Saving AM Radio - the Case For and Against (msn.com) 282
This weekend the Washington Post updated the current status of AM radio:
Automakers, such as BMW, Volkswagen, Mazda and Tesla, are removing AM radios from new electric vehicles because electric engines can interfere with the sound of AM stations. And Ford, one of the nation's top-three auto sellers, is taking a bigger step, eliminating AM from all of its vehicles, electric or gas-operated...
Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia and Jaguar Land Rover — said they have no plans to eliminate AM.
The case for removing AM radio: [A]lthough 82 million Americans still listen to AM stations each month, according to the National Association of Broadcasters, the AM audience has been aging for decades. Ford says its data, pulled from internet-connected vehicles, shows that less than 5 percent of in-car listening is to AM stations. Ford spokesman Alan Hall said that because most AM stations also offer their programming online or on FM sister stations, the automaker will continue to "offer these alternatives for customers to hear their favorite AM radio music and news as we remove [AM] from most new and updated models." The 2024 Mustang is Ford's first internal combustion model to be marketed without AM...
As Ford did, BMW eliminated AM from electric models in part because "technological innovation has afforded consumers many additional options to receive the same or similar information," Adam McNeill, the company's U.S. vice president of engineering, said in a letter to Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.)... For the automakers, eliminating AM is a simple matter of numbers and progress. The AM audience keeps getting smaller and older, and the growth of alternative forms of in-car audio has been explosive.
But the Post adds this this happening "despite protests from station owners, listeners, first-responders and politicians from both major parties." and they point out that half of all AM-radio listening takes place in cars: Many AM stations don't offer alternative ways to listen to their shows. Even those that do say their audience, much of which is older, tends not to be adept at the technologies that let drivers stream anything they choose from their smartphones into their car's audio system. And despite the growing popularity of podcasts and streaming audio, a large majority of in-car listening remains old-fashioned broadcast radio, according to industry studies.
[S]ome of the country's most lucrative radio stations are still on AM, mostly all-news or news and talk stations in big cities such as New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles.ome of the country's most lucrative radio stations are still on AM, mostly all-news or news and talk stations in big cities such as New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles.
The Post also points out that AM and FM radio combined account for 60 percent of all in-car listening, according to a new study by Edison Research. "SiriusXM satellite radio makes up 16 percent of in-car audio use, followed by drivers' own music from their phones at 7 percent and podcasts and YouTube music videos at 4 percent each."
Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia and Jaguar Land Rover — said they have no plans to eliminate AM.
The case for removing AM radio: [A]lthough 82 million Americans still listen to AM stations each month, according to the National Association of Broadcasters, the AM audience has been aging for decades. Ford says its data, pulled from internet-connected vehicles, shows that less than 5 percent of in-car listening is to AM stations. Ford spokesman Alan Hall said that because most AM stations also offer their programming online or on FM sister stations, the automaker will continue to "offer these alternatives for customers to hear their favorite AM radio music and news as we remove [AM] from most new and updated models." The 2024 Mustang is Ford's first internal combustion model to be marketed without AM...
As Ford did, BMW eliminated AM from electric models in part because "technological innovation has afforded consumers many additional options to receive the same or similar information," Adam McNeill, the company's U.S. vice president of engineering, said in a letter to Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.)... For the automakers, eliminating AM is a simple matter of numbers and progress. The AM audience keeps getting smaller and older, and the growth of alternative forms of in-car audio has been explosive.
But the Post adds this this happening "despite protests from station owners, listeners, first-responders and politicians from both major parties." and they point out that half of all AM-radio listening takes place in cars: Many AM stations don't offer alternative ways to listen to their shows. Even those that do say their audience, much of which is older, tends not to be adept at the technologies that let drivers stream anything they choose from their smartphones into their car's audio system. And despite the growing popularity of podcasts and streaming audio, a large majority of in-car listening remains old-fashioned broadcast radio, according to industry studies.
[S]ome of the country's most lucrative radio stations are still on AM, mostly all-news or news and talk stations in big cities such as New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles.ome of the country's most lucrative radio stations are still on AM, mostly all-news or news and talk stations in big cities such as New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles.
