Congress wants AM radio in all new cars – trade groups say that’s a mistake
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Really stupid quote, who paid for the article. If an emergency, people may need to travel in their auto. Am I suppose to play with my Cell Phone while driving ?
Also if a weather issue will Cell Towers work ? How will your Cell Battery get charged. Real dumb thinking. AM Radio signals can be heard many hundreds of miles, some even a thousand miles.
So yes, to me AM is a must for dire emergencies.
For us, the hurricane was literally an apocalyptic event and I can’t imagine trying to keep my sanity if we didn’t have radios or any communication. I can’t imagine anywhere in the US going through that either.
In a total disaster, the only thing barely working is AM radio. I remember even during the hurricane listening to the only radio station available in AM. Their broadcast room was flooding, they were running on a generator and they were still broadcasting and reporting what was going on.
Thinking about it today, listening to that radio station was terrifying. I remember they were taking calls from people almost about to drown from flooding, clamoring for any sort of emergency response… which was unlikely to arrive. It was an apocalyptic moment.
A quick google suggests 87% of the world's population has a smart phone. Less than that percent of people own a car (cause kids dont have cars, maybe access to a car is sufficient?)
Of course all this also comes down to resiliency and the better question of "Why not both?" -- a quick search on alibaba suggests you can get an AM radio for about $2, I doubt it adds more than $2 to a car manufacturer's cost (fully loaded with engineers parts distribution etc)
> Ford was joined by BMW, Mazda, Polestar, Rivian, Tesla, Volkswagen, and Volvo in staking out the position that AM radio is incompatible with EVs, citing electromagnetic interference from the powertrain. Indeed, Tesla made this same argument when it removed AM radio from its vehicles back in 2018.
> According to a Vice article from 2016, the problem is when the interference gets picked up by the radio:
>> EVs are powered by a rechargeable battery, electric motor, and a frequency converter that controls how much power the car’s electrical motors put out by turning voltage on and off thousands of times a second, basically chopping up energy. This process causes electromagnetic interference that gets picked up by the radio.
I’m in favor of AM radios in cars
What is needed is simply using quality metal cans, shielded cables, metal braided tape etc.
The problem is not the tech. It's cost savings.
Whereas in an emergency situation the cop can lean in the window, turn the car radio on to the correct AM frequency, and tell the driver to listen for updates.
If my phone only told me of tornado warnings, hurricane warnings, evacuation orders, etc I'd leave it on all the time. I'd like to know these things, but I can't have both knowledge of these alerts and sanity due to local government's irresistible appetite for bothering me every time something barely news worthy happens.
I agree with this specific part, but you haven't explained why you think it needs to be built into your car instead of just having a standalone radio that you can carry with you.
The financial incentive just isn't there given that people will be using Spotify, Youtube, Netflix, etc.
I do get DX stations from the US due to ionospheric prop, but this would be useless in a life-or-limb situation, or if there was EMP.
As long as a broadcast station has diesel or batteries and hasn’t burned to the ground, it can continue to deliver urgent and life saving information to millions of people over hundreds of kilometers, despite the complete failure of all other intermediary infrastructure.
An high quality AM radio costs about 25 cents to integrate into existing infotainment systems, plus the cost of the coax and antenna. Realistically speaking, we are talking about less than 5 dollars in additional expense at scale.
That’s cheap for a communication system that is extremely robust in the face of the worst possible types of disasters and emergencies.
Cell phone and data networks are fragile by comparison and subject to congestion and other issues. An AM radio in every cellphone would be a software-only fix, as long as you used the headphone or charging cable as an antenna lead.
Software defined radio means just about any modern microcontroller can act as a radio receiver over a broad spectrum of wavelengths for Pennie’s in additional components.
This is about capture of the infotainment environment in vehicles, not the one to five dollars needed to include AM broadcast technology.
AM radio's value for emergency situations is that it can be received literally hundreds of miles from the transmitter.
