from Hacker News

House committee approves bill requiring new cars to have AM radio

by eklitzke on 9/19/24, 9:29 PM with 53 comments

• by nis0s on 9/19/24, 10:06 PM

  I am unconvinced that requiring AM radio in new cars is just “fan service” or outdated.

  Emergency scenarios often require a PSA (public service announcement), and it’s easy enough to envision a scenario where communications degrade in succession, such that you can get a PSA on how to use AM transmissions in case other communications go down. So if other networks are degraded, then at least people have AM to fall back on.

  This house bill may sound like a bad idea to anyone who doesn’t work in disaster preparedness, or doesn’t have a paranoid security mindset, but it totally makes sense for someone who red teams emergency comms.

• by superkuh on 9/19/24, 9:42 PM

  As a happy side effect they will actually have to address the incredible amount of low frequency near-field electromagnetic interference that electrical cars typically generate. The reason manufacturers stopped putting AM radio in cars is that the cars themselves are so electrically noisy the entire AM band is washed out with static.

• by lupusreal on 9/19/24, 10:37 PM

  I understand car manufacturers want to ditch AM radios to reduce their part count, or so they can cheap out and use noisier electronics in the rest of the car, or whatever.

  What I find a bit odder is the vehemence with which some online commenters also want them gone. I don't use either radio in my car, but their presence doesn't get me hot under my collar either. People say AM radio is useless and obsolete, but the same could probably be said for FM too, since everybody pairs their phones for music anyway. Why does AM have a target painted on it when nobody online seems to have an axe to grind with the equally useless FM radio? Is it just because there are a lot of conservative talk shows on AM? Is that the angle here? The bill to keep AM radios evidently has bipartisan support in Congress, and yet for some reason these discussions usually have people complaining about Republicans.

• by tcmart14 on 9/19/24, 10:39 PM

  Due to safety concerns and the ability to get the message out, every home, building, bridge, mountain top, or structure must maintain a a pile of logs on top and a flame at the ready in the event of a national emergency so that way word or warning may be spread like beacons of Gondor.

• by dotnet00 on 9/19/24, 10:35 PM

  This was passed 45-2, from a committee with 29 Republicans and 23 Democrats, so it's interesting to see a bunch of comments here acting like this is just a Republican thing.

• by ChrisArchitect on 9/19/24, 9:34 PM

  S.1669 – AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2023

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41585397

• by tonetegeatinst on 9/19/24, 11:20 PM

  I predict a Jeff Geerling video about this.

  He has one where he talks about the lack of radio in cars and mentions the possibility of a bill but i can't remember if he said anything specific.

• by zoklet-enjoyer on 9/19/24, 9:38 PM

  I used to have a car with a broken AM radio and it was really annoying and sometimes stressful because all the traffic alerts were broadcast on an AM station

• by snakeyjake on 9/19/24, 9:55 PM

  The public safety argument is bullshit.

  If lawmakers ACTUALLY cared about public safety, they would fund the distribution of hand-cranked AM radios that could be stored in emergency kits.

  This is just legislation purchased, incredibly cheaply, by iHeartMedia, Audacy, and the like cloaked in the delusion that people who failed to evacuate before a hurricane when all other infrastructure was operational will go out to their submerged or destroyed car to listen to the radio.

• by FireBeyond on 9/20/24, 1:31 AM

  > Conservatives are also worried about losing a lucrative platform for right-wing news and media.

  You are guaranteed the right to free speech. You are not guaranteed that other people are obligated to carry that speech for you, at a cost to them.

  Cry me a fucking river. (The same would equally apply to left-wing media, for perfect clarity).

• by gaudat on 9/19/24, 10:32 PM

  A part of me really wants to push this and see how far it would go. Why stop at AM? Add in shortwave radio and let us listen to stations on the other side of the earth.