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posted by janrinok on Wednesday May 24 2023, @10:47AM   Printer-friendly

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/05/ev-advocates-join-tech-groups-and-automakers-to-oppose-am-radio-mandate/

Congress wants to force AM into every new car for emergency alerts.

The fight over the future of AM radio got a little more heated this week as organizations representing the auto and technology industries told Congress that its plan to mandate this mode of radio wave reception is poorly conceived and will hinder progress.

AM radio has seen almost every other in-car entertainment option come and go—vinyl, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs—and it might predate just about everything other than playing "I Spy," but time is catching up with this old broadcast technology. It is starting to get left behind as new models—many of which are electric vehicles—drive off into the sunset, streaming their audio instead of modulating its amplitude.

[...] "As more and more Americans adopt electric vehicles, we must ensure that they are equipped with AM radio. AM radio is—and will remain—an essential communications channel for emergency alerts and for disseminating news and other important information to residents of our district and communities across our country. I am proud to co-lead this bipartisan legislation which would ensure that EVs continue to be equipped with this basic but critical capability," said Rep. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), another co-sponsor.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by FuzzyTheBear on Wednesday May 24 2023, @01:48PM (4 children)

    by FuzzyTheBear (974) on Wednesday May 24 2023, @01:48PM (#1307900)

    Emergencies , traffic stations ( ex 730 AM MOntreal ) that give the road network status continuously , news .
    AM reaches where FM don't . AM at night can go extremely far. SW also goes around the globe.
    Say what you want about sound quality , fact is that very important stations are on AM and on the FM band
    there is no more available frequencies ! ./.

    SO go without services and important stations because FM is loaded everywhere in America or keep AM ?

    Be logical , there's no reasons not to keep AM in a car .. specially cost which is close to nil.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 24 2023, @02:16PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday May 24 2023, @02:16PM (#1307907)

    >specially cost which is close to nil.

    That's actually the problem. The cost of the receiver is close to nil, but the cost of making the vehicle systems (electric powertrains) compatible with the receiver is actually quite high.

    I wonder how bad the issue is? Like, if you're in your AM compatible Ford, but surrounded by F-AM Teslas, will the Teslas be killing your AM reception quality from their nearby positions?

    It's not too far off from the issue of WiFi and 5G competing with weather radar.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Wednesday May 24 2023, @03:06PM

    by driverless (4770) on Wednesday May 24 2023, @03:06PM (#1307921)

    Emergencies , traffic stations ( ex 730 AM MOntreal ) that give the road network status continuously , news. AM reaches where FM don't .

    While we're at it, I think we should also mandate that everyone learn Morse code, which will get through when voice communications fail. And semaphore if there's a problem with powering Morse transmitters. And smoke signals as well, you know, just in case all the others don't work.

    The current arguments for AM seem very, very similar to the arguments for Morse code in amateur radio a few decades ago. The Morse requirement has been dead for 20-30 years now, and no-one even noticed its absence. I suspect AM-required-in-cars would be fairly similar.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2023, @06:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2023, @06:31PM (#1307983)

    The first reaction from Arse Technica:

    Can basically guarantee this law is being pushed by people whose buddies depend on AM talk radio for pushing their propaganda out to the masses. There's still a pretty big chunk of folks who listen to AM talk radio as their main source of "news" and religious programming.

  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday May 25 2023, @06:22PM

    by RS3 (6367) on Thursday May 25 2023, @06:22PM (#1308169)

    Adding: I'll argue that even if AM doesn't work well while the car is moving, you could still listen while stopped / parked.

    (I'll still stand on: FCC needs to do their job and force EVs to emit less RFI.)