > Fast forward to the first emergency that actually needs this
| and you're gonna see a bunch of asphyxiation deaths from people
| running their cars in the garage to listen to the last AM radio
| they have.
|
| In almost every car you can run the radio off just the battery
| without the engine and most people have at least one radio in
| their home besides their car. (If you don't have one, you
| really should and they're only $10 on Amazon.)
|
| > If they really want to keep AM radio viable start a public
| awareness campaign about its importance and make radios
| available for free.
|
| Public awareness campaigns won't pay the bills for radio
| stations. This is about ensuring there is enough of a market
| for AM radio stations (since most radio listening _is_ done in
| the car these days) that they can sustain themselves from ad
| sales so they can fulfill their public service function in the
| event of an emergency without (direct) government subsidies to
| keep the lights on.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| So creating a completely artificial market via forced
| Government regulation?
| paulddraper wrote:
| Usually people not in cars have other convenient sources of
| information. (Portable radio, TV, public transit announcements,
| etc)
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| You can purchase a small AM radio that takes AA batteries,
| available on Amazon. Prices are in the $10 - $20 range.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Goodes-Transistor-Headphone-Reception...
| senko wrote:
| Meanwhile in Europe: https://www.worlddab.org/dab/emergency-
| warning
|
| Oh, and also
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/security-and-em...
| for good measure (unrelated).
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| I also don't listen to FM much anymore, but it may be worth
| recalling: in the States they still rely on sending little
| pieces of paper around for many payments, so there's probably a
| similar analogue fetish occurring in this instance.
|
| Anyone know which channels the Chinese send their emergency
| alerts over?
| WalterBright wrote:
| When I was a kid I made an AM radio simply by connecting a 3 foot
| wire to the phono input to the amplifier.
| poo-yie wrote:
| You're probably also the kind of guy who writes his own C++
| compiler!! ;)
| cf100clunk wrote:
| I had a crystal radio set. It had the one crystal, one long
| wire, one ferrite core to loop the end of the wire around for
| tuning, one small speaker, and one wire for grounding. No
| electricity required.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio
| imbusy111 wrote:
| But they would be cool to kill off FM radio?
|
| I assume AM broadcasts can cover significantly larger areas than
| FM.
| MrRadar wrote:
| > I assume AM broadcasts can cover significantly larger areas
| than FM.
|
| Yes, depending on the broadcast power AM radio signals can be
| picked up from farther away than FM. At night, depending on
| atmospheric conditions, AM signals can be received from
| hundreds of miles away. For example, see the daytime [1] and
| nighttime [2] coverage of WCCO-AM (a 50 kW clear-channel AM
| station) compared to the coverage of KSTP-FM (a 95 kW FM
| station) [3]. As you can see, the AM station can broadcast
| beyond the horizon (well beyond at night) while the FM station,
| even with twice the power, can't match even the daytime signal
| of the AM station.
|
| [1] https://i.imgur.com/uSi2Hx7.png
|
| [2] https://i.imgur.com/AJiXEVB.png
|
| [3] https://i.imgur.com/aL2HqsT.png
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| For terrestrial stations, yes, but how does it compare to
| satellite broadcast?
|
| I had a prof back in the 20th century who claimed that FM
| stations in the States were fairly localised due to market
| (serving local ads) forces; that Japan had a different
| economic model for radio; and that if the US had chosen to
| adopt the JP style, it would only take something like 3
| broadcast (from orbit?) cells to cover the continental 48.
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