AM Radio Law Opposed By Tech and Auto Industries Is Close To Passing (arstechnica.com) 317
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A controversial bill that would require all new cars to be fitted with AM radios looks set to become a law in the near future. Yesterday, Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass) revealed that the "AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act" now has the support of 60 US Senators, as well as 246 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, making its passage an almost sure thing. Should that happen, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would be required to ensure that all new cars sold in the US had AM radios at no extra cost. "Democrats and Republicans are tuning in to the millions of listeners, thousands of broadcasters, and countless emergency management officials who depend on AM radio in their vehicles. AM radio is a lifeline for people in every corner of the United States to get news, sports, and local updates in times of emergencies. Our commonsense bill makes sure this fundamental, essential tool doesn't get lost on the dial. With a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate, Congress should quickly take it up and pass it," said Sen. Markey and his co-sponsor Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
About 82 million people still listen to AM radio, according to the National Association of Broadcasters, which as you can imagine was rather pleased with the congressional support for its industry. "Broadcasters are grateful for the overwhelming bipartisan support for the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act in both chambers of Congress," said NAB president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt. "This majority endorsement reaffirms lawmakers' recognition of the essential service AM radio provides to the American people, particularly in emergency situations. NAB thanks the 307 members of Congress who are reinforcing the importance of maintaining universal access to this crucial public communications medium." "Requiring the installation of analog AM radios in automobiles is an unnecessary action that would impact EV range, efficiency and affordability at a critical moment of accelerating adoption," said Albert Gore, executive director of ZETA, a clean vehicle advocacy group that opposes the AM radio requirement. "Mandating AM radio would do little to expand drivers' ability to receive emergency alerts. At a time when we are more connected than ever, we encourage Congress to allow manufacturers to innovate and produce designs that meet consumer preference, rather than pushing a specific communications technology," Gore said in a statement.
About 82 million people still listen to AM radio, according to the National Association of Broadcasters, which as you can imagine was rather pleased with the congressional support for its industry. "Broadcasters are grateful for the overwhelming bipartisan support for the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act in both chambers of Congress," said NAB president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt. "This majority endorsement reaffirms lawmakers' recognition of the essential service AM radio provides to the American people, particularly in emergency situations. NAB thanks the 307 members of Congress who are reinforcing the importance of maintaining universal access to this crucial public communications medium." "Requiring the installation of analog AM radios in automobiles is an unnecessary action that would impact EV range, efficiency and affordability at a critical moment of accelerating adoption," said Albert Gore, executive director of ZETA, a clean vehicle advocacy group that opposes the AM radio requirement. "Mandating AM radio would do little to expand drivers' ability to receive emergency alerts. At a time when we are more connected than ever, we encourage Congress to allow manufacturers to innovate and produce designs that meet consumer preference, rather than pushing a specific communications technology," Gore said in a statement.
They want to replace everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Simply replacing AM radio with something else lets corporations, governments, data brokers, politicians, lawyers and lobbyists have a new thing to sell, make money off of, write academic PHD papers on and exert more control.
For example, there are lots of laws, regulations and legal precedents around AM radio preventing a power grab by the well funded and well connected.
Get rid of AM radio, create a 'new thing' to replace it and you get to rewrite the regulations from the ground up, making money and gaining power all the way.
Re:They want to replace everything (Score:5, Interesting)
Simply replacing AM radio with something else lets corporations, governments, data brokers, politicians, lawyers and lobbyists have a new thing to sell, make money off of, write academic PHD papers on and exert more control.
For example, there are lots of laws, regulations and legal precedents around AM radio preventing a power grab by the well funded and well connected.
Get rid of AM radio, create a 'new thing' to replace it and you get to rewrite the regulations from the ground up, making money and gaining power all the way.
AM Radio is also a passive listening experience. Meaning, it's tough to track every individual listener and gather data about their habits. Tech is opposed to this because the want ALL THE DATA about ALL THE THINGS. Auto industry is opposed because AM tech is cheap and has been cheap for long enough that you can't convince the customer it's a multi-thousand dollar add-on, and they LOVE the idea of keeping automobiles as expensive as possible so as to make them seem a luxury item, even though most of us in fly-over land need one just to get to work. Plus, AM radio doesn't really give them any options ongoing monetization, which seems to be a big trend among the auto industry players. Features that used to be common are now "pay as you go." Because why not? You couldn't do that with AM radio. So I'm sure the bean counters want it gone.