The Post also points out that AM and FM radio combined account for 60 percent of all in-car listening, according to a new study by Edison Research. "SiriusXM satellite radio makes up 16 percent of in-car audio use, followed by drivers' own music from their phones at 7 percent and podcasts and YouTube music videos at 4 percent each."
Argument against seems week, or bad data (Score:5, Informative)
If most of the audience who listens to AM radio is older, and not prone to use technological alternatives, then it would seem to be wise to keep AM radio since older people generally have a lot more disposable income.
They also claim less than 5% of drivers listen to AM. But where do they get THAT data from? It seems unrealistic, especially for older drivers.
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So someone like me who almost never connects their car to the internet would not be recorded and I mainly listen to downloaded audiobooks via bluetooth and people that do that did not even come up as a measurable group.
Re:Argument against seems week, or bad data (Score:5, Informative)
The argument against seems weak because the auto makers aren't admitting the real argument against AM radio.
Your VoIP telephone adapter still supports pulse (rotary) dialing because it costs practically nothing to implement. An AM radio receiver is the same way.
The AM radio _antenna_, on the other hand, carries a cost. It has to be relatively long, so it either has to stick out above the car body (which few buyers like), or it has to be carefully integrated into the shape of the car body. Tweaking your car body design for successful AM radio reception is both expensive and very limiting. For something few people use.
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Also implementing pulse dialing is nothing because it involves no real engineering in a physical sense, no extra chips. Also listening for clicks instead of DTMF was implemented because they couldn't roll out new phones and switches nationwide at the same time, nor was AT&T still the lord and master of all.
Finally, to be fair, if AT&T had still been lord and master of all phone services, you might not see pulse at all today. AT&T would've killed it of
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Although the "full stop" rubric doesn't help your argument, you do have some sound reasoning in your argument. It's OK to drop AM.
Spectrum allocation and software-defined radios have obviated what were once AM radio's benefits. Like ISDN, 10BaseT, and in the case of radio, spark transmitters and even Morse Code, all have dropped in popularity because *they should*.
There remains only the transmitter changes to FM for public service AM radio stations.
Engineering is not a PITA. Nonetheless, technology entropy
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Not even because they "should" per se but simply because they were supplanted by advancing technology. The only reason they held as long as they did was lower cost. Radios were already engineered and changing them would cost money. New "entertainment systems" are being redone regularly, in this time of rapid changes. Look at Sync vs Sync II if you want a hint. A VFD? and USB1.1 versus a color LCD display and USB 2. That's before Sync III having USB or
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The electronics are truly trivial, almost inconsequential from a cost standpoint. It's the antenna that costs, plus the additional energy that te longer wavelength adds to the noise shelf in the receiver, potentially causing more profitable telemetry data reception problems.
The media found on AM, a few exceptions aside, is low-value and also found on FM stations. The disadvantage is largely to those in truly rural and low population density areas in the western US mountain ranges. FM sucks there because VHF
Re:Argument against seems week, or bad data (Score:4, Informative)
Nope. The AM antenna uses the same defogger grid as your FM antenna does. After all, power antennas stopped being a thing in the mid-90s. And AM radio has seen heavy use from then until now. So obviously the solution has been around. The only special antenna on these cars is the "shark fin" satellite radio antenna.
The rear window defogger grid is still a huge array of wires whether it's the printed type where you can see the lines or built into the glass itself. Plus, modern vehicles have antenna amps.
Radio in modern vehicles is done via SDR radio chips - the one I worked with handled infotainment audio (e.g., media playback, streaming, GPS, etc), AM, FM and DAB. You can get it without DAB if you wanted to use, say, proprietary HD Radio chips instead (HD Radio is completely proprietary - you need special chips and codec chips to use it, which is why it's falling out of favor).
About the only excuse that might work is interference - EVs can be horrible at it, between the variable frequency drives and inverters, but given I listen to AM radio, I've yet to have my reception get swamped everytime a Tesla drives by.
Heck, in Canada, AM radio is often used for all news stations and more importantly, sports.
