Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion was created by janrinok (52) for logged-in users only, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by namefags_are_jerks on Thursday May 25 2023, @01:54AM (1 child)

    by namefags_are_jerks (17638) on Thursday May 25 2023, @01:54AM (#1308050)

    Not really -- aside from needing complex computer-based systems over a 1910-era receiver that costs cents to put together, AM has the advantage over other modulations in that the signal is readable in spite of high noise. FM falls over totally when the SNR is less than ~6 dB, and DRM in high noise loses too any packets for the forward error correction to cope. It one of the reasons why the Aircraft band is AM.

    Where AM is like "dxink yxurxovaxtinex", which a concentrating human can make sense of, FM becomes "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", and DRM becomes "D k ti ine"

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday May 25 2023, @07:28AM

    by pTamok (3042) on Thursday May 25 2023, @07:28AM (#1308069)

    Well, I agree. I rather think having a simple backup system available for when everything goes to pieces is a good idea.

    I suggested DRM because I think, originally, it was conceived as an overlay that supplemented plain AM modulation rather than replaced it - it could be used to improve audio quality or provide broadcast data (or a combination of both), so a simple AM receiver would still work, just not decode the supplementary information. But it seems the bandwidth available in such a hybrid mode is insufficient. Ah well.