Did someone actually say this? (Score:5, Insightful)
"AM radios in automobiles is an unnecessary action that would impact EV range" - LO fucking L !! AM radios can run on a crystal with no external source of power if you really want - but that's impractical - better to place a dual AA battery holder in the glove box. There, no impact on the EV range - I say again, LO fucking L.
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How well will your crystal radio work inside a metal box that significantly attenuates the desired signal? How well will it work when literally surrounded by sources of EMI? It's the shielding against EMI that adds weight to an automobile, reducing range whether electric or gas powered, plus the not insignificant design challenge of incorporating a decent antenna into the vehicle without ruining the aesthetics that most consumers value.
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See my comment below concerning whack on crack.
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Your comment below tells me you don't understand nearly as much about this subject as you think you do. Tell me, how does shielding the radio keep an external antenna from picking up on EMI generated by your alternator? Power window motors? The drivetrain motors on an EV and regenerative braking system on EVs/Hybrids? It's shielding these disparate sources of EMI/RFI that's complicated. It's not an unsolvable problem, just one the auto industry would rather not deal with. Unless this mandate compels t
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Which is already done and has been done for years. The FCC mandates on spurious signal propagation from electronics and motors still needs to be incorporated, AM radio or not. If AM radio were to suddenly disappear it's not like the auto industry is going to remove all shielding. The pesky FCC mandates are still in effect.
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The alternator can be a sort of EMI - the slip rings from the rotor do make sparks and are a source of EMI. ICE vehicles have 4/6/8 or more spark gap transmitters, which have been banned for over a century now. AM works just fine.
Spark gap transmitters are banned because they are broadband sources of noise - that is, they produce EMI across a wide spectrum. Now, a car has a lot of shielding - the metal e
Re:Did someone actually say this? (Score:5, Informative)
A few filter caps and some foil shielding adds very little. AM radios have been in cars for a very, very, long time. RFI mitigation is not something new ... cheap simple methods are already known ... and used.
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Cars are chock full of things like switching power supplies and data buses all spewing harmonics right into the AM band.
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RFI mitigation is not something new ... cheap simple methods are already known ... and used
The cheap simple methods don't cut it when your switching hundreds of amps to several motors located on the perimeter of the chassis. EMI in EVs is a whole different level of problem than conventional ICE vehicles that might have one or two much smaller EMI sources under the hood on the other side of a firewall.
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All the electronics in an EV has to be shielded from the EMI or you've get a ton of computer crashes so doing it for the AM radio too is almost trivial.
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How ever did they manage to implement the AM radios in the existing EV's and hybrids?
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The need to meet mileage standards these days is so pressing that my recent vehicle purchase omitted a spare tire. Omitting the <50lbs of spare tire, jack, and associated equipment has a pretty insignificant effect on mileage, but it's not zero, and when every drop counts...
I wholeheartedly agree with you about EMI shielding, for what it's worth, but the FCC has precious little control over automobiles. The EPA and NHTSA on the other hand.... :(
Re:Did someone actually say this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Those items were omitted to save the auto industry money, not to reach a mileage standard. They got you believing that BS to keep you from bitching about it.
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The alternate kit of fix-a-flat and portable air compressor that shipped with my car retails for close to the same as the spare wheel + tire + jack. If you care enough to go down the rabbit hole, this trend started in the mid 2010s, and nearly all industry watchers attribute it to the need to squeeze every last ounce of weight and fuel efficiency out of automobiles so they can meet mileage standards.
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I'm not sure it saved them any money, as here in the UK they come with a compressor and patch kit instead of the tyre. It's actually kinda handy since you can use the compressor to top up your tyres whenever you like.
I prefer it. I've never had a puncture and lugging around that extra weight, costing me money, doesn't seem worth it. Obviously if you are driving in areas where recovery would be difficult then your risk assessment may vary.
Re: Did someone actually say this? (Score:2)
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Ok, obviously people are whack on crack here. Let's take my 2001 Sable LS for example. That 4 pound radio that sits in the dashboard has all of the RFI and EMI shielding and filtering built right into it. A whopping ... 4 ... pound .. radio. The EV auto industry has all of you thinking that 100's of pounds of added weight is needed here. It's all BS people.
