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AM radio law opposed by tech and auto industries is close to passing | Ars Technica
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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I have a hard time believing that ¼ of all Americans actively listen to AM broadcasts.
That being said, it's indispensable for emergency transmissions, and honestly not that complex a component to enable in modern radio systems.
I grew up with a dad who listened to Rush Limbaugh or some conservative jockey (Mike Savage was quite bonkers, still cannot believe he got hired by MSNBC for about 2 weeks before he said some insane racist shit and got canned) on AM anytime I was ever in the car with him.
He's now a QAnon nut.
I absolutely believe 25% of America listens to AM radio, all the christo fascists and qanoners and magatards on their 3 hour daily commute while they are angry that their kids or ex wives don't talk to them anymore.
Oh fuck I forgot about that troglodyte. My parents were Limbaugh losers back in the day. Now they're anti-vaxxers.
I was just thinking that I hadn't heard much about Qanon lately, that maybe it had been fading out. No?
Coincidentally, Q posts dried up when John McAfee died. I wonder why that is
I had never heard that before, and that now my truth. It makes so much sense.
Sadly, it has not so much died out as gone more underground, splintered, but still proliferates.
Take a gander at owen morgan's telltale youtube channel, he actually covers a good deal of this quite well.
He started off as an Ex JW going over online and real world cults, but as QAnon and Covid and MAGA and then Jan 6th all kind of morphed together, he finally dropped his 'avoid politics' stance as it was utterly impossible to cover anything related to QAnon without getting political.
Basically, 8kun, Truth Social and other less well known sort of youtube alternative sites and alternative social media sites have just become an alternative reality fantasy land for completely delusional conspiracy theorists and outright fascists and nazis.
Then youve also got a ton of shitty MAGA/QAnon flavored 'news' sites (think infowars and breitbart, there are many others) that post absolutely insane nonsense as real, or report on various things leaving out huge details, misrepresenting situations and such.
Their content is then watched and discussed and meme'd and spread on telegram group chats, facebook groups, an increasing number of either online or radio talk show hosts, and by a number of surprisingly popular evangelical preachers, many of whom have basically megachurches as well as their own video streams.
Thats the link that owen came across that kind of led him to be able to figure out how much of the QAnon related mis and disinfo network actually functions, when he discovered a bunch of, again, surprisingly popular evangelical and or charismatic preachers who have decided that basically they are prophets, God literally speaks through them, and Trump is actually the new annointed messiah who is God's chosen President.
They had made a bunch of prophecies about Trump winning 2020, so when he lost, they basically developed the idea that Trump is actually the President of God's annointing... as a cope for losing and being failed prophets.
But this idea has stuck, so now anyone opposing God's President is a demonic force of Satan, blah blah blah.
So... basically QAnon and its derivatives are still going quite strong, they have just largely abandoned platforms that most people know about, or are in largely private groups on more well known means of communications.
I remember seeing one video on one of these youtube alternatives that explained that nuclear weapons are actually fake, dont work, never have, and thus the end of ww2 and the entire cold war and modern day geopolitics are all an elaborate ruse orchestrated to keep us all compliant and afraid... blah blah blah, somehow, its always liberals, democrats, jews and socialists, or secret versions of those, that have been orchestrating a mass conspiracy for a hundred years or something.
We have also had a number of right wing mass shooters, guys that tried to kidnap the governor of Minnesota, and the person who immolated himself outside Trump's trial... all with QAnon related or derived beliefs.
We now also have certain preachers just outright calling for a christian nationalist government, and they all can be connected to this wider movement stemming from QAnon.
Just because Q has not posted in a while doesnt mean the movement that was sparked and coalesced by and around his garbage has died out.
They just morphed into something else now that it doesn't have the pull it once did. These nutters are still around and still baking the same conspiracies just without Ron Watkins leaving secret messages pretending to be a government insider.
I had forgotten about Savage Nation until you mentioned that lunatic. He was crazy before crazy was cool.
Same, though my dad was liberal. He just kind of rage listened to these guys. Needless to say, I was young and impressionable and picked up some of their extreme views in my youth, but later got straightened out when I went to college. Fuck AM radio. It is responsible for radicalizing people who spend a lot of time in their vehicles. We should not require it in vehicles. I feel the damage done outweighs the potential benefits from emergency messaging. Everyone has a phone for that these days anyway.
And now you've figured it out. This probably has nothing to do with emergency preparedness and everything to do with keeping a propaganda pipeline open. Maybe the D votes are secured by arguing about emergencies, but I just don't see it.
Recommend people get an AM radio for emergency use, but it doesn't need to be required for every vehicle.
https://www.thebrainwashingofmydad.com/
I have seen the movie, and it is extremely hard for me to watch.
After years of debunking insane nonsense from my Dad, only for him to come up with some new insane thing, then declare he is done with politics, then mention off hand something he could only have possibly heard from some insane QAnon type nonsense, I finally realized he's an egomaniac incapable of being wrong, doing any self reflecting, who has no problem knowingly lying to those around him, about himself and those around him.