What're the reasons for NOT including AM? The only thing I found is mention that including it will "hinder progress". What progress? Since when does including the most basic, tiny bit of functionality somehow "hinder progress"? Is there literally any other reason at all? Please, someone, tell me.
Is this really a news piece if the author can't even come up with the slightest reason beyond the most specious bit of bullshit from a self-interest group?
It's always about manufacturing cost.
Automakers will trim a BOM to save 60 cents on a car.
If they have the data that AM is not a 'requested'/desired feature when purchasing a car then of course they would want to trim it.
Also AM radio imposes quite a few extra design constraints in terms of EMI, in a vehicle that by definition is extremely electrically noisy.
1. Range
2. Bouncing off of ionosphere
3. Easy to DIY a radio.
I would guess the first two have nothing to do with the type of modulation, but with the frequency bands being used and/or the transmitter power. That is: I would guess it'd work equally well for frequency modulated radio signals broadcasted on those bands with the same transmitters. So those arguments are in favour of using certain specs for broadcasting, but don't seem to require any specific modulation.
(Would love to hear if that's incorrect though)
I'm not sure about DIY'ing a radio - no clue how the modulation complicated things. That could well be a reason favoring AM.
1. Yes, with analogue signals, given equal ERP (Effective Radiated Power) levels, FM modulation breaks down with a ''cliff effect'' (suddenly) while AM blasts on. Typically, on the receiver end as the range increases, an FM Radio stereo signal will drop to mono for a while, then just disappear even if a carrier is still detected in a sensitive signal meter. With HD Radio digital FM, weak signal will cause an abrupt loss of any subchannel(s) and reversion to only analogue before the cliff effect takes place. Again, analogue AM signals barrel on until they simply diffuse into the background noise. HD Radio digital AM signals drop to analogue as the range increases, which is why none of them are run digital-only.
2. Yes, AM band signals bounce around a bit in the evening sky, so AM Radio stations often have nighttime power reductions specified in their licenses. The FM Radio band can experience its own effects like tropospheric ducting (see any number of radio and TV DXing sites for much deeper info) but with nowhere near the predicatability and stability of strong AM signals being bounced.
3. Yep. See the crystal radio and ferrite coil comments elsewhere in this thread.
Other:
Regarding the modulation being transmitted on a particular band, it has a lot to do with tolerance of interference. A perfect example comparing FM and AM on the same band is when the North American analogue TV standard NTSC was being devised, which originally used all AM modulation, but the audio portion of the signal was found to be so disrupted by the video portion that the relatively new FM modulation was used for the audio instead. In AM radio there is only just the audio, so in effect the problems of interference at the source are gone and pushed out to the receiver end as being an accepted norm. It used to be common for charging and ignition systems of cars and trucks that were of the old breaker point type to generate clicking, tapping, and whining on the AM band (the title of Frank Zappa's ''Dinah-Moe Humm'' is a reference to the problem of dynamo or magneto noise from DC generators) but shielding, AC alternators, and the use of condensers and better materials by the automakers solved those problems. Home AM radios would pick up refrigerator solenoid clicks and other such noises, which could be very problematic in apartment blocks, but again better shielding and other techniques in consumer electric devices were soon practiced. Nevertheless, environmental interference on the AM radio band has always been a problem to this day. FM radio has its own problems with interference, but typically in congested urban areas in which ''picket fencing'' from large structures can occur. Digital radio, like iBiquity's IBOC HD Radio system, uses error correction and buffering to combat such interference problems. So, you could transmit either AM or FM modulation on your signal on a given band, but you'd better be ready for the interference consquences of each.
This isn't the scientific theory, but I drive the mountains a lot and AM consistently dies much sooner than FM.
Can't explain it, but 100% true.
EDIT: I live in Salt Like City area and drive through the Wasatch Range on a near weekly basis. # of receivable AM stations goes to zero nearly immediately.
It's also used for natural parks, and anywhere you might need updated, local, information, again, because it's so cheap and because receiving is so easy.