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It's not the radio that needs the shielding it's the rest of electronics in the car. The radio still needs an antenna to receive signals but it's going to be swamped by brushless motor controllers or switching power supplies.
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Which are all shielded because of FCC mandates on spurious signal propagation, not because of AM radio. Ok, I give up, you guys win. This is like debating a room full of flat Earther's that believe the moon landings were a hoax and the government is hiding UFO technology.
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They manage OK in an ICE vehicle with it's spark gaps, alternator, electric radiator fans, etc.. Add in a buck converter or 2 for the in-dash display and the USB jack, power door locks, power window motors. Then there's the computer for the in-dash display.
BS (Score:2)
I am no fan of congress regulating things into existence, but the concern over decreasing the range is utter and complete bullshit. Running an AM radio, and presuming that the power amplifier and digital interface are already there for any other audio source, takes about ** 10 milliamps **, that is 1/100th of an amp. At 12v that is a mere 0.12 watts. Turning the display screen 1 notch higher is about 10 times that, it's nothing at all and will be utterly imperceptible effect on range.
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It's not the cost of the radio that's the problem.
EV's make a lot of RF noise due to their power supplies and motors. It's the RF shielding (weight) and antenna as AM requires a larger antenna (more drag, and weight).
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I know that, I was just commenting on the notion that it would harm the range - which it will not.
AM radio is being destroyed by other forces related to this - switching regulators and switching power supplied spew RF that caused tremendous interference, and EVs are chock full of them, including the main drive power.
Not BS. 50dB harder. (Score:2)
>> I know that, I was just commenting on the notion that it would harm the range - which it will not.
It does.
I worked on solving EMI problems in vehicles, ICE and EV.
Ferrites, shields, contacts... all those weigh a lot, and eventually add a little resistance in the high current path.
Shielding for in-car AM reception is probably 50dB harder than shielding for normal EMC requirements.
In other news... (Score:2)
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and you don't have cut outs with people talking on the same frequency.
No. Remember the heterodyne squeal during Tenerife [wikipedia.org]?
No performance, no problems (Score:3)
When stationary it will be the poor performance of the antenna that will limit reception range. On the move the noise from the motor controller switching will be the biggest problem.
As a practical note my Tesla can have up to 350kW of power being commutated to the motors yet no create noise on a AM receiver tuned to 26.45MHz (NZ truck CB). Sure that is further up the band but still came as surprise to me how well it works.
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Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (Score:2)
About 82 million people still listen to AM radio
So population of the USA is about 340M, this claim is just under 1 in 4 people in the USA listen to AM radio. To be honest I haven't listened to the radio in my car in over a decade - am or fm. I do not know anyone that does and I am in the age demographic that would likely listen to a radio rather than stream. Does anyone under 30 or 35 use a radio in their car, I know my child never has in almost a decade of driving.
Now if the 82M includes the fact I may have turned on the AM radio in my car when I was
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I listen to radio driving to work all the time, I like the fact that it gets me listening to music that I enjoy from outside of my personal music collection and what I listen to at home along with the fact that it just instantly works with no fuss when I start the car.
Given that, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about in regards to ads on radio being such a burden. I easily get more ads streaming free Pandora then I ever do listening to the radio.
Quality Requirement? (Score:2)
Sure, put AM radio back in EVs. That's trivial. But then the question is how horrible is the reception without adding more shielding? Does the law specify any quality requirements? I would infer from the summary that the law doesn't say, but it would be up to the NHTSA to create regulations, so they would probably set some quality standards.
I know my 2015 Model S has AM, and it's fine, but my 2019 Model 3 does not have it. And if I upgrade the media computer in the Model S, I lose AM. But I also know
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HD Radio for AM (Score:4, Interesting)
Prob not a bad idea to keep AM around, since many rural communities still have AM.
Even better include HD Radio for AM, for better quality.
https://hdradio.com/all-digita... [hdradio.com]
As for cost, that doesnt really make sense, as they build everything in bulk for their car lines.
Its bad enough many cars dont include AUX jacks anymore.
Removing simple things that people use, to save a few pennies is kinda absurd.
