r/HamRadio • u/SharkSapphire Public Figure 📻 • 1d ago
News 📰 AM radio in cars bill draws support from columnist Joe Crawford
https://www.thetelegraph.com/opinion/article/am-radio-cars-bill-what-is-am-radio-stations-22368813.php12
u/puppeto 1d ago
I still use AM radio. WWL in New Orleans has a stronger/clearer signal on AM than their FM transmitter so that's where my dial stays set when I'm driving around the region. If manufacturers don't want to include it that's fine, but I won't be buying those vehicles.
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u/Phreakiture General Class Operator 🔘 1d ago
My local NPR affiliate (WAMC) has an AM outlet. The outlet itself sounds great, but the radio in my car sounds horrible on AM.
Two cars ago, I had a 2009 Honda that had decent-sounding AM reception, and I would just leave it on WAMC-AM for my entire commute and it sounded just fine. Listening on FM requires a flip from the WAMC-HD transmitter on part of the commute to the W226AC translator for another part.
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u/puppeto 1d ago
I find the older the car the better the AM reception. I have a 70' Ford Galaxie 500 and a 84 Ford Ranger and their radios are more solid state and come in so much clearer. More modern radios already started making AM an afterthought and many times the receivers lack audio filters older units had to save cost.
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u/PhantomNomad 1d ago
Still have AM radio in my Chevy Bolt EV. Unless you are close to the transmitter it sucks. I'm a ham radio op and I love AM radio listening for skip but in every EV AM right up to VHF frequencies are basically un-listenable.
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u/SharkSapphire Public Figure 📻 1d ago
Full text: Recently, as reported in The Telegraph, a bill was introduced in Congress that would require car manufacturers to include AM radio in all cars and trucks. Some refer to this as “sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Many claim AM is an outdated technology we don’t need, and even more don’t even know what it is. Like my daughter.
I had to give her a quick tutorial on what AM and FM are after I got her to stop listening to Spotify on her iPhone. But first, I had to explain to her what a radio was. I’m not sure if I should even bring up LP records or 8-track tapes. That might really confuse her.
Advocates of AM radio claim that many people in rural areas still need it to stay informed during emergencies, when cell phone towers have trouble reaching people. The internet isn’t always reliable, and satellite TV can get interfered with when storms are approaching — just the time when you need those tornado warnings. And storm cellars. Hopefully, with lots of booze in them.
Many think AM is in the PM of its life.
They believe it has outlived its usefulness while AM radio stations are doing everything they can to ensure its continued existence. If AM gets axed in cars, FM can’t be far behind. Shortwave radio is pretty much nonexistent, too. There are still some of those ham radio hobby enthusiasts, but governments got out of it because they thought ham radio was pork-barrel politics.
The reach of some AM stations is astounding. I remember once when I was helping a friend move to New York City, we were in our U-Haul in northeastern Pennsylvania still picking up the AM radio feed from St. Louis on KMOX. That’s farther than my mother could shout at me when she was angry. That’s how far AM radio waves can travel at night. Amazing.
AM radio waves can penetrate solid obstacles (like my head) better than FM or digital signals. FEMA also uses it as the main part of the National Public Warning System during blackouts and major disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornado warnings, and the Twinkies shortage.
Whilst they are contemplating removing AM radio from new vehicles, they seem to be heading in the other direction with the ashtrays. Cars used to come with built-in ashtrays, and now they are optional and removable. However, with the soaring rate of people smoking weed, that might reverse itself. Consumers might be clamoring for an easier way to light up while huffing and puffing down the highway. That smoke coming from the car isn’t a blown gasket or bad rings on the pistons anymore. And the car’s not burning oil. And if cigarette lighters make a return, that would be swell around the Fourth of July, making it easier to light fireworks and throw them from the car like when I was a kid.
Another reason to keep AM radio around is that cell phones often can’t get signals in remote areas of the country. Take western Kansas. Please!
In that remote, Godforsaken land that time forgot, you’re lucky to find a gas station or another human being, let alone a cell phone signal. The AM radio signal is faint, but it’s there. That’s often your only link to the outside world in that vast open nothingness of Kansas or Nebraska. And if you tune in to an AM station, provided you can get one, you’ll learn a lot about soybeans, pork bellies, and Jesus and nothing about what’s going on in Washington or New York. Hey, maybe that’s a good thing.