Hell, aircraft carry AM receivers - not just the two-way communications radios (aviation band sits between the FM broadcast band and the 2M ham band), but NDBs are so close to the AM band the receivers can receive AM too (this provides additional navigation since you know where AM stations are located). The antennas used to be huge, but now they're small and compact and it isn't unusual to see them tuned to a local AM station after a big hockey game.
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You sir, obviously have no idea how an AM radio works. All AM radios built since the 30's use coil antennas where the antenna is a fine wire wrapped around a powdered-iron or ferrite rod. Total size: about three 8 cm (three inches). You can connect an external whip antenna if
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You sir, obviously have no idea how an AM radio works. All AM radios built since the 30's use coil antennas where the antenna is a fine wire wrapped around a powdered-iron or ferrite rod. Total size: about three 8 cm (three inches). You can connect an external whip antenna if you want, and it can sometimes help signal reception, but it isn't required..
The real reason auto makers hate AM is because electric vehicles create tons of EMI and its cheaper to get rid of the now-unusable radio than it is to avoid creating a junk AM-transmitter on wheels. That it also creates interference for everyone around them (in violation of FCC regulations and US law) is just further reason to eliminate AM radio: problem solved if there aren't any AM radios left!
^This. While it’s true the natural vibration modes of EM are longer for longer wavelengths, much like a string instrument, it’s not true you need a longer antenna. You can add inductance and capacitance to balance impedance and optimally transfer power by virtually becoming the rest of the missing length. So really it’s better viewed as how much energy is needed and with todays signal to noise specs on receivers, we haven’t really needed long antennas to boost that receive energy
Re: Argument against seems week, or bad data (Score:2)
Your car data is downloaded when you take your car to get serviced.
Ford for instance will save your driving telemetry data in the radio headunit (APIM). This information is then downloaded whenever it is connected to a Ford diagnostic system, as the diagnostic system has an internet requirement for functionality. Thus you think your offline car isnâ(TM)t transmitting but you just have no idea.
Toyota, Mazda, Honda. They all do it. GM just went brazen about it (yeah we have a sim in every car so we just
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I mainly listen to downloaded audiobooks via bluetooth and people that do that did not even come up as a measurable group.
Surely that's the same category as people who listen to their own music via whatever means.
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The millennials and gen Z might do better but they're also not going to be listening to radio let alone AM radio.
Basically there's a major demographic change going on and AM radio is likely to be a casualty of that.
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So the older boomers have a lot of disposable income but Gen x isn't going to be like that. The retirement outlook for a Gen x is a generation is extremely bleak and barring massive changes in society they're going to be lucky to have food and shelter let alone disposable income.. ..
That "massive change in society" is not that hard to achieve. The solution is to get rid of the prosperity-throttling income taxes. Stop taxing income, tax consumption instead. A luxury tax, known as the FairTax, is far more progressive than our income taxes, and would offer the world a manufacturing environment free of income taxes. World manufacturing executives would injure themselves in the stampede to build factories in the USA. Much higher factory labor wages would bring about the "massive ch
Re: Argument against seems week, or bad data (Score:2)
> The solution is to get rid of the prosperity-throttling income taxes.
Prosperity growth post wwii suggests income taxes are, not a problem because they were much higher then. They were also much more aggressively progressive.
I think a return to that, plus a luxury consumption tax (including a progressive energy use tax, such that energy consumption beyond a threshold is s/t a higher consumption tax rate) is a great idea.
Re:Argument against seems week, or bad data (Score:4, Interesting)
They also claim less than 5% of drivers listen to AM. But where do they get THAT data from? It seems unrealistic, especially for older drivers.
Where I live some of the highest paid radio personalities are on AM radio. That correlates to audience numbers and advertising dollars in which they lead the ratings so definitely more than 5% listen to AM radio
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Where I live some of the highest paid radio personalities are on AM radio. That correlates to audience numbers and advertising dollars in which they lead the ratings so definitely more than 5% listen to AM radio
You conveniently forget one thing, the 5% figure is about AM use in cars.
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Where I live some of the highest paid radio personalities are on AM radio.
Such as?
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Unfortunately, when you're born they assign you either "AM" or "FM" and it's impossible to change later. Otherwise all those AM personalities could just switch over to FM and everything would be fine.
Maybe they can learn to code.
