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Comment by 866-RON-0-FEZ | Hacker News Reader

With everyone hating on AM radio (HN included) and thinking the EV automakers were right for eliminating it from cars, this was the inevitable result.

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People hate on AM radio? I love it. Nothing like listening to baseball over AM.

I googled your interesting HN username and best as I could tell it refers to what was a satellite radio show.

Satellite radio probably contributed to the demise of AM radio in countries where its available. It offers the benefits of AM (range) without the major downside (quality) with both being infrastructure heavy.

I’m waiting for Apple to broadcast on their satellite services so I can point my phone up and get weather, news and maybe live traffic (on pre-downloaded maps). Wouldn’t need many kbps to get that even if it needs to constantly repeat. Especially with some spot beams for localization.

Don’t even really need star link for that.

Some EV automakers have eliminated them. Many though still include them, including Nissan, GM, Ford, Kia, Hyundai, and Subaru.

What is the relevance of EV in your comment - surely just “automakers” covers your point? The drivetrain seems orthogonal.

EV drivetrains can specifically cause interference on AM frequencies so EV manufacturers have been wanting to drop AM support.

why is the medium relevant at all? what does radio do that a podcast cant

>why is the medium relevant at all? what does radio do that a podcast cant

Deliver the news to you anywhere and everywhere with a receiver that can be built from scavenged garbage. Terrestrial absolutely still has a place, and will most likely outlive the internet.

Also, radio broadcasts a signal and is completely agnostic to who picks up the signal and listens. IOW, you can listen to radio without anyone/anything tracking what you. Not being tracked and data-collected for everything is still important to some of us.

If only the same were true for broadcasting.

what does a movie theater screen do that a phone screen can’t?

Internet.connection (∴ tracking) not required

Emergency broadcast is a big one, as well as location-specific information like road conditions.

AM is critical for emergency scenarios. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, all our infrastructure was completely devastated.

The only way to receive news or bulletins for weeks was just one remaining AM radio station that kept broadcasting even as the storm hit and their building began to flood.

It's not just the medium. Streaming from the internet is a totally different product than radio. There's no reason we can't have both.

Work without internet infrastructure

They live in different layers of "medium". This is like asking "What does piping do that juice doesn't?", they're not mutually exclusive.

A podcast requires thousands of pieces of fragile infrastructure between the sender and receiver.

Radio can send signals between continents with zero infrastructure between the sender and receiver.

You're making an apples to oranges comparison. If you can send a signal via a radio between continents, one can send a podcast using that signal with zero infrastructure between the sender and the receiver.

The throughput and bandwidth necessary for "podcasting" is many times greater than simple radio

Not to mention the complexity of the hardware required.

A podcast is an audio program delivered over the internet, which requires quite a bit of intermediary infrastructure regardless of the layer 1 medium.

When you deliver the raw audio over RF, it is called a radio program, which is what CBS has stopped broadcasting.

AM RAdio also has the advantage of numerous AM recievers widely available. Good for mass communication over high population areas - particully in times of emergency. AM uses less complex systems to transmitt and recieve compared to other modulation methods, example FM. Transmission via internet tends to be much more fragile and breakable. I could easily build a simple (limited) radio, Crystal set in about a hour that would work in strong AM signal areas like in most cities or up to 50 milies away. AM radio also has range measure in hundreds of miles, much greater at night... Removing AM radios from Cars is alll about savig a few $ , probably like $20 for can makers.

It's literally absurdity that you even wrote this at all.

Count how many subscriptions are between you and that podcast.

Radio has an almost orthogonally inverse set of failure modes than internet streaming.

AM signals have a far reach and are often used for road and emergency updates.

AM radio, like other frequencies in the low HF spectrum, travel using ground waves then ionospheric refraction during night which can let the receiver pick stations several thousands of Km away. FM and generally VHF frequencies require mostly the transmitter to be in line of sight. When a disaster occur, you can pick AM radio emergency transmission from behind a mountain or from much far away than a FM station. This allows the elimination of any dependency on repeaters which are a weak link, especially in less than free countries that censor radio transmissions, whose listener couldn't pick a station from another country if it needed a repeater in theirs. AM is for freedom, not for music.

In an emergency situation, you can build a CW transmitter off parts reclaimed from a broken PC power supply, connect a diy antenna made with a simple wire and be picked up from another country; a walkie talkie will stop at the 1st hill.

work without the internet/power

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