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I briefly thought about buying an HD radio. It was several hundred dollars at the time and then came to my senses after realizing I'd just be hearing the same shit as regular radio but now in HD. I opted for satellite instead and still pay for a streaming subscription on my phone. Last time I heard a discussion about the biggest locat station it was how the playlist hasn't changed in three decades.
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Trouble is, all-digital HD Radio on AM fails to work at night due to the AM skip effect. In fact, not just all-digital, but regular HD Radio is affected.
It's so bad that even the AM HD Radio hybrid digital channels (the overwhelming majority) have found that they must turn off their HD Radio carriers when the sun goes down.
Somehow, though Digital Radio Mondiale [wikipedia.org] figured this out for AM but iBiquity HD Radio never did.
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About 82 million people still listen to AM radio (Score:2, Interesting)
I personally do not remember the last time I tuned into an AM station, even though (I think) all my cars had it. My kids wouldn't even know where to find AM radio in their cars. I think the only person who I know has used AM radio in the last 2 decades is my father in law, but he drives a 25 year old truc
FCC: Doing Nothing to Protect ARES and RACES (Score:3)
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Fine (Score:2)
Set it to the emergency alerts frequency only.
Hell, No! (Score:2)
Then you get a choice of Apple or Android compatible if you want, the Kenwood from your old car if you want real controls, or some ancient one from the car boot sale if you want to go on playing your cassettes.
And change it for a newer one whenever you wish.
Nothing kills the second hand value of a car like being stuck with some old piece of crap that can't be chan
$5 Pocket radio (Score:3)
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The car is a Faraday cage with electric motors and other RFI sources inside, just how well do you think that will work? Yes, there is an AM radio in the car if you bring one in the car but it will not actually receive any AM stations. The complaint from car manufactureres is not that they are required to have an AM radio in the car, it is that they'd have to go through the trouble of shielding everything to allow the AM radio to work as intended. In the fine article there is a mention that this shielding
LOL EV range (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no idea if ZETA is a genuine group or some astroturfing bullshit, but claiming it affects EV range, or cost is a pretty ballsy lie. Radios powered by watch & AAA batteries can receive AM radio so it would have neglible impact on EV range, or cost. And besides, if that's the demented logic path they want to go down then ban satellite radio and 4/5G data since surely both of those would have way more impact on range and cost.
Internet Radio? (Score:3)
Re:AM radio is nothing in terms of volts. (Score:4, Insightful)
And it wouldn't even add a dollar or so to the cost of the car.
It absolutely adds cost and complexity to the design of a modern day automobile. Effective AM antennas are not exactly small and you have to incorporate one into the design of your vehicle in a way that minimizes interference (much harder with EVs) without ruining the aesthetics of the vehicle. If that was as easy and cost free as you think there'd be no incentive to remove it in the first place, your tinfoil hattery notwithstanding.
Now, the additional cost isn't really all that significant in the grand scheme of a five digit automobile, but the margins on non-luxury automobiles aren't huge, and if you're thinking like an MBA asshat and multiply the individually insignificant cost savings by the millions of automobiles you hope to sell....
I can see the argument for the mandate, even as someone who virtually never uses AM radio, but don't pretend the mandate will be cost free.
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Nowhere does the requirement say the radio has to come with an Effective antenna. It says AM radio not AM radio antenna.
It just says the vehicle has to come with a radio. They can potentially include a radio in the car that Won't have very good reception, and won't ever give you clean audio due to interference, but it would still meet the definition of an AM radio.
And the owner might just have to bring their
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The emphasis was added by myself.
Re:AM radio is nothing in terms of volts. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nowhere does the requirement say the radio has to come with an Effective antenna. It says AM radio not AM radio antenna.
Courts typically consider the spirit / intention of the law. Consider the $10,000 deposit laws.. If you deposit $10,000 in cash, the bank has to report it to the IRS. Try depositing $9,999..... You think the IRS is going to remain blind to this? Do you think Federal judges will say "hey, the law says $10,000.... It doesn't say $9,999.99"?
I suspect a Federal Judge wouldn't be amused if Ford tried pulling an "it says a radio, says nothing about an antenna...." bunch of BS. I suspect they'd apply the "reasonable-person" approach. If the law says you have to include an AM radio, would a reasonable person conclude that meant a working AM radio? Or would it mean the head-unit only?