I don’t know that we need legislation guaranteeing it, but I’d hope the invisible hand of the market sides with me anyways.
That said I don’t see myself getting a new car regardless, at least not one made after the law requiring a television screen in your field of view while operating multi ton machinery at 60+ mph was put in place.
that said, a crank AM/FM radio lives in the trunk with my other emergency/contingency stuff (first aid, jumper cables, fixaflat, reflective thingies, etc)
I would honestly much rather institutionalize my dad, have cars come with an emergency supplies kit if you don't already have one. Make everyone better prepared and waste less.
I haven’t yet found myself in want of that sort of material.
At least not in audio-only form…
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/obscene-indecent-and-pr...
Specifically, in the “wild west” hours (10-6) many AM stations will open up the phone lines to start an open dialogue with anyone who cares to join in, regarding just about anything they care to discuss. The types of people that call in and the topics they bring up are often very different from what you encounter online, and certainly miles away from what you’ll see on network television or any other form of mass media.
No other form of "speech" needs a license, yet they think it's the free-ist there is.
> AM radio is a cesspool of blatant conservative lies and rage bait
That exists to be sure, but it most certainly does not describe the entire spectrum across the entire country.
> It's what the angriest folks on the right pay attention to.
Some might, but there's plenty online who are much angrier. Do we condemn the whole internet as well?
> That's why it's "Free speech" despite being the single most regulated form of communication.
I can think of many more regulated forms of communication, for instance any S1 filing. The only thing you can't say on the radio during wild west hours is overtly sexual content.
> No other form of "speech" needs a license
Plenty of other areas need a license, for instance the entire rest of the electromagnetic spectrum, barring a few small holdouts.
> yet they think it's the free-ist there is.
It certainly provides the most-channel hours during which the microphone is open to the most people to be broadcast to the most listeners. I openly admit other forms of communication allow for more types of content, but none so freely-accessible to both listeners and speakers.
The only change would be in the dog-whistle words he would use and the media.
Change AM radio for Hollywood, right for left, conservative for woke and you both are basically the same.
Ham radio is, and always been regulated. No obscenity but they don’t enforce it. Uses of ham radio are limited: no commercial use, no broadcasting, and no encryption.
CB is open. It has same obscenity rules but not enforced. They don’t enforce the power limits. But CB has the lowest range of line-of-sight.
FCC doesn’t enforce rules because they don’t care, partly cause dwindling numbers use them. If the FCC card, they could enforce heavily. Array of SDRs listening to the whole band and pinpointing problems.
I've found satellite / XM radio to be far more reliable when driving in remote mountainous parts of the Sierras.
Maybe they could take some of the money they're wasting making horrible things like touchscreen controls and use that to do some useful engineering instead.
American businesses are hell bent of ignoring anything but the dollar sign at the bottom of the balance sheet, and since they all use the exact same value and prioritization system, they can all do the exact same thing without technically colluding, preventing any consumer from ever doing the free market thing and buying something better.
Well, what I do (not only because of this, but those touch screens certainly contribute) is to not buy new cars.
I'm not so sure compatibility with the car is the reason. Maybe it's more about maintaining one branch of software for more head units.
Wouldn't this mostly be a one-time charge, and then just cookie-cutter the solution going forward?
(I say this as someone living in Toronto, Canada, where we have streetcars/trams with overhead wires, which play havoc with (AM) radio when they go by.)
On the other side there are levels for unwanted radio emissions, how do the cars pass them? How do cheap cell phone chargers pass them? Or is nobody looking at this?
The AM radio exists within the car. It probably even exists within the parts of the car that normally just get a metal box around it to shield the components. It's also very sensitive by its nature.
It's hardly an impossible feat, but car manufacturers will save every penny they can. Pretending to be "on your side" against the damn oppressive government forcing them to build provisions for areas without cell reception will probably also score some points with the public which mostly lives in areas where you don't need AM radio for important information.
