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Cars radios are battery powered so will continue to work during power outages, and large enough that adding an AM radio + antenna is not really an issue - unlik
by dhon_ 2y ago
Cars radios are battery powered so will continue to work during power outages, and large enough that adding an AM radio + antenna is not really an issue - unlike a mobile phone. Seems like a good way to ensure most of the population has access to emergency broadcasts.
Edit clarified car radios are battery powered
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoI'd bet good money that many phones have an FM radio tuner that isn't usable only because they follow one misguided company and won't make a headphone jack available.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Terr_ 2y agoRecently I was surprised by not-finding any phone-accessories that are basically a USB-C plug, a little blister of inline electronics, and then more wire for an AM/FM antenna. (And an app to control the tuning/presets, etc.) It seems like something that ought to be technically doable, but perhaps the market isn't there compared to just selling standalone little radio-things?
- mikepurvis 2y agoI'd expect so. It's basically like an analog TV capture card for your computer— but the use cases are even more limited as it's hard to imagine your phone being the platform on which you'd want to record stuff off the air. I guess it could make sense if the phone is driving your wireless earbuds or you want to change stations using Siri, but yeah other than that, I dunno.
- Retric 2y agoSeems like the market would be people without unlimited internet. Audio takes up a fair bit of bandwidth over time so being able to listen to your personal music or the radio in your earbuds might be considered useful.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoUSB-C permits analog audio passthrough so you could literally use a passive headphone adapter for the antenna but it's a feature rarely supported anywhere.
- Kirby64 2y agoNot anymore, that mode has been deprecated since USB C 2.3 (released last year). Almost nobody actually supported it in reality though.
- transcriptase 2y agoIt’s not exactly what you mean, but a nano RTLSDR, a usb C adapter, and any SDR app can do what you’re outlining and far more.
- dagmx 2y agoSchrödinger’s Apple. They’re simultaneously behind Android manufacturers for not following their stead, and to blame for anything negative Android manufacturers do as well. Why can’t the Android manufacturers just be accountable by themselves?
- makeitdouble 2y agoAndroid manufacturers weren't on stage touting their courage. Otherwise if that's the drum you want to beat, android makers were the first to push bigger and bigger screens ("phablets") and opened the door for Apple to also inflate it's devices, to the point where 6" is considered "small" by today's standard.
- dagmx 2y agoYouve completely and unsurprisingly missed the point. It’s irrelevant to Android phones whether Apple made the choice first or how they did it. Android manufacturers are able to be accountable for their own decisions. it’s even more irrelevant that Android phones had larger screens first, unless people on the Apple side are blaming Android manufacturers for the push to larger screens.
- dmonitor 2y ago> it’s even more irrelevant that Android phones had larger screens first, unless people on the Apple side are blaming Android manufacturers for the push to larger screens. I would be that person, but the iPhone mini showed the market just isn't there for it :(
- makeitdouble 2y agoIf we look at the Pixel 4a which was a 5"8 screen, straight in the middle of the mini (5"4) and the regular iPhone (6"1). It had extremly good sales, and of course the super low price is a major factor in it, but it also was very well reviewed and people flocked to it as one of the best smallish phone at the time. Then of course Google just went bigger for their garbage 5G variant of it which just trashed battery life, and all subsequent phones doing ML with the Tensor processor also went bigger. It makes me think it's not a matter of commercial success, or even if there's a market for it. The issue is probably the massive incentives on the maker side to push a bigger battery to deal with more computation and push the device price upper to get better margins.
- giancarlostoro 2y agoI had a phone in 2010 that would receive FM / AM iirc if I had headphones plugged in, used the wire. I think it was a Motorola phone.
- robotnikman 2y agoProbably the original Droid, I had the same one
- grogenaut 2y agoseveral of their current ones also have this feature
- AStonesThrow 2y agoMy Moto g play (2021) has an FM radio app. And, I believe that my KaiOS feature phones had it too. The story goes that analog radio receivers are built-in to nearly every smartphone, but most lack the app or drivers to access them.
- robotnikman 2y agoI remember a few of my old Android phones did have FM radio capabilities, and if you downloaded a tuner app you could actually listen in to them
- grogenaut 2y agoI can't remove the tuner app from any of my phones actually :)
- musicale 2y agoAccording to a post below, you would lose the bet. Reddit also claims that several phones have supported FM antenna passthrough via USB-C. I imagine adding analog FM radio isn't a major selling point on a phone where you can already stream the digital feeds from most FM stations – not to mention Spotify, Youtube, Apple Music, etc.
- GJim 2y ago> you can already stream the digital feeds from most FM stations That will use up your data. By contrast FM radio is free, and we have some bloody good BBC radio stations in blighty.
- esskay 2y agoReminds me of being in 6th form and listening to Radio 1 on my iPod. Those used to support FM just fine!
- musicale 2y agoOh, the legendary iPod radio remote! https://ipodwiki.com/wiki/IPod_Radio_Remote https://ipodwiki.com/wiki/IPod_Radio_Remote Shows Apple can do FM if they put their mind to it. RIP iPod Classic (2007-2014).
- nindalf 2y ago> That will use up your data. Where do you live that you're worried about data? Is this an American thing? I've lived in Asia and Europe and data is so cheap and plentiful that I'm never changing my behaviour to save a few MBs. Or are you not worried about data but you're trying hard to make a case for this FM antenna that no one wants in their phones?
- datavirtue 2y agoNevermind your data. During natural disasters, as was the case in North Carolina, everyone loses cell coverage.
- RajT88 2y agoI've read that most phones have a built-in FM tuner, but it's disabled for the US market because telcos wanted you to buy music from their store. It was true at one point - I owned at least one phone with a disabled FM radio. Some cursory checks on my current phone suggest it's got one (just doesn't work for some reason with FM Tuner apps).
- Neikius 2y agoThey usually require headphones plugged into 3.5mm jack...
- bombela 2y agoyep, the headphone cable acts as the antenna!
- RajT88 2y agoThe tuner app says the radio is not present. I am on LineageOS so there is many possible reasons for it not working. But, there are folks complaining about how Samsung broke FM tuners with an update on this phone a few years back. Who knows what that is about.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rjsw 2y agoMy current mobile phone has an FM radio, works well. An AM radio doesn't even need a battery, I built a crystal set as a child.
- K0balt 2y agoThis exactly. With a little screwing around, you don’t even need a “crystal”, just a corroded piece of metal, lead corroded by sulphuric acid works well. Aside from that, you can make an earphone out of some fine wire and a small magnetic fragment, and a suitable capacitor using aluminium foil and paper or plastic film. That’s it. 3 components and some wire. Not even a battery is needed for relatively powerful AM broadcast signals. If you want to get fancy you can wrap some wire around a paper towel tube for a tuning resonator. Or, you can just use the old wood stove in my childhood home. We had some wire racks for drying gloves and mittens supported above it, and the whole contraption played the 670khz radio station broadcasting about 15 miles away, sometimes at an annoying level of volume. You could quiet it down with some wet gloves, though. It also would shock you when it was being loud. Somehow, the demodulated signal ended up at a pretty high voltage. I’ve often tried to imagine the circuit that was going on there between the stove, grounded at the bottom and with a 30 foot high metal chimney, the aluminium foil backed insulation in the house, the two metal pipe penetrations connected to the huge foil planes 9 feet apart on the first and second stories, the gasketed top of the stove that was somewhat insulated from the grounded base, and attached to the chimney at the top, and the corroded bolts that held the bottom to the top.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]