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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

#4
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.

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

#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 their submerged or destroyed car to listen to the radio.

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

#8

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.

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

#9

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…

If they actually cared about public safety, they would pursue legislation to require analog controls & eliminate touchscreens in vehicles.

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

#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 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.

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