A popular bill will force car companies to put AM radios in vehicles at no extra charge, despite decreasing interest from drivers and potential electromagnetic interference.
An AM radio can be put together for pennies. I’ve gotten them as giveaway swag before. This is the stupidest controversy. You could give everyone in America an AM radio for the cost of this lawsuit and they could just stick it in their car with the stereo jack.
I take no position on this. Seems to me the cost should be negligible if they are forced to include them and the harm will be negligible if they are removed.
My guess is this has been made a big deal by right wing media who see it as a threat to their ability to reach imbeciles listeners and this would be a footnote otherwise.
That being said, having an EBS receiver in cars isn’t a bad thing. Cell networks are unreliable in emergencies. Cell phones didn’t work for days after 9/11. Not that car radios would be particularly helpful in NYC with super low car ownership.
No, AM radio is part of the infrastructure governments can reliably use to inform citizens of danger etc. so it should not easily be removed. And if it’s so cheap it can easily be included.
That only works if people actively tune into AM radio. The person you’re replying to, I think, is implying that the number of people that would be affected by an emergency communication not going over AM radio… while tragic, costs less than losing the ability to have folks like Alex Jones get tiny pockets of crazy scattered all over funneled into one convenient silo.
Yeah, after listening to NPR’s “divided dial” it feels like a lot of how the US ended up where it is was when we he fairness doctrine was dropped or ignored.
And now citizens United has magnified and worsened it all.
Ability for AM radios to interrupt other playback for announcements has been around at least since the 90s. Back then it was commonly used to pause cassette playback when traffic announcements were made.
This just requires for the device to monitor radio when on, and to be on - and with how integrated it is in modern days cars functionality I’d say the chance for them to be on is higher than it was in the 90s. So having that functionality is a pretty good way to reach a lot of car drivers.
I believe they are simply smoking facts. Maybe you should look stuff up before being so adamantly incorrect.
The RDS-enabled receiver can be set to pay special attention to this TA flag and e.g. stop the tape/pause the CD or retune to receive a Traffic bulletin. The related TP (Traffic Programme) flag is used to allow the user to find only those stations that regularly broadcast traffic bulletins, whereas the TA flag is used to stop the tape or raise the volume during a traffic bulletin.
RDS and related protocols like TMC have specifications for both FM and AM transmitters. Those are used to stop playback if an urgent message comes. I’m assuming you have AM stations with such signals in the US (I don’t think we have in the EU) - otherwise the AM radio mandate would indeed be stupid.
edit: did some digging (it’s been almost 30 years since I cared about that stuff) - seems the US was pretty late to the party for radio data channels, and side channels for AM (which wasn’t of that much interest here due to the FM heavy radio landscape in Europe) only was discussed in the early 90s for the US specific variants. I couldn’t find any details if that actually ever got implemented. Given that most documentation available on that topic is heavily focusing on EU I’d guess it never got that much use in the US.
I agree with you. I just think the reason the discussion is so loud is because of right wing AM radio and the people who would love for it to go away - people I don’t even disagree with, but it is important and so cheap that any argument over cost is entirely misplaced. You can get AM radio on an IC for $0.41 in quantity. It feels disingenuous to argue against that on a basis of cost or “muh freedoms”. Hence, my suspicion of a more political basis.
Oh I’ll bet you are right on the money with the motivations.
But also don’t discount the possibility that car manufacturers are in on the long game… just remove radio all together so you can offer optional packages only. The reason their entertainment systems need to be reasonably priced is because else the customer will stick to just radio then.
If they remove the alternative… sky is the limit for the options… Cause no entertainment in a car is not an option for most. Peak Enshittification
An AM radio can be put together for pennies. I’ve gotten them as giveaway swag before. This is the stupidest controversy. You could give everyone in America an AM radio for the cost of this lawsuit and they could just stick it in their car with the stereo jack.
I take no position on this. Seems to me the cost should be negligible if they are forced to include them and the harm will be negligible if they are removed.
My guess is this has been made a big deal by right wing media who see it as a threat to their ability to reach
imbecileslisteners and this would be a footnote otherwise.That being said, having an EBS receiver in cars isn’t a bad thing. Cell networks are unreliable in emergencies. Cell phones didn’t work for days after 9/11. Not that car radios would be particularly helpful in NYC with super low car ownership.
No, AM radio is part of the infrastructure governments can reliably use to inform citizens of danger etc. so it should not easily be removed. And if it’s so cheap it can easily be included.
That only works if people actively tune into AM radio. The person you’re replying to, I think, is implying that the number of people that would be affected by an emergency communication not going over AM radio… while tragic, costs less than losing the ability to have folks like Alex Jones get tiny pockets of crazy scattered all over funneled into one convenient silo.
They should add a rider that reinstates the broadcast ownership rules eliminated in the 1997 Telecommunications Act.
Yeah, after listening to NPR’s “divided dial” it feels like a lot of how the US ended up where it is was when we he fairness doctrine was dropped or ignored.
And now citizens United has magnified and worsened it all.
There are a lot of parks that have AM station signs for weather and emergency info. We’ve used it when we were camping during storms.
Ability for AM radios to interrupt other playback for announcements has been around at least since the 90s. Back then it was commonly used to pause cassette playback when traffic announcements were made.
This just requires for the device to monitor radio when on, and to be on - and with how integrated it is in modern days cars functionality I’d say the chance for them to be on is higher than it was in the 90s. So having that functionality is a pretty good way to reach a lot of car drivers.
That is straight up not true.
AM radio cannot, has not ever, and will not ever be able to pause a cassette.
Wtf are you smoking?
I believe they are simply smoking facts. Maybe you should look stuff up before being so adamantly incorrect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_announcement_(radio_data_systems)
RDS and related protocols like TMC have specifications for both FM and AM transmitters. Those are used to stop playback if an urgent message comes. I’m assuming you have AM stations with such signals in the US (I don’t think we have in the EU) - otherwise the AM radio mandate would indeed be stupid.
edit: did some digging (it’s been almost 30 years since I cared about that stuff) - seems the US was pretty late to the party for radio data channels, and side channels for AM (which wasn’t of that much interest here due to the FM heavy radio landscape in Europe) only was discussed in the early 90s for the US specific variants. I couldn’t find any details if that actually ever got implemented. Given that most documentation available on that topic is heavily focusing on EU I’d guess it never got that much use in the US.
I agree with you. I just think the reason the discussion is so loud is because of right wing AM radio and the people who would love for it to go away - people I don’t even disagree with, but it is important and so cheap that any argument over cost is entirely misplaced. You can get AM radio on an IC for $0.41 in quantity. It feels disingenuous to argue against that on a basis of cost or “muh freedoms”. Hence, my suspicion of a more political basis.
Oh I’ll bet you are right on the money with the motivations.
But also don’t discount the possibility that car manufacturers are in on the long game… just remove radio all together so you can offer optional packages only. The reason their entertainment systems need to be reasonably priced is because else the customer will stick to just radio then.
If they remove the alternative… sky is the limit for the options… Cause no entertainment in a car is not an option for most. Peak Enshittification