It was very hard for me to realize that though he says he loves me and has attempted to demonstrate this, interacting with him in any way other than coddling his feelings, entertaining his nonsense ... just results in him being classic narcissistic asshole.
Better off without him in my life. So, so much less stressful.
Sorry for your loss (even if he’s not deceased, it’s like a part of you dies when something like this happens)
I appreciate your condolences.
There is unfortunately more to it than that... he's ruined my life more than once, subjected me to insane medical procedures and treatment multiple times as a child, and covered for other family members who have abused me and lied about me...
It took a near death experience for me to figure out that basically none of my family are good people, they'd all rather argue with me than listen or god forbid actually help me in anyway or make amends for the massive mental trauma, physical danger they've put me in, financial burdens I now have from going along with their plans or advice and then that all going to shit because none of them can plan anything or be any kind or reliable.
Oh well, I guess.
Fuck, dude. Sorry to hear and glad you got out. Hopefully you’re doing well.
I'm not, but I am slowly on the mend.
I know that back in the early 00s I was traveling cross country and was surprised when I reached the prairies and realized there were way more AM than FM stations, but it's because AM travels much farther even though the fidelity is lower.
That's the trade off you make with AM. With just about all wireless transmission techs, really. There seems to be an inverse relationship between range and bandwidth. If you want one, you sacrifice the other. Compared to FM, AM radio leans more towards max range, so the audio quality isn't quite as good, but it goes for miles.
And thats how you get all the people living in rural America who listen to AM nonsense talk radio.
Its also much, much cheaper in general to start your own AM talk show because of the relatively lower costs compared to FM broadcasting, so any crazy angry idiot can do it.
l'd think that the Internet (well, systems built on the Internet) has probably been the most-influential system for lowering the bar to transmit ideas in recent years. I mean, it's really inexpensive and easy to post on social media, and that can reach a whole lot of people.
True, I agree.
In the past, AM radio was a much bigger piece of the pie in terms or right wing nonsense extremism vectors, and now it is still an important segment of it, but yeah the internet is certainly much more important overall these days.
A lot of EV auto makers have been arguing that the frequencies that some of the electrics in the cars run at interfere with AM radio reception.
Not sure if that's a legitimate argument or they just don't want to pay for extra shielding to block out the noise.
Sounds like they are admitting that their cars violate FCC rules about interferance.
It's more about internal electrical noise. Cars have always been electrically noisy environments. There's a chunk of questions on the ham radio technician exam about dealing with having a radio in your car.
EVs just happened to affect regular AM radio.
If only there were some way to selectively place an antenna.
A lot of sports radio, npr, and conservative radio stations are on AM. I listen to two of those three, though most the stations I listen to have an app or streaming option I use more often then actual radio.
Didn't realize like 10% of NPR stations were still am.
*than
I usually flip through AM before FM if I'm reduced to using radio.
Besides that, it's a layer of redundancy in our society in times of emergencies. There's no good reason to do away with it.
The average American is 38.x years old. There are a lot of children, but the olds still run this country. China is around 37, Germany is around 39. I don't think that 25% of America listens to AM broadcasts on a regular basis, but I do think at least 1/4 of the population thinks it should still exist.
I was referring to a quote from the article where someone stated that 82 million Americans listen to AM radio.
Coincidentally, I am above average, think that AM radio has utility, and am not opposed to requirements that it be made available in car stereos - though I do not actively tune in.
I’m opposed to it, if the argument is basically “for emergencies”… then putting an emergency radio in would be better. At that point, just lump into the spare kit or something.
Nobody in an emergency is going to think to use something that they don’t use in every day life. Having AM radio in cars is… not going ti be useful. (EAS goes out on FM amd say radio, too, and there’s the WEA sent to cell phones for people younger than dirt.)
and if SHTF, powering a car is going to be difficult. You basically can only rely on the gas in your tank and what you keep around for the lawn mower (if that.).
Most emergency radios are designed with minimal power from the get go (ie battery operated, recharged via hand crank or portable solar, etc.) and can usually be set to automatically come on if the EAS sends an alert.
The justification of "emergencies" is problematic. Most people aren't going to hunt for an AM radio in an emergency. They are going to their phone/computer. If they want to prop up traditional communication then they should just require both AM and FM AND require the EAS included. With software defined radio this all can be implemented with a single chip and SiriusXM included probably. Just requires the appropriate antennas.
I’m just going to assume there’s somebody that makes a single part, it’s all they make, but it has to go into every am radio; and that person paid off a bunch of lobbyists so they can keep selling that part.
It’s stupid. For emergency alerts, cell phones are vastly more useful, the Wireless Emergency System is far more featured, cell phones are likely in everyone’s pocket, and the system is as reliable as the EAS is.
Any other justification is stupid, and propping up AM is probably the result of said lobbyists…
All of the comments like these don't understand the word emergency.
There are numerous plausible reasons cell phone towers, computers, and TV will be out in a true emergency.