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That logic wrongly assumes early adopters have representative habits. As people replace their older cars, the percentage is very likely to increase. What automakers see now is a mix of people replacing old cars and the people who trade in every few years -- and in today's economy, probably an unusually high share of the latter.
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then it would seem to be wise to keep AM radio since older people generally have a lot more disposable income.
Old people do not have disposable income. You're thinking of middle aged people. Old people are overwhelmingly stretching their income to try and make retirement, or retiring on borderline survivable income. The vast majority of people past their midlife crisis are not buying new cars.
They also claim less than 5% of drivers listen to AM. But where do they get THAT data from?
I understand not reading TFA. I understand not reading TFS. I understand some people can't even be bothered to read more than one sentence, but in this case it literally says where they get that data from in the same sentence
Re:Argument against seems week, or bad data (Score:5, Insightful)
Another reason to keep AM, in my area it is the only place were I can hear real local news. Many times, the local AM radio (5000 watts IIRC) will interview people on the City Council, School Committee and other local pols. All other radio/tv stations will only interview State or the State Capital pols.
Plus, at times, it plays old radio serials from the 30s/40s and music from the 50s. Will be sad if it folds due to this change. Local News is hard enough to get, especially for older people.
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Also, $LOCAL_SPORTS_TEAM tends to broadcast on AM.
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The echo chamber that is the internet is a large part of the far-left hellscape brainwashing a good portion of the worlds youth into being lib-tard fuckwads. The sooner it goes away the better.
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You left out churches and universities.
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It's more difficult to charge for AM radio than for a stream.
There's the real driver for all of this.
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AM radios in all FORD cars (either Ford or one of it's brands) have been notoriously susceptible to noise & interference from the car's own ignition system since the 1980s.
So it's no wonder that FORD wants to get rid of AM radios in their cars since they haven't figured out since the early 1980s how to fix the radiated electrical noise issues.
Medium Wave radio stations are dying (Score:3)
In Europe the fall started with the demise of Radio Luxembourg.
Now it's more or less just minor stations of various kinds and I don't think that they have many listeners. The FM band with RDS is a lot better serving European car travellers.
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The other slow death of AM is the rise of electromagnetic pollution caused by badly shielded digital devices and switching power supplies, and even the widespread adoption of LED lights instead of incandescent ones. Not
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Also in Europe it's mandatory that radio sold must have DAB reception, even if nobody it's really interested about it.
There are generally three reasons why people argue for USW:
Most people I know with an actual choice between DAB+ and USW vastly prefer DAB+.
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In Europe the fall started with the demise of Radio Luxembourg.
Now it's more or less just minor stations of various kinds and I don't think that they have many listeners. The FM band with RDS is a lot better serving European car travellers.
Many European countries have stopped AM transmissions, but that's mainly because of the dense population (which makes FM signals sufficient to cover most areas) and also the rising energy costs (which lead to sudden closedowns of privately owned stations) and which will make the current hold outs disappear in the next year - at least the BBC.
Europe also had problems because of the 2nd world war - after which they re-organised the frequencies which causes European AM to sound much worse than US AM radio (9kH
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Many European countries have stopped AM transmissions,
According to Wikipedia (in French) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] the only remaining transmissions are: UK (BBC 4 / BBC World), Romania (Radio Romania, Antena Satelor), Iceland (RUV 1, RUV 2), Poland (Polskie Radio), Denmark (DR Langbolge), Ireland (RTE 1).
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That's a list of stations that transmit on long wave - which is very limited, as most AM radios sold in the UK and probably other countries don't include long wave capability. The number on medium wave is small but not that small.
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DAB+ is a digital cell-type network and providing the power-to range ratio of the cells is OK it works really well.
In my last three or four cars I had DAB+ and I use it almost exclusively, the one exception was a station that was at first only available on FM.
As others have already mentioned Europe is more densely populated than some states in the US so once a s
Simple solution : remove the engine (Score:5, Funny)
that will get rid of the of the interference.
Years ago (Score:5, Funny)
In my home town you could get two radio stations, one AM and one FM. Sometimes you could pick up a third if the weather was perfect, but it was in French so nobody cared. The AM station announced plans to switch to FM and everyone was talking about the poor farmers out working all day who wouldn't be able to listen to the radio anymore since their combine didn't receive FM, range wasn't sufficient, etc.
