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House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

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Re: House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

#31

Post by TeMPOraL »

tcmart14 wrote: post #20

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.

Well, it's good to have that alternative when your modern emergency broadcast app refuses to work because your year-old phone is no longer supported by the vendor, and fails the remote device attestation check needed by the ad platform that's used to monetize the app. Not that having a newer phone would do you any good, as the app login servers on the other side of the planet are no longer reachable.

Seriously though, AM radio is a very good compromise: it has the best set of features for emergency use, and none of the commercial lock-in and ad cancer bullshit that's consuming modern technology.

Re: House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

#32

Post by krapp »

superkuh wrote: post #23
brewdad wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

They're referring to the recent decision which reversed the Chevron doctrine, which allowed courts to defer to the interpretation of ambiguous regulations by regulatory agencies. The most common interpretation of this decision is that it has the effect of nullifying the ability of regulatory agencies to regulate, and removes the bulk of their former role to Congress.

Here is a lengthy HN thread about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40820949

Re: House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

#33

Post by freedomben »

superkuh wrote: post #21
cogman10 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 list…

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.

AM waves can also penetrate and pass through objects a lot better thanks to those lower frequencies.

Driving at night in the intercity mountain-west US, you can pick up radio stations quite far away. Not too long ago outside of Boise I was able to pick up some AM stations from Cleveland!

Re: House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

#34

Post by tzs »

superkuh wrote: post #8
snakeyjake wrote: post #7

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…

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.

> The amount of interference on the low frequency bands that some electrical cars produce prevents reception of AM. And that was already very illegal.

Is it illegal if it doesn't interfere with communications outside the car?

Re: House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

#36

Post by RF_Enthusiast »

cogman10 wrote: post #13
nis0s wrote: post #10

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…

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 list…

A scenario where FM broadcasting is somehow unavailable, but AM is available, is not an event; it’s geography. There are vast stretches of highway in the U.S. that lack FM service, but you usually can receive groundwave AM service. At night, skywave AM service is accessible.

Re: House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

#37

Post by RF_Enthusiast »

gaudat wrote: post #14

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.

Shortwave doesn’t work well as a mobile, moving medium. It is weak-signal reception (by design) and is likely to be compromised every time your car turns in a different direction.

Re: House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

#38

Post by RF_Enthusiast »

lupusreal wrote: post #19

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…

If the real motivation for people wanting AM radio gone is due to conservative talk, people are likely overestimating the ratings these stations bring in. It’s the exception, rather than the rule, for one of these stations to perform well. Most conservative talk stations barely attract local advertising, except in a few limited categories like “guns.” I know of more conservative talk stations that are struggling to stay afloat than those that are not.

Re: House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

#39

Post by patrakov »

misswaterfairy wrote: post #26
cogman10 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 list…

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 ca…

I don't buy this "narrowcast mediums like mobile phones" argument. Please watch any video of any Debconf 24 session. You'll hear how the mobile phones of all participants at the same time start reading emergency alerts (about the heat waves) aloud. So the mobile phone network was, in fact, designed with a broadcast use case in mind, and this gets regularly tested and does not overload the network.

I do agree that AM radio receivers are cheap to build and not a burden to require.

Re: House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

#40

Post by Vecr »

howard941 wrote: post #27
7e wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This only works if the AM antenna is protected, inside the Faraday cage, next to the radio. Otherwise you're left with a fried front end.

Unless there's some really fast surge protection, and then a temporary disconnect for the later, longer pulses.
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