[HN Gopher] House committee approves bill requiring new cars to ...
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House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio
Author : eklitzke
Score : 31 points
Date : 2024-09-19 21:29 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| _S.1669 - AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2023_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41585397
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| I used to have a car with a broken AM radio and it was really
| annoying and sometimes stressful because all the traffic alerts
| were broadcast on an AM station
| superkuh wrote:
| As a happy side effect they will actually have to address the
| incredible amount of low frequency near-field electromagnetic
| interference that electrical cars typically generate. The reason
| manufacturers stopped putting AM radio in cars is that the cars
| themselves are so electrically noisy the entire AM band is washed
| out with static.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| The public safety argument is bullshit.
|
| If lawmakers ACTUALLY cared about public safety, they would fund
| the distribution of hand-cranked AM radios that could be stored
| in emergency kits.
|
| This is just legislation purchased, incredibly cheaply, by
| iHeartMedia, Audacy, and the like cloaked in the delusion that
| people who failed to evacuate before a hurricane when all other
| infrastructure was operational will go out to their submerged or
| destroyed car to listen to the radio.
| superkuh wrote:
| Yes. It should be the FCC enforcing their regulatory duties
| against specific car models not the house legislating in
| general. The amount of interference on the low frequency bands
| that some electrical cars produce prevents reception of AM. And
| that was _already_ very illegal. You can 't do that but car
| manufacturers were/are too big to care. The public safety
| aspect of it is entirely secondary.
| brewdad wrote:
| Didn't the Supreme Court basically say recently that the FCC
| and similar Executive Branch groups _can 't_ enforce such
| rules? They must come from the Legislature to have any hope
| of surviving review.
| cogman10 wrote:
| The way the ruling was made, it will be a case by case
| basis. If a republican FCC does it, that will be fine and
| normal but if a democrat does it, it's out of the
| legislative authority.
|
| Either way, the 5th circuit will stop the rules from going
| into effect.
| superkuh wrote:
| If the FCC can't enforce the prevention of interference
| with radio broadcasts it is not the FCC. I'm not sure what
| ruling you're referencing but I doubt it nulls out the core
| idea of what the FCC does.
| rychco wrote:
| If they actually cared about public safety, they would pursue
| legislation to require analog controls & eliminate touchscreens
| in vehicles.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| I'm not buying your argument. I doubt you can devise and pass
| legislation that'll cause more people to have emergency kits
| with hand cranked AM radios than cars, even if you distributed
| them for free, and there are scenarios that require emergency
| communication that don't involve all cars being destroyed.
|
| That said I'm not saying that the public safety argument is
| genuine, but you can't just propose something else that you
| prefer to discredit it.
| nis0s wrote:
| I am unconvinced that requiring AM radio in new cars is just "fan
| service" or outdated.
|
| Emergency scenarios often require a PSA (public service
| announcement), and it's easy enough to envision a scenario where
| communications degrade in succession, such that you can get a PSA
| on how to use AM transmissions in case other communications go
| down. So if other networks are degraded, then at least people
| have AM to fall back on.
|
| This house bill may sound like a bad idea to anyone who doesn't
| work in disaster preparedness, or doesn't have a paranoid
| security mindset, but it totally makes sense for someone who red
| teams emergency comms.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Especially since the tech is already there, and everywhere.
| It's madness to lose a capability so easily kept.
| cogman10 wrote:
| This doesn't convince me.
|
| For starters, FM broadcasting is hardly more complex than AM
| broadcasting and any vehicle built in the last 50 years with an
| AM radio also has an FM radio.
|
| I can't imagine a scenario where FM broadcasting is somehow
| unavailable, but AM is. But further, if AM is the last line of
| communication, we are in a VERY bad situation indeed, like
| apocalyptic. One in which I doubt any survivors are listening
| to the radio in their cars.
|
| But even further, in an emergency, it's highly likely that car
| drivers aren't even listening to the radio. Like, unless it's
| something that everyone is made aware of with communications
| other than through AM radio. But if those lines are open, then
| why wouldn't communication be broadcast through those lines?