Meanwhile the farmers were all kicking back in their air conditioned cabs listening to satellite radio.
Why do cars need radios at all (Score:2)
They should just have a place to plug in your cellphone (for hands free use of cour5se)
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Yes, cell coverage can suck at times, and also the interfaces for actually selecting something to listen to on the phone can be very distracting if you haven't gone out of your way to create single-click playlists and/or streaming options depending on the music.
Android Auto requires apps to implement special APIs to support and not every music app does it (or in the case of youtube-music, does it for free). And those APIs are only partially compatible with the new "Android Drive" mode if you're only using t
Greetings from Australia, where AM is still alive (Score:5, Informative)
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Fortunately Yank Fords are not sold in Ozzie.
Presumably Ford Falcons and (GM) Holdens will still have AM radio.
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What do they drive around Mt Panorama on the 1st Sunday in October then?
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Camaros and Mustangs. We used to have the odd smattering of Volvo and Nissan but nowadays its V8 coupe or GTFO it seems, and no one but Ford and Chevy is making them.
Kinda boring.
/Holden Fan.
Re:Greetings from Australia, where AM is still ali (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yeah, I can't see the Singapore post in this thread anymore for some reason - it was here when I first viewed the thread. But checkout the recent posts from both:
https://slashdot.org/~rsilverp... [slashdot.org]
https://slashdot.org/~maxcelca... [slashdot.org]
The wording is too similar (identical in places) to be a coincidence and it's clear it was written by the same person.
If the rsilverpubes account disappears, this is the content of the post from that account:
Really poorly written article. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lack of mention of the costs or feasibility of switching stations to FM.
Just a brief mention of the emergency event usage of AM, and no mention why FM could not do perform that action.
Instead we get a bunch of paragraphs on how it will hurt minorities the most, with no indication on how they are any different from anyone else that relies on those AM stations.
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You do realize this is slashdot, right? Who around here reads the summary, let alone the actual article!
Many AM stations don't offer alternative ways (Score:3)
Many AM stations don't offer alternative ways to listen to their shows
If they want to stay relevant, they'd better get busy offering those alternatives!
AM Radio is Useful... (Score:2)
But only rarely.
1. Right wing and religious claptrap. Few care.
2. Emergency broadcasts. Cell phone networks are better for this.
3. Sports. Our local station went FM anyway.
4. Rural drives. Satellite is better.
Old tech dies. Screw the buggy whip makers.
Re:AM Radio is Useful... (Score:4, Insightful)
Cell phones are useless where there is no service, thats where AM shines, very long range.
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I'd listen to road noise before I listen to commercial laden terrestrial radio.
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2. Emergency broadcasts. Cell phone networks are better for this.
Cell phones don't work at all when the big wind takes down their relay towers. AM radio is the only thing that works in that environment, on a signal coming from outside the disaster area. AM is the only (free) broadcast medium that can traverse hundred of miles. FM dies after 50 - 100 miles. AM is everything after that.
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5. AM works better in the mountains. A steep walled east-west canyon can even block out satellites since they are over the equator.
Cell phones are also useless in the mountains. Anything with a high enough frequency to be line of sight is of limited use.
As an aside, I was on a drive from Butte to Helena plowing through the previous night's slush and I tried to tune to the AM weather update system as per the sign.. By the time I had figured out how to get the touch screen controlled radio to the right band
Re:AM Radio is Useful... (Score:4, Informative)
Reading to all the comments here, people really do not appear to grasp what is the intention of radio.
What is the purpose of radio broadcasts? To inform listeners. Can be news, music, sport, commercials, whatever.
What does a broadcast need? 1 antenna that does the broadcasting, each listener will only have need of an antenna that receives.
How much energy does a broadcast require? The broadcasting antenna requires a lot of power, the receiving antennas require next to no power at all.
Th amount of power is defined by the shape and size of the broadcasting antenna, and the range the broadcasted signal needs to travel.
