mandating AM radio...they're serious about this

[C.R. Rivian]

H.R.3413 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2023 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

Listened to some of the hearing on CSPAN this morning. The cover for this is the emergency broadcast system which was built around AM radio and that AM has the greatest reach. Some acknowledgements that lots of folks don't have AM in their house, but, hey, they can go to their cars to get emergency broadcasts. Some truth to that (see Electric cars are ditching AM radio — a critical safety tool (axios.com) ). Turns out though what really had some of the folks in the House spun up is that AM is the go-to place for conservative talk shows...somehow not having AM in vehicles like the Rivian is part of the Elite's plot to stifle conservative voices ( New electric cars won’t have AM radio. Rightwingers claim political sabotage | Media | The Guardian ). Of course, you can get pretty much whatever you want from tune-in, but never mind.

Big fan here of safety regulations, not so much a fan of going beyond that. I still have an emergency radio that can run off batteries or by winding it up. If Congress is going to go the safety argument on this issue, companies should be given the option to of giving customers an AM radio they can take with them rather than having to reengineer EV wiring so that AM is 'listenable'.

Going to send a note to my representative.

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[Dark-Fx]

Turns out though what really had some of the folks in the House spun up is that AM is the go-to place for conservative talk shows...somehow not having AM in vehicles like the Rivian is part of the Elite's plot to stifle conservative voices ( New electric cars won’t have AM radio. Rightwingers claim political sabotage | Media | The Guardian ). Of course, you can get pretty much whatever you want from tune-in, but never mind.

I'm not buying it. Conservative radio shows could buy/license airtime on FM. I mean really if that was their reason for concern, why wouldn't the stations go that route? I guess it's probably cheaper to buy your congress critters than the proper licensing and hardware upgrades eh?

I almost never have my radio on, so couldn't care less either way.

 

[jeeden]

I'm not buying it. Conservative radio shows could buy/license airtime on FM. I mean really if that was their reason for concern, why wouldn't the stations go that route? I guess it's probably cheaper to buy your congress critters than the proper licensing and hardware upgrades eh?

I almost never have my radio on, so couldn't care less either way.

They could buy a license for FM, but they can just hook some jumper cables up to their house gutters or a giant steel pole in their yard and transmit their noise possibly thousands of miles depending on the atmospheric conditions that day for free. The argument on tunein/cell phones is that there are lots of areas with no cell coverage.

I think that it is just another easy type of ammunition for people to argue over stuff in congress... AM is free, lack of cell coverage, conservative demographic is old and has AM radios, liberal demographic is young and doesn't listen to AM, conservatives generally don't like EVs and liberals generally do and EVs don't play nice with AM.

 

[COdogman]

NOAA weather radio works on FM. This bill is unnecessary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOAA_Weather_Radio

 

[Autolycus]

I'm not buying it. Conservative radio shows could buy/license airtime on FM. I mean really if that was their reason for concern, why wouldn't the stations go that route? I guess it's probably cheaper to buy your congress critters than the proper licensing and hardware upgrades eh?

I almost never have my radio on, so couldn't care less either way.

I don't agree with this, but the argument would be that FM is less suited to rural areas because transmission distance is lower for the same power. Especially at night, you can pick up AM stations from REALLY far away.

 

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I think the last time I listened to AM radio was when I built one as a little kit from Radio Shack 30-something years ago. But yeah, mandate it. As if there aren't 9285934857934 more pressing issues. ?

 

[PappaBolt]

Unnecessary. This is masquerading as a safety bill to hide the special interests trying to protect their revenue streams: AM radio advertising

 

[Donald Stanfield]

People are starving, prisons are overflowing, its the hottest its ever been, information collection by private companies and government is at 1984 Orwellian levels and the solution to all of that is apparently found over AM radio.

Well at least the government is not wasting their time with non issues.