Re: AM radio is nothing in terms of volts. (Score:3)
"Consider the $10,000 deposit laws.. If you deposit $10,000 in cash, the bank has to report it to the IRS. Try depositing $9,999..... You think the IRS is going to remain blind to this?"
The law also explicitly calls out "structuring" transactions to avoid these transactions that will go over the reporting amounts.
Re:AM radio is nothing in terms of volts. (Score:4, Informative)
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Nowhere does the requirement say the radio has to come with an Effective antenna. It says AM radio not AM radio antenna.
It just says the vehicle has to come with a radio. They can potentially include a radio in the car that Won't have very good reception, and won't ever give you clean audio due to interference, but it would still meet the definition of an AM radio.
And the owner might just have to bring their own temporary antenna to use it.
Eh, I don't think that's gonna work.
That's not how courts and laws work. This isn't some movie where you have to word things perfectly for a malicious genie. A judge and/or jury would conclude that an "AM radio" necessarily has to be one that actually works in the scenario it is in.
Some judges would even rule that on the basis of the lawmakers' intent; meaning that for democracy to actually be real then the law that gets enforced has to be the one the lawmakers actually thought they were passing, not some
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Err, no. An automobile is basically a Faraday cage and that ferrite antenna will not work unless it is at a window. You can test this by taking a regular AM radio and trying to use it in a car. You can also test the antenna with a RF source such as an old calculator and putting it besides the outside antenna and see if it produces static on the AM radio. It's one way to test the window screen antennas that were popular at one time.
Also consider cars had antennas before FM radio.
A long thing wire sandwiched into the windshield (Score:3)
Nowhere does the requirement say the radio has to come with an Effective antenna.
A 1980s Toyota had an effective antenna that was a long thing wire sandwiched into the windshield layers.
Re:AM radio is nothing in terms of volts. (Score:5, Interesting)
It absolutely adds cost and complexity to the design of a modern day automobile. Effective AM antennas are not exactly small and you have to incorporate one into the design of your vehicle in a way that minimizes interference (much harder with EVs) without ruining the aesthetics of the vehicle. If that was as easy and cost free as you think there'd be no incentive to remove it in the first place, your tinfoil hattery notwithstanding.
I suspect it's more about selling satellite radio subscriptions. They push that hard with newer cars. And the cost argument really falls apart when you consider the cost of a car. If it was a budget item that's one thing, but vehicles cost many tens of thousands of dollars, a fifty buck radio is not going to move the needle on EV adoption.
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I suspect it's more about selling satellite radio subscriptions. They push that hard with newer cars
Who is "they"? My last three cars had satellite radio capability but aside from a few e-mail/snail mail nags, nobody ever tried to push it on me, wasn't even mentioned by the salesperson that sought every other opportunity (extended warranty, dealership financing, blah, blah, blah) to make himself some extra bank.
I'm sure the automobile makers don't mind the tiny bit of revenue sharing they get from satellite radio but how serious of a market is it these days? I would imagine that satellite radio isn't c
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Who is "they"? My last three cars had satellite radio capability but aside from a few e-mail/snail mail nags, nobody ever tried to push it on me, wasn't even mentioned by the salesperson that sought every other opportunity (extended warranty, dealership financing, blah, blah, blah) to make himself some extra bank.
Dealerships give you a free 3 months when you buy a car. And if you sign up, they get some money. It's zero effort for them on the sales side, and the salesperson doesn't get a commission, it just goes to the dealership.
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Also, if the cars have a satellite radio installed by default, or even supported as an add-on, then they almost certainly have designed in the satellite antenna! Those things will NOT work unless they have a good antenna, and that thing is far more complex than an AM antenna. That ZETA group has a lot of gall, expecting anyone to believe that adding an AM radio would, "impact EV range, efficiency and affordability" of an EV! Oh for three.
Dealing with the interference in an EV is the only thing I've heard th
Re:AM radio is nothing in terms of volts. (Score:5, Informative)
I suspect it's more about selling satellite radio subscriptions.
Most Highway Emergency Information broadcasts are on AM stations. National Parks broadcast information on AM. In my state, the State Parks broadcast visitor information on AM. Somewhere around 82,000,000 Americans tune in to AM radio at least once a month.