FM has much better audio quality, but is very limited in range, while requiring very much power. Range and power requirements make FM a nono for emergency services. AM has much poorer audio quality, is only available in mono, requires one hell of a lot less power for the broadcasting antenna than FM does while it has tremendous range. With a severe national calamity, nothing will work as well as AM broadcasts will to inform citizens. It will be much easier to power an AM broadcasting antenna with a fuel-fed generator than it would be for a broadcasting FM antenna.
While AM and FM receivers do not require that much power to receive the broadcasted signal, an AM receiving requires less than an FM receiver does.
All the newer systems cannot hold a candle against the range and (relative) low power requirements of AM broadcasts when real crap hits the rotator.
AM is however a pretty poor medium for (commercial) music broadcasts. Any other broadcasting system does that better. And by a lot, there is no denying that. We'll agree, when all is well, AM broadcasts are surpassed in practically all aspects. But in the aftermath of any serious calamity, you'll know and acquire a true appreciation of what AM is and how it will help build things back up again from the literal ashes.
Emergency broadcasts via cell phone....the usefulness of that depends very much on the type of calamity. For the types you are still willing to envision, I'm sure those will be useful. Don't expect it to be of any help in the intermediate aftermath when San Francisco gets hit by the 'Big one". Or when the super volcano in Yellow Stone park decides to go off. For much simpler and less severe calamities, emergency broadcast via a cell phone network will work.
Your statement about cell phone networks being the better emergency broadcast system, is much further from the mark than you dared to realize. There is no 'one solution fits all'-system for all types of calamities.
On-topic:
AM costs barely anything to build into a car, yet it could be a lifesaver in your car to avoid the large areas being destroyed by earthquakes, plague-infestations, floods, magma, mud-slides etc. For all I care, you'll avoid the zombies or fungi-infected as well. And all that from hundreds of miles away before accidentally arriving/passing through those areas.
That's not a reason, that's an excuse (Score:2, Insightful)
"...less tha five percent..."
So what? What's the percentage of drivers who ever use the jack stowed in their auto? AM radio isn't taking up any extra room and the only reason to remove it is cost savings, whatever they may be. These stats are just an excuse.
Re:That's not a reason, that's an excuse (Score:4, Interesting)
Boss: "Our telemetry proves that only 1% of the userbase uses this feature, so we're removing it."
Peon: "Yeah, but... that 1% of the userbase are developers, so it's a really important 1%. We need those people to support the platform!"
Boss: "Sorry, bud, the numbers don't lie."
The problem with telemetry is that it's just numbers. They can mean whatever the bosses want them to mean.
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What's the percentage of drivers who ever use the jack stowed in their auto?
The jack is required emergency equipment and in many cases a car can't be sold without one.
AM radio isn't taking up any extra room and the only reason to remove it is cost savings, whatever they may be. These stats are just an excuse.
... errr yes. That is literally how business works. You don't just spend money on shit no one needs or uses unless you have to, and you analyse data to look for reasons to remove it. I don't understand why you think this is controversial...
No that's capitalism (Score:2)
Yes AM does take up extra room, and does cost extra, especially on a hybrid or electric vehicle. That's before the engineering cost. Ford, in particular, tends to use the same version media system in all of the same generation cars.
I further love the invocation of "first res
AM has advantages in emergencies (Score:5, Insightful)
If worst comes to worst, you can receive AM radio using an old earphone, a pencil, a safety pin, and a razor blade. It doesn't take many operational transmitters to completely cover the U.S. with emergency information and news.
The best way to make sure those transmitters are ready in an emergency is to keep them in regular service. 5G won't cut it for this, the backup batteries in the towers won't even last 24 hours.
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It absolutely does. And if you care about emergency situations you would follow the recommended practices and have a battery powered portable AM radio. The car is a great tool for getting around, that's it. If you are relying on the radio in your car as your only source of emergency information you don't have an emergency response plan, you have a death wish.
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How many people under the age of 60 have those items laying around, including the special high impedance crystal earphone? Exactly no one.
This has become so dystopian (Score:5, Insightful)
Ford says its data, pulled from internet-connected vehicles
And my question are:
- What business does Ford have spying on their customers?
- Why are Ford cars even online - let alone snitching on behalf of the mothership?
