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The end of AM radio in your car?

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Re: The end of AM radio in your car?

#81

Post by freedomben »

RF_Enthusiast wrote: post #36
aidenn0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about sports broadcasts? I often listen to games in my car on AM.

As do many people. AM stations that run play-by-play sports programming do very well in the ratings, and do very well with the station's sales team.

The skill of the broadcast announcers is remarkable. They paint the scene with audio-only in an amazing way.

My father (and my grandfather before him) takes a little battery-powered AM radio with him to games (football, baseball, etc) and listen to it while watching the game live. They've even muted the TV and used TV picture with radio sound to get a better experience. That makes it easy to take naps and close your eyes without missing key parts of the game.

Re: The end of AM radio in your car?

#82

Post by freedomben »

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #25
audiofish wrote: post #20

AM radio is a pretty poor standard considering how much power and bandwidth it uses, due much to the very limited modulation technology available in the 1920s. DRM (no not that DRM--Digital Radio Mondiale) is a modern digital standard that promises much better spectral efficiency, power efficiency and range. See https://www.drm.org/ . It is similar in concept to DAB, using an OFDM carrier, but with more robust error…

Obviously you know this, but AM is absurdly easy to implement. A pencil, razor blade, some wire and an earphone is all it takes to make a crude receiver. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxhole_radio

One of the first electronics kits everybody gets is a build-your-own AM radio. It's awesome cause it's easy enough for a beginner but also does something cool.

Re: The end of AM radio in your car?

#83

Post by andirk »

uni_rule wrote: post #74
andirk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what "watch television" means these days. I don't know many people who have broadcast or cable TV.

I am still surprised how relatively few people have a set of rabbit ears wired to their "streaming" TVs for basic news or whatever in the current year considering how cheap they are.

Those ears need to be HD-capable or whatever the term is. And I need to get those HD rabbit ears so I can watch sports on broadcast tele instead of choppy rando streams.

Re: The end of AM radio in your car?

#84

Post by vikingerik »

freedomben wrote: post #81
RF_Enthusiast wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As do many people. AM stations that run play-by-play sports programming do very well in the ratings, and do very well with the station's sales team.

The skill of the broadcast announcers is remarkable. They paint the scene with audio-only in an amazing way. My father (and my grandfather before him) takes a little battery-powered AM radio with him to games (football, baseball, etc) and listen to it while watching the game live. They've even muted the TV and used TV picture with radio sound to get a better experience. That makes it easy to take naps and close your…

One thing that makes a radio-TV combination work less well nowadays is latency in the TV feed. Running 15 to 20 seconds or even more behind the radio is not uncommon with all the processing and distribution layers that go on with a modern video feed. I've heard of setups where someone plugs a radio receiver into a computer with software to buffer and apply the same delay.

Re: The end of AM radio in your car?

#85

Post by scelerat »

> Markey cited statistics from the Pew Research Center News Platform Fact Sheet from September 2022 which said 47% of Americans receive their news from the radio.

I believe that explains quite a bit. Without being snarky, AM radio is home to political opinion that is largely sympathetic to a conservative viewpoint and I suspect that is one reason that Markey wants car manufacturers to keep it (and why perhaps other lawmakers would be indifferent or even eager to see it disappear)

Not an adherent to the views commonly espoused on AM talk radio, I nevertheless see the utility for some kind of low-tech broadcast format which is easy and inexpensive to tune in and broadcast over. AM fits the bill, and has much longer range than FM

Re: The end of AM radio in your car?

#86

Post by RF_Enthusiast »

scelerat wrote: post #85

> Markey cited statistics from the Pew Research Center News Platform Fact Sheet from September 2022 which said 47% of Americans receive their news from the radio. I believe that explains quite a bit. Without being snarky, AM radio is home to political opinion that is largely sympathetic to a conservative viewpoint and I suspect that is one reason that Markey wants car manufacturers to keep it (and why perhaps other l…

One of the reasons why this story has gotten traction is because Ed Markey is considered a progressive and is a member of the Democratic Party. Generally, progressive Democrats don't have an interest in content that is sympathetic to a conservative viewpoint.

Also, to your second point, due to the size of the antennas required, AM is very expensive to broadcast over unless you're using an inefficient antenna. The shortest quarter wavelength antenna (at 1700 kHz) would be 137 feet high. An AM (medium wave) array would take up acres of land.

Re: The end of AM radio in your car?

#87

Post by RF_Enthusiast »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #50
stu2010 wrote: post #14

I haven't seen much discussion about how AM gets used for local road condition or emergency communication. When you're driving and see a sign that says "TUNE TO 1610 AM" and the car has no AM receiver, what do you do? This may be a shrinking niche, but it's potentially a last bastion of AM radio usefulness.

Tunnels near me just say "Turn on your radio" and blast the whole FM spectrum at least (might try it with AM too!). Guess you can do this in a tunnel!

Fun fact! In the US, a Tunnel Radio System may operate in any mode on any frequency provided the signal does not leak from the tunnel[1].

[1] 47 CFR 15.211 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A...>

Re: The end of AM radio in your car?

#88

Post by audiofish »

dirkf wrote: post #70
audiofish wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but the alternative here is AM which has never been good quality. DAB was a big step down from FM quality because the choice of codec / bandwidth assigned to stations was pretty bad (and bandwidth == $$!)

Are you referring to the original DAB (using MP2) or the upgraded DAB+ standard (using HE-AACv2)? I think most, if not all, stations have switched to DAB+. I'm told the quality is better than FM and based on my experience it's certainly not worse as far as I can hear. Of course, since FM is analog it degrades linearly whereas DAB+ is digital: it either works or it doesn't. This might skew the perception of quality.

You're probably right. I was put off by early DAB deployments, and haven't tried with DAB+. I would be interested to try again with the new standard.

Re: The end of AM radio in your car?

#89

Post by aidenn0 »

freedomben wrote: post #81
RF_Enthusiast wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As do many people. AM stations that run play-by-play sports programming do very well in the ratings, and do very well with the station's sales team.

The skill of the broadcast announcers is remarkable. They paint the scene with audio-only in an amazing way. My father (and my grandfather before him) takes a little battery-powered AM radio with him to games (football, baseball, etc) and listen to it while watching the game live. They've even muted the TV and used TV picture with radio sound to get a better experience. That makes it easy to take naps and close your…

Hank Azaria (played the title character on Brockman) joked a few times that baseball announcers could say whatever they wanted as long as it ended in a pitch count.

I think that adds to the effect of "being at the game" with the announcer; go to a ballgame with a friend you haven't seen in a few weeks and you'll end up talking about random stuff too.

Re: The end of AM radio in your car?

#90

Post by t-3 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #53
sempron64 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this requires to be true is that basically all Americans who are in a car weekly turn on the radio when driving, which is very believable. Some people also still have a radio in the kitchen of course.

Is it? It's been years since I, most of my family, or my coworkers have turned on the radio (for non-Bluetooth audio)...my aging FIL insisted on it during a trip back in August (to much good-natured ribbing from his kids) but that's the last time I remember.

I do. There is local news on the radio that's hard to get anywhere else (OK, it's probably also broadcast via internet somewhere, but I'd rather not go through the hassle). It's also a inoffensive way to lessen the monotony when working in jobs dealing with the public (ie, minding a shop).
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