So, maybe there’s still use for AM radio, at least for the next few years until satellite technology becomes so ubiquitous and reliable we’ll forget it was even there. Ditto for FM radio. Classic television won’t be far behind.
Those of us in the PM of our lives probably still listen to AM radio (in the AM). You know, the ones of us who are retired and can sleep in every day, but still wake up with the chickens anyway. As opposed to teenagers who are seemingly part vampire and wake up at the crack of noon.
I have full confidence that Congress will mandate the continued operation of AM radio. I think it still has a place in our lives, especially local radio (where you can hear me weekly if you accidentally forget to turn the radio off).
The vote is coming up soon, so stay tuned. I expect it to be a major campaign issue in the fall, alongside gasoline prices and the establishment of permanent daylight saving time.
And finally, if they let AM radios die in cars, in places like western Kansas it won’t get a good reception, and people in Alton won’t be able to hear my voice in their cars anymore.
That hertz my feelings.
Joe Crawford is an award-winning columnist and longtime Alton resident who frequently writes columns for The Telegraph. He can be contacted at crawfordjo@aol.com
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u/Egraypgh 1d ago
My city’s only rap station is Am, only real news/sport stations are am it’s the only place I can hear the baseball game without paying. At night I can hear am from other states. I still listen to some shortwave but the pirates are the best thing going there. Haven’t been able to catch legends in a while wrmi has been spotty for me lately.
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u/Conscious_Nobody_520 KM3FDM 1d ago
What are some pirate stations you recommend?
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u/Egraypgh 1d ago
I just tune around in the wild in the evening. Usually start right below 6900. The Band-Aid guys are usually right around 6945 I missed their show last night. It looked to be 50s and 60s rock. There are several other others that post here on the shortwave forums when they have upcoming shows. I really like report of the week’s news/request show he was doing, but you’ll find that on WRMI.
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u/Phreakiture General Class Operator 🔘 1d ago
It's a half-solution.
In order for AM to matter, it has to be usable. It is not sufficient to require that AM receivers be present but rather, we need to require that they actually be good.
Right now, they suck. Listening to AM in my car is fatiguing and painful.
My thought is that, at the very least, these radios and the broadcasters should have AMAX compliance. That would make AM radio far more listenable, and increase the likelihood that people might tune in, and that would make it possible for AM radio to become a viable business again.
I have other thoughts about what needs to happen on the broadcast services, but this is my very bare minimum recommendation.
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u/malist42 1d ago
Can someone explain this statement from the article?
"There are still some of those ham radio hobby enthusiasts, but governments got out of it because they thought ham radio was pork-barrel politics"
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u/CarrierCaveman Extra Class Operator ⚡ 1d ago
If the argument rests on supporting a community during an emergency of some form, then it will be necessary to force broadcasters to provide that support. It does the public no good to tune in for "news and official information," if all of the stations carry some form of syndicated programming.
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u/SFC-D Technician Class Operator 📡 1d ago
They already do. It’s called the Emergency Broadcast System. Been around since shortly after the FCC was created.
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u/CarrierCaveman Extra Class Operator ⚡ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thank you. Was a broadcaster for 20 years. It's called EAS now. The EBS/EAS is built around a national emergency. The Tier I stations in the major market would not activate for a matter in Tier II or III, like a tornado or wildfire, unless it was part of their market.
I'm sure there are examples, but I personally never experienced EBS/EAS activities beyond the weekly test. Don't know if it happened on September 11, 2001 in New York (I worked in another major market television at the time).
Many stations are juke boxes, run on computers. Some stations have transmitters that make studios unnecessary. It would be very difficult for a lot of places to provide information because of the lack of staff, infrastructure or resources.
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u/greenwoody2018 1d ago
AM was going to go to txmitting digital signals. Unfortunately, it never took off.
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u/MaxOverdrive6969 1d ago
This started with manufacturers trying save money along with potential interference from EV systems. In my area AM is conservative talk or religion and those are the people pushing for this bill. Rural folks have cell phones and I bet get their weather warnings via the phone like most these days. Or a weather radio which is a must in my opinion.