- Why is this even legal?
- Why is nobody up in arms over this? Are people really okay with this shit now??
Re:This has become so dystopian (Score:5, Funny)
If you buy a Ford, you're willing to put up with way, way worse shit than being spied on.
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My 2019 Edge ST is the most reliable car I've ever owned. With 137,000 miles on it, I leave on Wednesday for the Dayton Hamvention, 1100 miles away, with absolutely no trepidation for getting there and back reliably.
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Well, since you almost have a new car, that's hardly surprising.
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You carry a cell phone? A tablet? Not even a fancy schmancy smart phone, just one that has bluetooth for a headset. Congratulations! The Nordstrom, Macy's, JC Penney, Aldi, Publix, Festival, Victoria's Secret, et al., can tell you were there, and likely has your name / address available. They can even tell how long you spend in a spot down to about 4-8 feet. They can even tell
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I wouldn't mind if I was fully aware it's happening and given the option to opt out. But I bet no Ford dealer tells prospective buyers the fucking cars tracks you 24/7.
It's to push people into subscriptions. (Score:4, Interesting)
They want the kickback from SiriusXM etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0... [nytimes.com]
"SiriusXM pays about $1 billion a year in subsidies and revenue splits to automakers, and according to the company, 75 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States come with satellite radio installed. (It works with every major carmaker.) Of the 29.6 million subscribers to SiriusXM at the end of last year, 24.2 million paid the $11 to $20 monthly fee themselves, with the rest covered through promotions by car companies.
“If I ask myself two questions every day,” James E. Meyer, SiriusXM’s chief executive, said in an interview, “the first one is, ‘What do I got to do to make sure people pay us $15?’ The second one: ‘What do I need to do to make sure that my position with the auto companies remains strong?’”"
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Sirius XM is unknown outside North America .... because people outside the USA and Canada are not willing to pay for in car music ...
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Biased sample .,.... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Ford says its data, pulled from internet-connected vehicles" which are the least likely to listen to AM radio ...
You can pry AM from my cold, dead hands.. (Score:2)
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Executive: (looks at watch, sits down)... we can wait.
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Remember Rwanda.....
AM has more humans speaking (Score:4, Interesting)
AM has more humans speaking than FM. So when I tire of music and ads on repeat on FM, I tune in to AM. I'd rather listen to a human than hear the twelveteenth iteration of a chart topper.
Yes, the AM station may be too rabid or too woke. That's a risk when humans are expressing opinions. If so, I simply change to another. My favorite is a local radio reading program for the visually impaired that reads out a selection of print news sources.
At least Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia and Jaguar Land Rover still provide a choice for those of us who want one. The carmakers who only provide FM would probably rather have us all pay for streaming voice-heavy programming. So they can receive a cut from their 'infotainment ecosystem'. Rent-seeking is the new black.
(Ignore last line) (Score:2)
(Ignore final line in the post above ~ editing glitch)
REPOSTING A SENSIBLE COMMENT FROM THE DISCUSSION (Score:2)
No, the underlying reason for this nonsense is so that the manufacturers can let the electric motors pollute the radio spectrum. They don't want to spend the bucks to quiet those electric motors. So, if you buy a portable radio to use in the car, all you'll hear is static whenever those motors move the car. The correct solution, as always, is to prohibit the pollution.
Shielding electric motors takes metal which equals dollars and weight. However, AM radio is the canary in the coalmine. Not shielding the radio means that the humans inside and outside a car are also not shielded. There's a wealth of data about the (predominantly) negative effect of man-made electric fields, magnetic fields and electromagnetic radiation on human biology. (Don't give me "ah, but the earth has its own magnetic field and electromagnetic fields". Humans need those. Those fields are precisely wh
We need AM radio (Score:2, Interesting)
We need AM radio. In a time of crisis there may be no other method of communications given the digital methods used today. Digital TV has even less range than analog did and even then it was never meant to be used as a nationwide method of broadcasting disasters, eventhough the misguided "monthly test of the national broadcasting test" gave false hope that it would be useful.
