5 ms·

I have not heard a single affirmative reason to keep AM in cars as a technology at this late a date. I look forward to finally hearing one ... some day.

Czarcasm 4y ago
In rural areas with no cell service, AM radio is often the only available form of weather and news. It's also a great form of emergency information broadcasting in the event of a natural disaster.
- msla 4y ago
  There might be a silver lining to the slow death of commercial terrestrial radio: Doing away with the polite fiction that commercial terrestrial radio is a valid way to communicate emergency information. Even if the "local" radio stations are active and broadcasting a signal, they're often only local in a way that does not matter when it comes to emergency broadcasts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minot_train_derailment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minot_train_derailment > The Minot train derailment occurred just west of Minot, North Dakota, United States, on January 18, 2002, when a Canadian Pacific Railway freight train derailed, spreading ammonia gas across the city, delaying rescue operations. The cause was found to be small fatigue cracks in the rails and joint bars, not detectable by the inspection routines then enforced by Canadian Pacific. [snip] > Because it was the middle of the night, there were few people at local radio stations, all operated by Clear Channel with mostly automated programming. No formal emergency warnings were issued for several hours while Minot officials located station managers at home. North Dakota's public radio network, Prairie Public Broadcasting, was notified and did broadcast warnings to citizens. Public radio succeeded. Commercial radio did not. People have been utterly resistant to learning this lesson. Maybe once commercial radio is dead they'll have no other choice.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > Doing away with the polite fiction that commercial terrestrial radio is a valid way to communicate emergency information. It may suck for that, but it's the best choice out of a whole bunch of bad alternatives. What would do this better?
    - msla 4y ago
      > What would do this better? A mix of things, some of which already exist. Obviously, cell phones can do it. They already do this for a lot of people. NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards already exists as well, but the receivers should be more widespread. Putting them into cars and TV sets would be a good start, especially with GPS receivers to automatically figure out where they are and, therefore, which alerts to listen to. https://www.weather.gov/nwr&ln_desc=NOAA+Weather+Radio/ https://www.weather.gov/nwr&ln_desc=NOAA+Weather+Radio/ Giving more funding to noncommercial radio stations, to guarantee they exist, for one thing, and have people in the booth all the time, for another. America doesn't have an analogue to the BBC so ensuring the local and regional public stations remain usable for this purpose is essential.
    - maxerickson 4y ago
      At this point emergency alerts that go out to cell phones probably reach more people than radio. That's separate from how well they work in remote areas (but that is getting better over time).
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        > alerts that go out to cell phones probably reach more people than radio. Only if the disaster is mild enough that cell phones still work. And let's not forget that there are enormous areas of the US where there is no reliable (or any) cell service. I'm just hoping that for disaster communications, nobody is actually deciding to cut some people off just because there aren't enough of them.
        msla 4y ago
        The only solution is multiple solutions. Commercial radio has a threshold of how small a market can be before it isn't worth it any longer, noncommercial radio (including NOAA weather radio stations) can fill in those gaps but require people to have the receivers handy, and more people carry cell phones than radios nowadays but cell service isn't absolutely everywhere. We can improve each of those individual technologies, but no single technology is going to become the only answer.
- cowl 4y ago
  Does this remote usecase justify it being a bultin feature of every car instead of a dedicated device that only the people that need it would buy?
darrylb42 4y ago
I only use the radio to listen to AM traffic reports. News 1130 traffic on the one. Most of the time I am listening to something from my phone.
dylan604 4y ago
Without AM radio, you're going to force me to go full nutter with buying a shortwave radio setup. Without AM, I'll not be able to find my conspiracy theory fear mongering propaganda, nor will I be able to find my supplements and gold/silver investments
- nmeagent 4y ago
  Considering many (most?) talk radio stations broadcast on both AM and FM, I think many (most?) instances of your hyperbolic self will be fine.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
perardi 4y ago
Republican/conservative talk radio is a huge force in American politics, so there’s a lot of incentive to somehow force manufacturers to include the feature.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  Can you elaborate on how and why "republican/conservative talk radio" is tied to specifically AM and not FM radio?
  - pavon 4y ago
    FM was more popular for music since it is higher quality, while both work fine for voice, and AM licenses can often transmit further. So it made economic sense for talk radio stations to buy AM licenses instead of FM. That said with fewer people listening to music on the radio these days, it is becoming more common to find talk radio on FM.
aidenn0 4y ago
News, traffic, sports.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Yep. Sports talk and game broadcasts, news, and political talk are still pretty big on AM stations.
1970-01-01 4y ago
It's pathetic how we're clinging onto this inferior technology. Frequency Modulation was invented to keep the "intelligence" in the signal. I think we forgot that. FM is the solution for EMI and therefore the perfect radio tech for future vehicles (EVs). https://youtube.com/v/AzvxefRDT84?t=384 https://youtube.com/v/AzvxefRDT84?t=384