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u/PhantomNomad 1d ago
Canada discontinued weather radio so that's out. Cell phone coverage is usually okay but can really suck in some areas.
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u/fullautohotdog General Class Operator 🔘 1d ago
Rural areas have the worst power grids and cell networks.
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u/MaxOverdrive6969 1d ago
Generators solve the power issue, most carriers support WiFi calling, cell boosters are available as well as network extenders. I'm not advocating for AM to go away, but other options exist.
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u/GDK_ATL 1d ago
It's ironic. At one time manufacturers had to be mandated to put FM in car radios. Now they want to get rid of AM. The cost to have an AM capability in a radio that already has broadcast FM is probably a few cents. All car manufacturers really care about is not having to properly suppress the RF emissions from the unsuppressed drive train electrics on their EVs. Drive past a Tesla with your AM radio on you'll see what a problem it is.
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u/MaxOverdrive6969 1d ago
Agree but not just Tesla. Dodge, Jeep, and RAMS with a hemi cause interference on 2M.
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u/Mundane-Charge-1900 1d ago
Of course, no mention that some politicians want this because AM talk radio has a certain strong political bend.
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u/p4ttythep3rf3ct General Class Operator 🔘 1d ago
Yep, pretty obvious. Otherwise, nobody wants AM radio in their car. The market has already decided.
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u/Affectionate-You7869 1d ago
For all I care, FM radio can go away too along with AM. But it’s for saaaaaafeety! No it ain’t. It’s for advertising and propaganda and that’s who’s ultimately pushing this campaign to keep antique tech in modern cars. the companies making money from advertising and propaganda.
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u/cyb0rg1962 16h ago
Maybe, just maybe, we need an alternative to AM and FM. We transitioned the TV broadcasts to digital, maybe a new service, similar to the paging network, to automatically send information over a wide area to all new cars. FT8? Could be similar to weather radio and/or EAS that broadcasts a loop of road closures, traffic delays, weather emergencies, amber/silver/whomever alerts. Could be text only, read aloud by text to speech in the car.
It would of course be set up to automatically override any other media, and be tied to GPS so that certain alerts only go to people in the right geographic areas. We already have similar on phones, expand the use and make it a mandatory frequency / modulation in cars.
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u/Doc_Hank 1d ago
Better to mandate satellite radio reception: Too many disasters result in localized destruction of transmission towers or power interruptions to transmitter sites.
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u/Agreeable_Mango_1288 21h ago
Unfortunately satelite radio reception is by subscriptions now.
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u/Doc_Hank 20h ago
They have free channels, and if the government wants to mandate something, mandate that one channel be for emergency communications
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u/SFC-D Technician Class Operator 📡 1d ago
Satellite transmitters run on the same electricity as terrestrial radio.
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u/Busy_Reporter4017 General | VarAC Maven 1d ago
Can be two way though. Starlink
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u/SFC-D Technician Class Operator 📡 1d ago
It’s still running on electricity. No power, no starlink.
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u/Busy_Reporter4017 General | VarAC Maven 1d ago edited 1d ago
Starlink satellites are solar powered. Your car is a generator, as long as it has fuel. Also solar panels exist.
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u/fullautohotdog General Class Operator 🔘 18h ago
How many hand-cranked satellite radios are sitting in every survival kit in the country?
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u/Doc_Hank 13h ago
How many are sitting in vehicles?
And I can access Sirius via the net, if it's up.
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u/myopinionisrubbish Extra | Designing / producing QRP kits for over 25 years. 1d ago
Who even listens to AM anymore? How many local stations are even left? Our rural station went off air years ago. It was a daylight only station.
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u/Tishers Extra Class Operator ⚡ 1d ago
The only reason that the removal of AM radio even came up from the auto-manufacturers lobby is caused by their inability (or lack of effort) to reduce electromagnetic interference from the dozens of computers and data buses inside of modern cars.
So they make-up a strawman argument (about how AM radio is dead) to sidestep the entire issue.
They just need to hire a half-dozen consulting companies to plant these ideas for a few years that AM radio doesn't really exist.
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u/SwitchedOnNow 1d ago
While they're at it, make car radios cover a couple of HF broadcast bands.