Car manufacturers want to save a few bucks by not including an AM radio in new cars.... And yet we have large chunks of information infrastructure that depends on people being able to receive those broadcasts....
Why do you people have to go "Conspiracy Theory" on everything?
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Car manufacturers want to save a few bucks by not including an AM radio in new cars.... And yet we have large chunks of information infrastructure that depends on people being able to receive those broadcasts....
Well, if they're willing to drop AM radio in order to "save a few bucks", which really translates to "make a few more bucks", couldn't the fact that AM radio competes, at least some of the time, with satellite radio, which over the life of the car would add up to quite a few more bucks, be a possible motivation?
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Yes, this is about three main EV components: the inverter(s), the motor(s) and the high current conductors between them. SiC MOSFET technology, driven by the EV industry, has advanced a great deal recently, so now it's possible to switch high currents (hundreds of amps) with hard edges. That's great: it means better efficiency, performance, range, etc. It also means these EVs are EMI disasters.
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Incorrect. I have an AM radio in my Kia EV6 and it only has a "shark fin", zero issues.
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Effective AM antennas are not exactly small and you have to incorporate one into the design of your vehicle ...
But possible. The radio antenna for my 2001 Civic is embedded in the rear window. The vehicle aesthetics and reception are fine.
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As a person who has been involved into the design and installation of AM antennas for fun and profit, I can affirm that your statement is completely incorrect.
Also the statement in TFA that installation of AM radios in EV vehicles impacts EV range is blatantly false. Just connect an Ampere
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Effective AM antennas are not exactly small
u wot?
I've got an AM radio I listen to semi regularly for the 24/7 crazy phone in (it's LBC in the UK, where AM radio isn't a right wing thing) when I'm doing housework/cooking. It's online too, but you need an account and to provide details so fuck that. It's hand held and also received Radio 4 LW just fine too.
Re: AM radio is nothing in terms of volts. (Score:2)
Yeah saying it would affect ev range is hilarious straight up lying.
The companies that would like to get rid of it most are probably ones that would like to transmit rather only on fm but have some license thing where they have to do AM too. The am transmitter site is a lot more complicated to run with its required equipment and safety considerations than chucking a fm transmitter on a high building.
Re: AM radio is nothing in terms of volts. (Score:5, Interesting)
Read this article [ieee.org] as a primer and continue deep diving EMI if it doesn't answer all your questions. The broadcasters aren't the ones that want to get rid of AM. It's 100% the automobile manufacturers. They want to be in the automobile design business, not the antenna/radio design business, and they (quite correctly) think that the next generation of consumers is streaming music from their phones, not radio.
The public safety argument is a valid reason to mandate automobiles retain AM/FM radio, although, as someone who has lived in both tornado and hurricane ally, I've often wondered why NOAA Weather Radio [wikipedia.org] isn't mandated for automobiles. It's FM and close enough (161-163MHz) to broadcast FM (89-108MHz) to not require a wholesale antenna redesign. Mandating NOAA Weather Radio would probably do more for public safety than mandating AM radio and it's a lot easier to shield FM from EMI than AM.
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Yeah saying it would affect ev range is hilarious straight up lying.
No, they're not.
Controlling RF noise is hard. Especially when you're switching enough current to accelerate your four ton electric tank from 0-60 in 4-something seconds while you're saving the planet or whatever. Switching current generates RF. Basic physics. To prevent the RF noise you have compromise the design to avoid generating RF hash in the first place and/or shield things and provide low impedance paths for the noise. There various ways to do this, but all of them add something to the system,
Re: AM radio is nothing in terms of volts. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah saying it would affect ev range is hilarious straight up lying.
No, they're not.
Controlling RF noise is hard. Especially when you're switching enough current to accelerate your four ton electric tank from 0-60 in 4-something seconds while you're saving the planet or whatever.
You're assuming that they need to actually control the noise. Strictly speaking, I'm not sure that's a safe assumption. The only absolute requirement is that the radio must reject enough of the noise go get a usable signal. Whether that happens by the car having more shielding, by putting the antenna farther away from the source of noise, or through the radio being more capable of rejecting outside interference is an implementation decision.
Some other approaches might include:
How effective any of those approaches would be is anybody's guess. I'm thinking the last one is probably overkill (and probably wouldn't work anyway), but beyond that...