|
| You may as well argue that we should make sure all homes have
| land lines or telegraph lines. After all, that's also a line of
| communication that could be used in an emergency.
| superkuh wrote:
| FM radio is line of sight because of it's high frequency.
| Because of AM's much longer wavelength it can bounce off the
| ionosphere and it drops off slower with distance than FM. The
| range of AM stations is much greater than a comparable FM
| station for a given height-above-terrain of the antenna.
| 7e wrote:
| AM transmissions have a far greater range than FM
| transmissions, up to thousands of miles. This matters in a
| common emergency scenario, a nuclear bomb blast (or all out
| nuclear war), when EMPs will take out most electronics. Cars
| are Faraday cages and their electronics will likely survive
| an EMP. In this case, an AM radio in a car is likely the last
| surviving broadcast medium people will have access to.
| hyrix wrote:
| FM radio bands are in fact used for various emergency
| services, but they are more specialized in usage
| https://strykerradios.com/ham-radios/ham-radio-emergency-
| fre...
|
| AM radio travels farther for the same energy consumption, as
| a feature of the lower frequencies used. That means they can
| provide emergency information to a much larger area for a
| given power supply. AM radio also doesn't rely on huge towers
| since the waves can bounce off the ionosphere and travel as
| ground waves.
|
| AM radio receivers are also very simple to make--check out
| the crystal radio!
| misswaterfairy wrote:
| They might not be listening to AM radio all the time, but
| it's often used as an emergency broadcast frequency in
| Australia, and not for apocalyptic reasons though it could
| be.
|
| AM travels a lot further than FM, all other things being
| equal, and the local frequency is signposted on road signs
| around the country.
|
| The big three typical emergency broadcasts down under include
| wildfire (which have, and do kill motorists caught in them),
| flood, and cyclone.
|
| The problem with 'narrowcast' mediums like mobile phones
| (inc. SMS), and landline phones, is that mass emergency
| alerts can overload those networks which can delay the
| message getting out, and it takes time to contact each
| endpoint in the alert area. The message they get is also
| likely to be short.
|
| AM broadcast is immensely useful for non-overloadable
| continual updates on an emergency (or several emergencies at
| once). Though like narrowcast mediums, broadcast mediums also
| have disadvantages.
|
| AM is used as part of a wider solution. Sometimes the only
| way to get an alert to people is via AM radio. It's much
| easier to mandate AM radio in vehicles, and never need it,
| than to allow manufacturers to drop it because 'reasons' and
| then discover we suddenly can't warn some members of the
| community because they relied on AM broadcasting (even if
| they didn't know it at the time).
| gaudat wrote:
| A part of me really wants to push this and see how far it would
| go. Why stop at AM? Add in shortwave radio and let us listen to
| stations on the other side of the earth.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| Why not we just have a system like the beacons of Gondor?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| This was passed 45-2, from a committee with 29 Republicans and 23
| Democrats, so it's interesting to see a bunch of comments here
| acting like this is just a Republican thing.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I understand car manufacturers want to ditch AM radios to reduce
| their part count, or so they can cheap out and use noisier
| electronics in the rest of the car, or whatever.
|
| What I find a bit odder is the vehemence with which some online
| commenters also want them gone. I don't use either radio in my
| car, but their presence doesn't get me hot under my collar
| either. People say AM radio is useless and obsolete, but the same
| could probably be said for FM too, since everybody pairs their
| phones for music anyway. Why does AM have a target painted on it
| when nobody online seems to have an axe to grind with the equally
| useless FM radio? Is it just because there are a lot of
| conservative talk shows on AM? Is that the angle here? The bill
| to keep AM radios evidently has bipartisan support in Congress,
| and yet for some reason these discussions usually have people
| complaining about Republicans.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| Due to safety concerns and the ability to get the message out,
| every home, building, bridge, mountain top, or structure must
| maintain a a pile of logs on top and a flame at the ready in the
| event of a national emergency so that way word or warning may be
| spread like beacons of Gondor.
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