 

[NY_Rob]

Interestingly, the i3 has a built in AM radio, but it was disabled by default by BMW at the factory in all the i3's so no one even knew the hardware for AM was actually already in the vehicle.
Once Bimmercode (software for tweaking hidden BMW vehicle features via the ODBII port) was released, you could re-enable the AM radio and use it with even presets working. FWIW- it works really well without static when the car isn't moving. Perfectly fine for listening while sitting in a parking lot, etc.. As soon as the electric motor starts spinning... lots of static to the point of being unusable.

 

[Tim-in-CA]

Big-AM Radio is finally flexing their muscle! ? ?

 

[pickupman2022]

Wait, AM radio still exists? I don't think I've ever listed to anything on AM. Always had such terrible reception I switched back to FM in seconds. Now days I rarely even listen to FM (Too many commercials, not enough music). I've used Bluetooth almost exclusively for years in my vehicles.

 

[Zoidz]

NOAA weather radio works on FM. This bill is unnecessary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOAA_Weather_Radio

Correct, but not on FM broadcast band. It needs a receiver capable of receiving NOAA frequencies which are outside of FM broadcast band. Also, NOAA does not address local emergencies, only regional weather.

I posted elsewhere that my vacation beach community has an AM transmitter that notifes us of a flooded road. Without that broadcast, we have to drive about 10 miles to discover that the road is flooded, and then back track, wasting 20 miles. I now carry a handheld in the Rivian that receives AM just for this reason. I don't have a problem with this bill. Also, depending on the type and level of interference from the EV, in theory the noise could be reasonably suppressed by using DSP and SDR chips for AM radio. Rivian appears to already be using an SDR FM receiver. If you try using the FM Radio, you'll see that it dynamically updates the local stations it can receive. Easy with an SDR.

 

[PappaBolt]

I think the idea here is we need a terrestrial radio signal in the event of an apocalypse. Whether we need that in our vehicles (or at all) is questionable.

Remember the Obama Phone? We can’t trust ourselves with war and pestilence. I think it’s high time we get a Biden Phone: satellite connectivity for all.

 

[Autolycus]

I think the idea here is we need a terrestrial radio signal in the event of an apocalypse. Whether we need that in our vehicles (or at all) is questionable.

Remember the Obama Phone? We can’t trust ourselves with war and pestilence. I think it’s high time we get a Biden Phone: satellite connectivity for all.

Satellite? But then what happens when a rogue state launches a bunch of giant nets into earth orbit to take out every satellite up there?

 

[COdogman]

Correct, but not on FM broadcast band. It needs a receiver capable of receiving NOAA frequencies which are outside of FM broadcast band. Also, NOAA does not address local emergencies, only regional weather.

I posted elsewhere that my vacation beach community has an AM transmitter that notifes us of a flooded road. Without that broadcast, we have to drive about 10 miles to discover that the road is flooded, and then back track, wasting 20 miles. I now carry a handheld in the Rivian that receives AM just for this reason. I don't have a problem with this bill. Also, depending on the type and level of interference from the EV, in theory the noise could be reasonably suppressed by using DSP and SDR chips for AM radio. Rivian appears to already be using an SDR FM receiver. If you try using the FM Radio, you'll see that it dynamically updates the local stations it can receive. Easy with an SDR.

I get your point. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a solution for it. I had a '97 Subaru Outback that had the weather radio built in to the receiver. I was driving a ton in unfamiliar areas at that time and once it saved me from being swallowed by a tornado in the dark in KS once. So I appreciate the need for something like you describe.

I just think we are at a point now where we don't need AM radio as a whole. In the past when I was somewhere remote and only a couple AM stations were available, they weren't local. They were broadcasting from pretty far away. Like Denver's 850 AM KOA covering essentially all of the state - that doesn't help me much if I'm stuck in a blizzard in Durango, 6 hours away. So their weather info wasn't that local either.

As I understand it, NOAA weather/ hazard radio uses the closest NWS office to provide information and has coverage over pretty much the entire country.

https://www.weather.gov/nwr/

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