This complies with existing regulations. The proposed regulations state the AM radio needs to work from within the car. So this wouldn't be sufficient according to the proposed rules.
> It's hardly an impossible feat, but car manufacturers will save every penny they can.
Good? I don't want to pay a tax on every new car purchase in order to subsidize owners of AM spectrum and their rapidly dwindling customer base.
When I was young I remember mopeda creating interfernces as far as 500 meters from the TV antenna. Car manufactureres managed to completely quieten that RF noise. So I would say it's doable.
You will build a prototype with all the filters and let it pass EMI tests in national laboratory. Then you will start supplying consumers with much cheaper electronics but in same package like your expensive prototype. Who is going to look into ultrasound welded plastic box? Nobody.
Regulators do pay attention to automotive components. I'm sure some of the cheap chargers don't bother with FCC Certification Testing.
The TL;DR is that unintentional and even intentional radiation must remain under certain field strength and/or power limits. That's why you're allowed to use those little aux-to-FM radio dongles to transmit on licensed spectrum, for example.
A "useful lie" explanation of the rules goes something like: "If the interference generated by the car stays within a very small radius (say, the car itself, or less than a few meters around the car) then the FCC doesn't care."
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx/antenna/loop/amloop.htm...
If locating it within the electric vehicle's superstructure is not suitable to the manufacturer it is not difficult to put one in a stubby sharkfin roof mounting as is done with GPS, mobile phone, and satellite radio antennae.
And FWIW, I was in line for a drive thru PCR covid test in late 2020 at a fair ground and they were broadcasting the instructions on an AM station, informing us by sign to tune in.
Oh, and also https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/security-and-em... for good measure (unrelated).
Anyone know which channels the Chinese send their emergency alerts over?
That's why you should have an emergency radio. They even make models that are hand-cranked so that you don't even need power. They also have flashlights and distress signals.
There's no need for Congress to stick their noses into matters they obviously haven't thought through.
Without AM radios in cars there will be no AM stations left, they'll shut down.
Your hand cranked radio won't do you much good.
There's nothing special about AM radio from a sending information to the populace perspective. If people are only listening to AM radio during emergencies then according to your thinking those same stations would be shut down.
No, let's cut through the BS. This is about a GOP-led Congress legislating the ability for their constituents to continue being able to listen to conservative talk radio and trying to, not so cleverly, frame it as assisting people during an emergency.
It should be easy to see it doesn't add up.
What? Sports radio is still very popular. I catch the baseball game that way sometimes.
Even liking AM radio I have a very hard time seeing the reasoning for compelling car makers to support something that is nearly the equivalent of mandating support for CD players.
> This is about a GOP-led
Yes, a GOD-led bipartisan thing.
Dude, you see conspiracy theories where there are none.
That hand-cranked radio? It receives NOAA weather broadcasts.
Once again I say this GOP-led Congress is engaging in sleight of hand to maintain a market for conservative AM talk radio.
I am a short wave enthusiast and EV electromagnetic noise is bad.
Back in the '89 Bay Area earthquake I did think of this, and the FM stations were broadcasting the emergency signal and told me where to tune to. But back then tape or radio was generally the choice anyway. I haven't listened to broadcast radio in 20 years.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35416627
Bad weather, traffic, mountain passes, etc.
Emergency broadcasts.
Usually it's just a a couple boring boring words on a loop.
Perfect for finding lost objects / dogs / cats. Weather announcements.
What else??
Good for long distance, but only with a band-matching antenna (and plenty of power) at the transmitting end.
But fantastic at reaching multiple simple receivers simultaneously over a very wide area with voice-quality transmission when you do.
Making good antennas for this frequency range generally requires rather physically large antennas as the wavelength is quite large, so finding objects is not really a good use of these frequencies.
AM stations usually have a tower that is the antenna.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/10/business/media/am-radio-c...
Technical point, you generally would not be able to recover an AM broadcast signal from a cellular baseband. You might be able to get it from a direct sampling receiver (some RTL-SDRs can do this), but it implies additional band filters and of course an antenna.
