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I appreciate that people still find AM radio useful, nostalgic, etc. This feels like something that should not be regulated. Let auto manufacturers decide to in
by zephyreon 2y ago
I appreciate that people still find AM radio useful, nostalgic, etc. This feels like something that should not be regulated. Let auto manufacturers decide to include it or not, consumers will vote with their wallets. I doubt most people will miss AM radio all that much.
- hinkley 2y agoWhat’s the total bandwidth of the AM band? Does it make sense to reclaim it for wide area wireless networking?
- swatcoder 2y agoWhen living in the unassailed peace and prosperity of a Western society in the post-Cold War era, it's very easy to forget that profound security and emergency crises are still likely to occur sooner or later. Preserving the viability of simple radio circuits that might receive public safety messages and the towers that can broadcast to them is a concern that operates on a different level than "will it make the car cheaper" or "who even listens to AM" A lot of the systems and technologies that we've grown used to and rely on for our daily needs are extremely capable but also extremely fragile and brittle. Keeping backstop technologies from being lost altogether is fairly cheap and might make a significant difference if and when crises do arise.
- uberman 2y agoA portable AM radio costs 10 bucks. Should we also mandate that cars come with first aid kit, a flashlight or defibrillator?
- SoftTalker 2y agoI'm guessing not defibillators but many countries require emergency first aid kits, hazard triangle markers/flares, fire extinguishers, spare bulbs, etc. to be carried in the car.
- jessriedel 2y agoI also think the marginal cost of making a FM radio an AM/FM radio is less than $10. Probably more like $1?
- SoftTalker 2y agoYes an AM receiver is extremely simple.
- LeoPanthera 2y agoYou think you're making a joke, but many countries do regulate that cars come with basic safety equipment. France is just one example.
- ysavir 2y ago"Voting with your wallet" works for small and frequent purchases. The bigger and less frequent the purchase, the less impact it has.
- flaminHotSpeedo 2y agoEspecially for things like cars where there's very few options and most of the auto industry does the same thing. If you have even a single constraint outside the "industry norm" (like a manual transmission in the US, or potentially in the future an AM radio) you are all but guaranteed to have to give up nice to have features and/or pay a lot more
- cvoss 2y agoExactly. And especially when the feature makes up only a tiny fraction of the whole feature set and production cost of the product, consumers are entirely at the mercy of the manufacturers. I'm not going to buy a different make over this. I'm just going to tolerate it unhappily. In the extreme case, manufacturers know that they could get away with dropping this kind of feature even if literally everybody wanted it. In my software development experience, companies invoke this line of reasoning all the time.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bobthepanda 2y agoAM is useful in emergency situations, like the hurricane that wiped out Appalachia a week ago. The range of FM is shorter, so it’s more likely to be affected by the disaster.
- anonexpat 2y agoThat didn't work out very well for consumers buying GM cars that sold their driving data out the back door to insurance companies.
- loeg 2y agoI drive in the mountains in winter and regularly see 'tune AM xxxx for advisories' road signs, for example. It serves a useful public safety function. How expensive is an AM tuner for a manufacturer? Surely it's like, $5 or less in additional COGS.
- Aloha 2y agoThe cost isn't in the radio, you have a single chip which is a complete AM/FM radio - the cost is in making cars quiet enough from an EMI point of view - something which, IMO, they should have to do anyhow to comply with Part 15.
- jessriedel 2y agoThis seems like a super important fact for the discussion. Do you have a cite that it really constrains the rest of the car?
- Aloha 2y ago"Several automakers, most notably Tesla and Ford, have decided to stop putting AM radios in their electric vehicles. They claim their electric motors interfere with the audio quality of the signal and insist that FM and satellite radio are enough." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/am-radio-congress-automakers/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/am-radio-congress-automakers/ I can find other references as well if you want. EMI in cars has been an issue for a long time, automakers however did do the needed work suppress the noise from spark plugs, I do not see this as any different.
- jessriedel 2y agoThanks! Any idea if the law requires the redesign (i.e., requires that the AM radio meets some level of audio quality when operating in the vehicle) or if it just requires the AM radio to be present and (somewhat understandably) the manufacturer don’t want to include an AM radio if it consistently sounds bad?
- Aloha 2y agoWe mandated UHF channel reception for televisions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Channel_Receiver_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Channel_Receiver_Act) I believe that mandating AM reception is perfectly reasonable - as the reason given for leaving it out is because auto manufacturers do not want to spend the money to reduce the EMI from their vehicles. The total added BOM cost to add AM to a modern radio is zero - because they have a single chip that does both AM/FM.
- trinix912 2y agoDoes that also mean that those cars could potentially be responsible for tons of interference in the AM band in the future?
- Aloha 2y agoMy belief? yes, it does. The motor controllers are noisy.
- trinix912 2y agoIf so, it's interesting the FCC hasn't stepped in since nearly all electronics need that certification.
- chomp 2y agoThere’s two types of electronics you’re referring to. There’s incidental radiators, like electric motors, switching power supplies, etc that the FCC understands that RF will be generated from, and they ask that these devices merely minimize their RF. Then there’s Unintentional Radiators which is probably what you’re thinking of, which include computers and other electronics, which are regulated to limit RF.
- Lammy 2y agoIt's a standardized part of the highway system in the same way as the standardized lines painted on the pavement, not just something to support or not-support based on current fashion. The linked article does a very poor job conveying this with its framing on radio-as-entertainment and on corporate consolidation of radio stations. Key phrases: “Highway Advisory Radio” or “Travelers Information Station”, neither of which are mentioned in the article. Here are the technical requirements and implementation details of California's (CalTrans') system, for example: https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/research-innovation-system-information/documents/preliminary-investigations/har-pi-8-5-11-a11y.pdf#page=22 https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/research-innov... And some general history: https://aairo.org/history.htm https://aairo.org/history.htm
- hotspot_one 2y agoWhat would feel like something that should be regulated to you? Keep in mind that things like hurricanes do happen occasionally, and the car's AM radio might be the only working communication medium...
- christophilus 2y agoRegulations are good for enforcing national security measures that the general public rarely has in mind when making a purchase. I tend to have a skeptical view of regulation, but this seems wise.
- amatecha 2y agoNo, the inclusion of AM radio will not be an actual dealbreaker for anyone, anywhere, who is buying a vehicle, so "voting with their wallets" is not a thing that will happen. Even for me, an amateur radio operator, I won't skip over a vehicle choice just because it didn't include AM radio. It's absolutely the kind of thing for the government to regulate, because individuals cannot make enough of a dent to affect whether AM radio is included, nor are they generally thinking about the criteria that a government regulator will consider, nor do individuals even care or realize what they are missing.