I mean, hell, cell phone were unusable on 9/11 due to congestion, and even though it was a horrible event, it want an emergency the like of which are possible.
AM is dead fucking simple. Seriously. If you know what you're doing, you can make a receiver with a wire, a resistor, and a speaker. You don't even need power to run it.
The WES system that sends broadcasts to cell phones is more like a pager than cell phone. On 9/11, a WES signal was never sent given the extensive media coverage.
The fact that you mention two way communication getting blocked during 9/11 as an argument for a technology that doesn’t allow 2-way communicatio… is kind of amusing.
There is a further, critical advantage to cells. The vast majority of people wouldn’t have to build a cell phone to get that alert. Pretty sure the only am radio in my house is an unplugged and stored hand crank emergency radio.
We all already have phones in our pockets, or at least in arms reach practically 24/7. The hardware to maintain the network already exists and is going to be maintained regardless if it’s used for alerts.
AM is largely going away. There’s only a handful of niche uses (like very rural or remote locations,) where it’s more useful.
To further expound on that…. Are you running your car or truck or what ever 24/7 in case of an emergency broadcast? In an emergency it’s best to have your vehicle be a dedicated vehicle and your receiver a dedicated receiver. You don’t want to find your battery ran down or that you’re out of fuel.
Which brings us back to… this bill is stupid. Unless you’re a trucker, you’re probably not going to be around your car enough to reliably get the emergency broadcast.
And truckers have better systems than AM radios for communication.
Your phone ain't gonna be much use when there's no tower nearby.
Neither is that radio.
What’s your point?
AM travels significantly further than cell signals, chum. Hundreds of miles instead of just a few.
Yes yes.
And how large is that tower? What happens if say a forest fire rips through the ground station. Tornado. Hurricane. Ooops your entire coverage is gone.
Cell towers are more distributed, meaning loosing any single tower is far less critical. (Typically, phones are in range of 2-3 towers at any given time. Unless you’re way out in the sticks.)
The land under the am tower probably costs more than the entire cost of setting up a cell. (Especially in urban areas where they can go onto rooftops of existing structures.)
But of course this entire conversation is ignoring that it’s am radios in cars. I don’t know about you but most of my day is not spent in a car. Which is turned off when I’m not using it so as to not waste gas or run down the battery.
I have a cell phone inside arms reach practically 24/7. Most people do.
You know, I read this whole back and forth, and the only takeaway I have is that you have absolutely no idea how any of these technologies work. Like at all. I’m not saying this to be a dick or anything -it’s ok to not know things- but it’s painfully obvious in this case because your lack of fundamental understanding is the core of your argument.
And if you did understand how the tech works, you’d probably get why those options are used instead of your layman’s idea of a good idea. Which is not, in fact, a good idea at all for a variety of reasons. Which is exactly why these other things are being discussed and supported by people who do understand them (and I’m not talking about the rest of the Lemmy comments either, I mean in the real world).
There are tons of scenarios where cell towers/fm transmitters for an area would go down, but cars would still be fully operable. But even if that wasn’t the case, why do you want to remove a public safety option that currently exists, even if you don’t and won’t use it? The only people who benefit are big companies (the exact ones whining they don’t want to comply) that don’t care about you, so why do you give a shit if this inconveniences them?
Try reading up more on AM radio signals, buddy.
My cell phone and FM radios won't work after an EMP. AM will be the first "broadcast signal" to return in such a worst case scenario.
So. This bill is meant to force manufacturers to put am radios inside new cars.
Right?
New cars that, in a hypothetical emp… will be just as fried as your cell phone is.
And that’s why the emergency prep angle doesn’t hold water. You would literally be better off with a hand crank emergency radio (that can almost certainly survive.)
And if AM is removed from cars (AM's biggest listening base) it will die. If AM radio dies, then the hand crank emergency radio will have no use. Much like the portable UHF/VHF television.
Because there’s no possible way that the government could buy up the 77 stations thst broadcast the NPWS stations.
We’re already subsidizing them heavily because the backup systems to keep them on are expensive.
Edit to add: the demand for AM is going away. Content is cheaper to produce and distribute online.
In stead of passing legislation to bail out a dying industry (what this bill is really about,) they should be looking at ways of resolving the problem.
An easy first step is to buy or otherwise nationalize the 77 critical stations. We can then either maintain them as vital infrastructure or replace them with newer and more capable/effective technologies.
All this bill is going to do is prolong the problem.
Gotcha... And just for funsies, how much money (taxpayer money) have we spent on say... failing banks? I'd say investing zero tax payer dollars to "save" AM radio is a better investment.
But we’re not going to be able to save AM radio.
Outside of rural areas, AM radio has no advantage over cell based internet services. It’s less expensive for the content producers, and it’s inevitable that they switch to streaming instead of broadcast.
And those rural areas don’t provide the audience necessary to sustain the cost of the broadcast service.
Further this bill isn’t without cost- that cost is being paid by everyone who buys a car.