Wouldn't it be better to repurpose those frequencies for country wide digital broadcast that could also send other data during emergency situations?
https://www.diffen.com/difference/AM_vs_FM
Even if you multiplexed all possible amplitudes into one it still wouldn't be worth it for (two-way) digital communications.
AM band uses a large frequency range, 530-1700 kHz, but the total bandwidth is small, slightly more than 1MHz.
Telephone is bad compared to AM and really bad compared to FM or CDs. Human voice fits in much smaller bandwidth than music.
That's part and parcel of station management's programming decisions for HD Radio subchannels on the AM band, hence the focus on ''talk''.
56K modems also had the advantage that the noise floor for the downstream direction was much lower than the upstream direction.
edit: wasn't too clear that I meant to say that the 1200 bps must be from an old standard
Fast forward to the first emergency that actually needs this and you're gonna see a bunch of asphyxiation deaths from people running their cars in the garage to listen to the last AM radio they have.
If they really want to keep AM radio viable start a public awareness campaign about its importance and make radios available for free.
Preserving AM radio is important for a few reasons that go beyond cars. AM broadcasts have exceptionally long range with relatively little power. Transmitters and recievers are among the easiest circuits to build completely from scratch, as there is no arcane or proprietary knowledge needed to decode the signal. For these reasons, maintaining AM radio infrastructure is an important insurance policy in case of natural disasters or other major public safety events, even if it is something 99.99% of people will not interact with on a daily basis.
I advise people to get a shortwave receiver. They're inexpensive, and are actually even better in emergency situations.
In almost every car you can run the radio off just the battery without the engine and most people have at least one radio in their home besides their car. (If you don't have one, you really should and they're only $10 on Amazon.)
> If they really want to keep AM radio viable start a public awareness campaign about its importance and make radios available for free.
Public awareness campaigns won't pay the bills for radio stations. This is about ensuring there is enough of a market for AM radio stations (since most radio listening is done in the car these days) that they can sustain themselves from ad sales so they can fulfill their public service function in the event of an emergency without (direct) government subsidies to keep the lights on.
https://www.amazon.com/Goodes-Transistor-Headphone-Reception...
Not where I am, yes some stations have the crazies on them. But the small City where I live has an AM Station. At least daily, it interviews a local politicians. All other stations focus on the politicians in the nearby State Capital or National Politics.
It also plays a bit of middle, right and left wing shows along with music from the 50s. And on weekend evenings it plays old serials from the 20s--40s.
So it is rather unique and gets decent ratings due to its programming.
This is what the whole thing is about.
There are a lot of safety/whether/info stations run by the government. I don't carry a smartphone so that can be really valuable.
This is pretty out of touch. Drive-time AM radio is still a HUGE market in certain places. Think Rush Limbaugh et al. Although, that might be what you mean by "overt foreign propaganda by an unfriendly nation", the fact remains that it's 1) hugely popular by the numbers, and 2) directly beneficial to the certain congressional vermin.
* Radio Sputnik for 6 hours a day* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KCXL#Broadcast_of_Radio_Sputni...
I assume AM broadcasts can cover significantly larger areas than FM.
Yes, depending on the broadcast power AM radio signals can be picked up from farther away than FM. At night, depending on atmospheric conditions, AM signals can be received from hundreds of miles away. For example, see the daytime [1] and nighttime [2] coverage of WCCO-AM (a 50 kW clear-channel AM station) compared to the coverage of KSTP-FM (a 95 kW FM station) [3]. As you can see, the AM station can broadcast beyond the horizon (well beyond at night) while the FM station, even with twice the power, can't match even the daytime signal of the AM station.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/uSi2Hx7.png
I had a prof back in the 20th century who claimed that FM stations in the States were fairly localised due to market (serving local ads) forces; that Japan had a different economic model for radio; and that if the US had chosen to adopt the JP style, it would only take something like 3 broadcast (from orbit?) cells to cover the continental 48.