Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars

axios.com

19 points·thm··10 comments

AM radios ( in cars or not ) would be much more reliable than and mobile phone app OR using a PC

You don't even need electricity to listen to some AM signals. It really is essential for emergencies.

Why can't the government just use FM for emergency broadcasts?

FM is a 90-year old technology. You can't expect the government to be at the cutting edge of things.

You can build an AM radio out of 4 resistors, 3 capacitors, a couple transistors that are present in most electronics and easily cut out, and a coil of wire. If you have a crystal, you might not even need a voltage source!

I just looked it up, and there are FM circuits with similar component counts, so I guess I have no idea what I'm talking about! :)

AM signal travels much farther and you, technically, don't need local power to listen to it. In cars the latter isn't really true though. If those aspects are the concern it would seem to make more sense to give everyone one emergency set rather than require every car to implement it.

They could but AM signals have a much larger range compared to FM. FM is mostly line-of-sight - AM signals aren't because they get bounced off the upper atmosphere back to the ground.

Because AM is frustratingly simple.

The last time I heard AM radio was 25 years ago in my dads ~1990 civic hatch. The fact that some 50mm people still listen to it is mind blowing.

Couldn’t one purchase a standalone AM radio for 10 bucks these days? Not everyone has a car anyway.

... if there is no AM radio where will people tune into right-wing talk?

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