Czarcasm 4y ago

In rural areas with no cell service, AM radio is often the only available form of weather and news. It's also a great form of emergency information broadcasting in the event of a natural disaster.

msla 4y ago
There might be a silver lining to the slow death of commercial terrestrial radio: Doing away with the polite fiction that commercial terrestrial radio is a valid way to communicate emergency information. Even if the "local" radio stations are active and broadcasting a signal, they're often only local in a way that does not matter when it comes to emergency broadcasts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minot_train_derailment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minot_train_derailment > The Minot train derailment occurred just west of Minot, North Dakota, United States, on January 18, 2002, when a Canadian Pacific Railway freight train derailed, spreading ammonia gas across the city, delaying rescue operations. The cause was found to be small fatigue cracks in the rails and joint bars, not detectable by the inspection routines then enforced by Canadian Pacific. [snip] > Because it was the middle of the night, there were few people at local radio stations, all operated by Clear Channel with mostly automated programming. No formal emergency warnings were issued for several hours while Minot officials located station managers at home. North Dakota's public radio network, Prairie Public Broadcasting, was notified and did broadcast warnings to citizens. Public radio succeeded. Commercial radio did not. People have been utterly resistant to learning this lesson. Maybe once commercial radio is dead they'll have no other choice.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > Doing away with the polite fiction that commercial terrestrial radio is a valid way to communicate emergency information. It may suck for that, but it's the best choice out of a whole bunch of bad alternatives. What would do this better?
  - msla 4y ago
    > What would do this better? A mix of things, some of which already exist. Obviously, cell phones can do it. They already do this for a lot of people. NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards already exists as well, but the receivers should be more widespread. Putting them into cars and TV sets would be a good start, especially with GPS receivers to automatically figure out where they are and, therefore, which alerts to listen to. https://www.weather.gov/nwr&ln_desc=NOAA+Weather+Radio/ https://www.weather.gov/nwr&ln_desc=NOAA+Weather+Radio/ Giving more funding to noncommercial radio stations, to guarantee they exist, for one thing, and have people in the booth all the time, for another. America doesn't have an analogue to the BBC so ensuring the local and regional public stations remain usable for this purpose is essential.
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    At this point emergency alerts that go out to cell phones probably reach more people than radio. That's separate from how well they work in remote areas (but that is getting better over time).
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      > alerts that go out to cell phones probably reach more people than radio. Only if the disaster is mild enough that cell phones still work. And let's not forget that there are enormous areas of the US where there is no reliable (or any) cell service. I'm just hoping that for disaster communications, nobody is actually deciding to cut some people off just because there aren't enough of them.
      - msla 4y ago
        The only solution is multiple solutions. Commercial radio has a threshold of how small a market can be before it isn't worth it any longer, noncommercial radio (including NOAA weather radio stations) can fill in those gaps but require people to have the receivers handy, and more people carry cell phones than radios nowadays but cell service isn't absolutely everywhere. We can improve each of those individual technologies, but no single technology is going to become the only answer.
cowl 4y ago
Does this remote usecase justify it being a bultin feature of every car instead of a dedicated device that only the people that need it would buy?

darrylb42 4y ago

I only use the radio to listen to AM traffic reports. News 1130 traffic on the one. Most of the time I am listening to something from my phone.

dylan604 4y ago

Without AM radio, you're going to force me to go full nutter with buying a shortwave radio setup. Without AM, I'll not be able to find my conspiracy theory fear mongering propaganda, nor will I be able to find my supplements and gold/silver investments

nmeagent 4y ago
Considering many (most?) talk radio stations broadcast on both AM and FM, I think many (most?) instances of your hyperbolic self will be fine.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

perardi 4y ago

Republican/conservative talk radio is a huge force in American politics, so there’s a lot of incentive to somehow force manufacturers to include the feature.

PeterisP 4y ago
Can you elaborate on how and why "republican/conservative talk radio" is tied to specifically AM and not FM radio?
- pavon 4y ago
  FM was more popular for music since it is higher quality, while both work fine for voice, and AM licenses can often transmit further. So it made economic sense for talk radio stations to buy AM licenses instead of FM. That said with fewer people listening to music on the radio these days, it is becoming more common to find talk radio on FM.

aidenn0 4y ago

News, traffic, sports.

SoftTalker 4y ago
Yep. Sports talk and game broadcasts, news, and political talk are still pretty big on AM stations.

1970-01-01 4y ago

It's pathetic how we're clinging onto this inferior technology. Frequency Modulation was invented to keep the "intelligence" in the signal. I think we forgot that. FM is the solution for EMI and therefore the perfect radio tech for future vehicles (EVs). https://youtube.com/v/AzvxefRDT84?t=384 https://youtube.com/v/AzvxefRDT84?t=384