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You're assuming that they need to actually control the noise.
True. The text of the bill says nothing about harmful interference. However, there is the implication that the receivers being mandated might actually work, and not just for the vehicle operator, but for the vehicle in the next lane as well. There are ample incumbent commercial interests and lawyers at hand that will be eager to attempt to convert that implication into a case.
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You're assuming that they need to actually control the noise.
True. The text of the bill says nothing about harmful interference. However, there is the implication that the receivers being mandated might actually work, and not just for the vehicle operator, but for the vehicle in the next lane as well.
The vehicles in the next lane can always slow down or speed up or change lanes to move away from your car if your car makes its radio too noisy, so that's likely to be a non-issue. I haven't measured the field strength from an EV to see if it exceeds those limits, though, so I could be wrong.
Note that the FCC allows AM transmitters up to 1705 kHz under section 15.219 without a license as long as the ERP is below 100 milliwatts and the antenna is no more than 10 feet tall. There's no transmitting antenna i
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Yeah saying it would affect ev range is hilarious straight up lying.
No, they're not.
Controlling RF noise is hard. Especially when you're switching enough current to accelerate your four ton electric tank from 0-60 in 4-something seconds while you're saving the planet or whatever. Switching current generates RF. Basic physics. To prevent the RF noise you have compromise the design to avoid generating RF hash in the first place and/or shield things and provide low impedance paths for the noise. There various ways to do this, but all of them add something to the system, and that manifests as size and mass. Every gram of mass or cubic mm you use for one thing is a gram of mass or cubic mm you can't use for something else.
So they aren't actually lying. If the mandate is that the product can't just spew RF hash then the design will have to be compromised.
Michael Faraday would like to have a word with you.
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Why? Did he live in some universe with alternate laws of physics? If not then, you should know, the problem we're discussing is a bit more complex than perhaps you imagine. Bits of foil can't solve it.
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:/ AM is the source of right wing talk radio.
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Heheh. If it weren't for the emergency and traffic use, I would not mind if AM disappeared. Not everyone is gonna have a fully charged smartphone, and many areas on the interstate are internet dead zones, particularly in rural areas.
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As a ham radio operator, let me enlighten you - not only.
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I thought ham radio was just individuals jib jabbing. Do people broadcast talk radio there? Or are you joking about their content? :)
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Around here, a couple of guys have basically "occupied" a frequency, meaning they are there wherever you tune in. Sometimes they talk antennas, radios, gas prices or police speed traps, but most of the time it is politics.
It isn't talk radio per se, but from what I hear it is a lot like it, especially the kind where people can phone in, because you know everyone can chime in ;)
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AM Radio is absolutely nothing in terms of vaults, because you can literally run one off of a AA battery for hours.
This has nothing to do with saving money. Because when they build these things en-masse and buy them from a supplier that's already making them, they're probably already cheaper than they could build themselves And it wouldn't even add a dollar or so to the cost of the car.
I wouldn't say the cost is quite that low. Modern head units are all digital, so you have to take into account the cost of adc circuitry and integrating it with the software stack. Between that and antenna considerations, it does carry an additional (though negligible) engineering burden.
It's simple. They understand that am radio is a military technology and they don't want America to have national security.
The military definitely uses FM. Though not your typical FM radio, more analogous to a HAM radio in that it can tune AND transmit on a much wider spectrum, plus optional digital encryption.
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AM Radio is absolutely nothing in terms of vaults, because you can literally run one off of a AA battery for hours.
This has nothing to do with saving money. Because when they build these things en-masse and buy them from a supplier that's already making them, they're probably already cheaper than they could build themselves And it wouldn't even add a dollar or so to the cost of the car.
I wouldn't say the cost is quite that low. Modern head units are all digital, so you have to take into account the cost of adc circuitry and integrating it with the software stack. Between that and antenna considerations, it does carry an additional (though negligible) engineering burden.
Either the FM radio in the car is analog or it is doing some sort of software-defined radio thing, but either way, analog-to-digital conversion is still effectively occurring in the radio circuitry already, which means that could be done for AM just as easily. So that part of the cost should be quite close to zero beyond the cost of the AM receiver circuit itself (and for SDR, it would probably be exactly zero).
