AM radio law opposed by tech and auto industries is close to passing
arstechnica.com
A recent test of the emergency alert system found only 1 percent got it via AM.

A controversial bill that would require all new cars to be fitted with AM radios looks set to become a law in the near future. Yesterday, Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass) revealed that the “AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act” now has the support of 60 US Senators, as well as 246 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, making its passage an almost sure thing. Should that happen, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would be required to ensure that all new cars sold in the US had AM radios at no extra cost.

    • tal@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
      24·
      6 months ago

      You can improvise an AM radio receiver with stuff you have lying around your house.

      Not only that, it can be powered by the radio signal itself.

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

      A crystal radio receiver, also called a crystal set, is a simple radio receiver, popular in the early days of radio. It uses only the power of the received radio signal to produce sound, needing no external power. It is named for its most important component, a crystal detector, originally made from a piece of crystalline mineral such as galena.[1] This component is now called a diode.

      Crystal radios are the simplest type of radio receiver[2] and can be made with a few inexpensive parts, such as a wire for an antenna, a coil of wire, a capacitor, a crystal detector, and earphones (because a crystal set has insufficient power for a loudspeaker).[3] However they are passive receivers, while other radios use an amplifier powered by current from a battery or wall outlet to make the radio signal louder. Thus, crystal sets produce rather weak sound and must be listened to with sensitive earphones, and can receive stations only within a limited range of the transmitter.[4]

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
      21·
      6 months ago

      This is just making me think that there should be a fundamentals of modern technology class in high school somewhere between a shop and physics class. It’d be a nerd elective but by fuck am I that nerd

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
          7·
          6 months ago

          Yeah as an engineer I think it would’ve been far more useful than the engineering class I took that was basically how to do autocad and measure things. And it would’ve been useful for everyone.

          There are two things at play here. 1) one of the primary purposes of the United States’s education policy is to produce engineers. This is an economic and military strategy. And 2) we live in a world where technology abounds and yet so few people understand it. A robot isn’t a magic person made of metal, it’s the manifestation of the laws of physics as applied for our own desires.

          Making a radio receiver and a telegraph and a record and telephone and a basic battery etc makes for more grounded adults. Show the teenagers the way the real world works, clever applications of natural phenomena

          • tal@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
            2·
            6 months ago

            A robot isn’t a magic person made of metal, it’s the manifestation of the laws of physics as applied for our own desires.

            I suppose if we discovered magic and understood its principles, it wouldn’t really be magic any more.

            Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

            — Arthur C. Clarke

      • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        6 months ago

        Considering the growing importance of digital radio communication, Computer-Assisted Design, electronic repair, etc. I’d love to see this kind of thing.

    • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
      12·
      6 months ago

      100% accurate, thanks for the clear write up. Please stick it up on Wikipedia if you can :)

      And I’ll add a bit about Clear Channel AM (unrelated to the billboard advertising company) - there were originally a handful of said stations that broadcast on a few AM band frequencies that are reserved just for them, so their broadcast range is impressive.

      One for example is WOR radio in Chicago.

      Fun factoid - you can see on very old AM radios those clear channel frequencies marked by a diamond or similar symbol on the dial.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        6·
        6 months ago

        I doubt the wavelength is a factor there; depending on the circumstances it could be anything from atmospheric waves to something in your car causing intermittent interference.

        The Earth’s ionosphere exists in several layers. During the day, solar radiation ionizes gas deeper into the ionosphere causing a layer that doesn’t usefully refract most radio waves; you can reach beyond the horizon on some of the higher HF bands, but down in the MF, you’ve basically got ground wave. At night, without the sun around to cook the atmosphere, that lower level dissipates, revealing a higher ever-present layer, and the geometry is right to refract signals for hundreds or even thousands of miles.

        Skywave propagation can be really fun to play with.

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            6 months ago

            There likely was no “shielding” in a truck of that era, just simply the truck was made of metal as was the chassis of the radio, bolt 'em together and you’ve got a reasonable ground.

            But, I do know from experience that there are items on a pickup truck that can produce radio interference especially when worn. A worn distributor is a spark gap transmitter, as I learned when I installed a mobile radio in my S10. The audio on my radio got a lot better after a good service of the ignition system.