AM radio can be picked up by the simplest radio, a crystal radio set. Growing up in Cleveland, radio station WTAM/WWWE had 50,000 wa
GenXer: 4 Years Without AM and Still Alive (Score:2)
Honestly, I didn't notice the lack of AM until about a month in, and that was because I was doing a deep dive, playing with the audio settings.
In 4 years, I have never once found myself in a circumstance where I needed to tune to an AM station, only to feel burned by not having AM in the car. Oh, I see "tune into 510AM for travel info" signs along the road when on road trips, but my car literally is a computer that tells me about conditions ahead.
Outdated Technology (Score:2)
I responded, "They did! It's called an FM radio!"
Anyone else wondering about health? (Score:3)
Greedy Bastads Want Bandspace (Score:3)
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Screw the cassette tapes. I want to save the 8-track. Think of the poor manufacturers! Anyway, I'm going to go watch something on my Betamax.
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Under normal circumstances I might agree, though emergency responders never used cassette players to communicate warnings to the public. There are some state departments of transportation that use AM frequencies to communicate with drivers as well (you'll see road signs indicating this fact).
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Lacking AM radios in cars won't help emergency responders communicate.
It would be nice to be able to just pick a technology and use it forever. But life doesn't work that way. Airlines have had to adjust to interference from cell phones. You can't just tell people to stop using cell phones. (Well, you can, but good luck enforcing it!)
I have little sympathy for emergency responders who refuse to update their technology beyond what was practical 50 years ago.
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If people want AM radios in their cars, they will look for and buy cars that have them. If there isn't sufficient demand to keep the car makers interested in building them into their products, then obviously nobody cares enough to "save" AM radio.
This is kind of like starting a movement to "save" cassette tape players in cars. If people wanted them, cars would still have them.
There is a difference between what the market is willing to accept and what people want. The car companies are doing this to skimp on EMI and get away with it not because they are responding to demand.
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If people want AM radios in their cars, they will look for and buy cars that have them.
Also people can replace the radios, not sure though if the antennas on cars without AM would be up to getting a good AM signal without replacement.
No, the underlying reason for this nonsense is so that the manufacturers can let the electric motors pollute the radio spectrum. They don't want to spend the bucks to quiet those electric motors. So, if you buy a portable radio to use in the car, all you'll hear is static whenever those motors move the car. The correct solution, as always, is to prohibit the pollution.
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Poking at my phone certainly isnâ(TM)t going to be the right way of getting that information in the future.
No, but it will be the only way.
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They all have streaming apps and podcasts now. AM is legacy even for them. They won't lose many (if any) listeners. More likely that their listeners are driven to independent media platforms like Daily Wire etc.
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KCBS (Score:5, Informative)
KCBS isn't like that. It's the meat and potatoes of AM radio--"traffic and weather together" with major national headlines on a loop that slowly changes as stories evolve.
Best of all, I can pick it up all the way from the South Bay up in to Mendocino.
AM radio has its place. It's such a dirt simple technology. Yes, there are some "gasbags" but nothing compared to podcasts.
See also, KTNN, the Navajo station. I DX'd it one evening near Point Arena, on the California coast. Sometimes you can pick up LA stations in San Jose at night.
And yeah, I'm one of the "old farts" now, with fond memories of building a "crystal set" that worked without batteries and picked up strong local stations. What can we do to turn on the young people to such an accessible service?
Those airwaves belong to us, and we can't use them when it takes so many layers of technology to make things work. They built AM tx/rx behind enemy lines in France during WW2, with no real supplies. There was a dude who made his own tubes! That alone is reason to keep it alive.
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AM radio has its place. It's such a dirt simple technology. Yes, there are some "gasbags" but nothing compared to podcasts.
A dirt simple technology that's susceptible to high frequency interference like electric motors and battery charging. Tack on that it's a minimally used "dirt simple technology" that requires some A level engineering to "fix" every couple years a new media center (entertainment system) is built into the car model(s) making it a cost headache. Oh and if that "fix" doesn't work due to an after design engineering change for recall/safety reasons? Well time to break out the wallet again to fix that "dirt simpl
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Shortwave is about the same if you live in the USA. You'll hear JESUS being screamed loudly. The other strong shortwave stations are Mexican border blasters who mention a slightly different Jesus.