The real question is whether an AM tuner can usefully function with that much environmental nois
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AM Radio is absolutely nothing in terms of vaults, because you can literally run one off of a AA battery for hours.
No kidding, crystal radio doesn't even need a battery. Furthermore, I once lived near an AM radio transmitter antenna and I could hear the sound of the broadcast coming out of my toaster! There again, no battery needed.
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It's like an antenna and a digital tuner chip (whatever automotive equivalent to the Si4844 is) to receive AM radio these days. I suspect a replacement air filter on a car is more expensive than the components for AM reception. It can't be about the component cost.
So why the hell are they so against this?
They want to sell a certain segment of the population a Sirius subscription. In many parts of the US, the FM band is popular music and Spanish-language programming. If someone wants to listen to right-wing talk radio they need AM or a satellite.
Re:AM radio is nothing in terms of volts. (Score:5, Informative)
but I don't understand how I
So part of the national emergency system in the US is built around AM radio. The reason for this is the behavior of radio waves at these frequencies. If, for instance, some large fraction of all communication infrastructure were wiped out, a small number of powerful AM radio stations could, with their output power at maximum and during nighttime hours, cover the entire continent with a signal that can be received by very simple, very low power receivers. This is a basic property of AM radio that's been understood for a hundred years now and the basis for certain regulatory decisions, like maintaining a select set of special, geographically distributed, high power AM radio stations across the US.
Unfortunately for car makers, which are either actively pursuing or being pushed into electric products, high power electric motors and their power supplies are hard (read: expensive) to keep quiet: they make a lot of RF noise, especially around the same frequencies as AM radio. So, rather than innovate or pass on these costs, the car makers just figure the easiest (read: most profitable, lowest cost) thing to do is take a giant shit all over the RF spectrum while selling their 8,000 lbs electric tanks.
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You really earned that "Informative" markup!
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So part of the national emergency system in the US is built around AM radio.
They should probably mandate long wave reception then too while they're at it. Even better for propagation than medium wave.
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The number of fucks you give about EBS isn't necessarily relevant. Given the sort of extreme conditions where one might actually need to use commercial broadcast equipment for emergency communication, that communication could be operational traffic among leaders, first responders, the military, etc., as opposed to public broadcasts.
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They have their own communication channels for that.
However, part of national security is keeping the civilians alive and relatively unharmed. The idea is that with the infrastructure in an area being fubar, you can use AM radio from elsewhere to spread information like evac routes, how to get clean water, when to expect rescue, etc...
When everybody had at least an AM radio that could run off batteries or crank, useful.
All the cell phones jamming up duing emergencies and being useless if the towers are dow
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The most recent legal act regarding this is Executive Order 13618 — Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions July 6, 2012. Wherein, the federal government has the power to "satisfy priority communications requirements through the use of commercial, Government, and privately owned communications resources, when appropriate."
The US government has long anticipated that commercial systems might need to be employed for its own communication. The facts are that
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Losing an invaluable national alert system isnt worth people saving a few bucks off a cars price.
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Have you never seen the traffic and emergency signs on the highway telling people where to go on the AM dial for instructions and notifications? That only works with AM because only AM has the range.
AM radios add maybe $1 to the cost of a vehicle, and they don't need a long antennae, contrary to what someone else said (well, I've never needed one). The real reason for this push, in my mind, has to be lefties trying to kill talk radio, which they've been salivating at for decades
And Baton Rouge Creole "all
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AM radios add maybe $1 to the cost of a vehicle, and they don't need a long antennae, contrary to what someone else said (well, I've never needed one). The real reason for this push, in my mind, has to be lefties trying to kill talk radio, which they've been salivating at for decades
This is conspiracy territory and not founded by any reality.
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Yeah, true, I admit it and withdraw the theory. I think the EV issues are a much better explanation, without contradicting evidence. But it still seems sus.
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...aaand this is why a medium still enjoyed by tens of millions at the cost of less than $1 per vehicle is being targeted for removal in the first place.
AM is also super long range and used by local governments to distribute emergency or traffic information. You see lots of roadside signs saying "tune to XXXX AM for YYYY."
I'd love to kill off Saun Hannity and his ilk forever, but cost is not a valid reason to do so.
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Even with a poo