3 ms·
Disasters (natural or otherwise) are usually fairly localised. Cell towers have a reach of a couple km at best and can be easily overwhelmed, whereas AM radio c
by franga2000 6y ago
Disasters (natural or otherwise) are usually fairly localised. Cell towers have a reach of a couple km at best and can be easily overwhelmed, whereas AM radio can reach upwards of 100km at night from a single transmitter and doesn't care at all how many people are listening.
As you already mentioned, power is another issue, as a modern smartphone won't last past a few weeks, even when turning on for only 5 minutes once a day, whereas I've seen AM radios that can run continuously for at least that long.
Finally, my main concern: cell phones are complicated. An EMP (or flood) could fry all your electronics and you're basically screwed, but finding someone who can build a passable AM receiver (or even transmitter) out of various electronic junk isn't all that difficult.
- anthk 6y agoYou can build an AM receiver with just a coil made of wire, a magnet and some scrap.
- cnorthwood 6y agoThere was an issue with flooding in Lancaster (a mid-sized English city) which had this exact issue. The report is a fairly interesting read: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/engineering/RAEngLivingwithoutelectricity.pdf https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/conte...
- ilamont 6y agoAM signals can reach much further than 100km at night, thanks to physical properties of the ionosphere. When I was younger, I remember driving long distances at night in rural New England and being able to pick up one of the big Chicago stations more than 1500 km away. Commenters on this blog post about the phenomenon claim to have done much better with special antennas, e.g. picking up a station in Los Angeles from Queens, NY: https://news.ccrane.com/2018/07/23/why-am-listening-at-night-is-better/ https://news.ccrane.com/2018/07/23/why-am-listening-at-night...