AM Radio to Be Dropped in All Ford New Models Except Commercial Vehicles - Slash...

Posted by EditorDavid

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  • 1 hidden comment

  • • Re:

      Indeed, it must be another conspiracy so people are kept more and more in the dark about what is really happening. AM radio reaches far more people than FM due the wave frequencies used.

      As well, our own renowned wannabe Slashdot influencer in chief says his father's car radio only had two radio stations; country and news.

      So sad that all those fond memories will definitively be over now!

      What a shame! Sad, so sad...

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      • Re:

        Probably made a sweet deal with the satellite radio companies...

    • Re:

      AM radio causes cancer. They're just trying to sweep it under the rug before it becomes a matter of public outrage.

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      • • • Re:

            Huh? Since when does truth matter when it comes to how something gets modded?

            What's true doesn't matter anymore, what matters is how it feels.

    • Re:

      That was my thought. The AM circuit has got to be basically free. There's some design and QA effort but that has got to be trivial too. Hardly seems worth the effort to drop, given lots of people still listen to AM talk radio.

      Or maybe they don't. Anyone know AM listener stats? Maybe talk radio has largely converted to streaming and Sirius XM.

      • It's EVs that are killing AM radio. It's much harder to prevent interference from the motor controllers and motors affecting the AM radio reception.

        • Re:

          Sorry but I call bullshit on this. RF engineering has gone a long way and I have my doubts that it's about a bit of interference.

          They solved ignition system noise getting into the radio back in the 1940s. Surely they can figure this out now.

          It's all about cost-cutting; not enough people are demanding AM radio for it to be worth the effort for them.

          • Re:

            Well, that's the claim from manufacturers. Perhaps it really is BS.

            https://www.theverge.com/23633... [theverge.com]

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            • Clear BS

              It's clearly BS because, if it were an EV interference effect then logically they would only remove AM radio from their EVs, not every vehicle they make.

        • Re:

          Been driving an EV for about three years now and I listen to AM radio frequently on longer drives for traffic and weather info and it's never been a problem.

          Oddly, the AM station comes in better than the FM station they also broadcast on, except when driving under bridges.
          =Smidge=

          • Re:

            Came here to say something very similar.

            I don't listen to AM radio very often, but when I do, it's while I'm driving, for updated traffic reports and highway alerts. There's nothing like that anywhere on the FM band where I live that I know of.

            It seems to me that there is a legitimate safety issue here, and it's absolutely ignorant that Ford is taking away a feature that I'm sure many drivers besides myself rely on for their peace of mind while driving.

        • Re:

          Not really. It's the fact that few people listen to AM radio that is killing AM radio. Heck what's a radio? Us CarPlay Android Auto Spotify streaming young kids are dying to know about this old boomer thing!

        • Re:

          Uh no, no it's not. How about filtering for 4, 6, 8 or more 60.000 volt spark-gap transmitters feet away from your antenna? Power electronics all the way back to alternators can be and are designed to not interfere with wireless signalling, lest your cellular, WiFi, BlueTooth, FM, toll transponders, radar sensors, etc. malfunction.

      • Re:

        I haven't listened to ANY radio in 20 years. I can't imagine why anybody would, other than that being the only option.

        • Re:

          There's plenty of great stuff on radio.
          Granted I live in a city which is not dominated by 1 or 2 corporate station owners. Competition is great.

        • Re:

          I haven't listened to any radio except AM for over 20 years. We get our local CBC radio talk/news station on it and while you can get it on FM too you can drive a lot further before you lose it on AM.

        • Re:

          I haven't listened to ANY radio in 20 years. I can't imagine why anybody would

          I listen to the radio, granted FM, not AM. Currently, mostly just on the 5 minute drive to the commuter train station and back on the two days a week I work in the office, almost always the classical music station. When I used to drive more often and longer trips, I often listened to the radio in the car, either one of the local NPR stations I can get (I can usually get either or both Milwaukee and Chicago) or the classical rad

        • Re:

          I occasionally listen to musical FM stations for variety.

      • AM stations on HD2, HD3, etc.

        Here in Houston many of the AM stations are being simulcast on FM digital subchannels. An example would be The Buzz 94.5 FM [wikipedia.org] which has Sports Talk 790 AM [wikipedia.org] on HD2 and Talk Radio 950 AM [wikipedia.org] on HD3.

    • Re:

      Whatever it is, they murdered Art Bell before he could tell us.

      • Re:

        If only he had a popular radio program that he could have used to share his message...

    • Re:

      It costs too much to filter out all the EMC that the electric motors creates. That's the real reason.

      So there are bean counters that calculate every cent.

      Add to it that there's almost nothing to listen to on the medium wave band anymore. Soon AM radio is only for airline pilots that are required to have an AM radio.

      • Re: These guys are total morons

        They got to filter the EMI and RFI anyway to get a FCC/EC mark to be able to sell the cars. They just want to save 10c on the receiver.

    • Re:

      Not "nothing". Probably having an AM antenna that works halfway decent is not trivial. And it has to be fairly large to work decently.

    • Re:

      Everything interferes with AM radio today. Switching power supplies, led drivers, CAN bus, etc. All right in the AM band or spewing harmonics into it. That’s the reason.

    • Re:

      Electric motors aren't friendly to AM radio.
      All cars will be EVs? Well then no AM radio.

  • Re: A funny song about AM radio

    Dunno what your link is to but maybe it's this?

    I was tuning in the shine on the light night dial
    Doing anything my radio advised
    With every one of those late night stations
    Playing songs bringing tears to my eyes
    I was seriously thinking about hiding the receiver
    When the switch broke 'cause it's old
    They're saying things that I can hardly believe
    They really think we're getting out of control

    Radio is a sound salvation
    Radio is cleaning up the nation
    They say you better listen to the voice of reason
    But

• I've driven a Chevrolet EV for more than 5 years and over 150K miles. I listen daily to one of our local AM stations. I drive from the country into the city and only have a problem when I enter a fairly long tunnel downtown. It fades but there is no interference.

  I'm a broadcast engineer and know interference when I hear it. My old gas cars would interfere, but not diesel and so far none with my EV.

  I suspect they don't want to buy chips needed to do Amplitude Modulation reception. That relies on level and and frequency or phase.

  So call it for that, but don't lie about interference. Then again maybe Ford has bad electronics that are noisy.

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  • Re:

    The chips are inconsequential. Really.

    There simply is no interest. FM is barely hanging on in some markets. People want Bluetooth or a 3.5mm jack. Virtually everyone rolling down the road has their phone linked to their car. If it's not "FM" quality (and no, you're a broadcast engineer and know the quality of most AM station stinks-- especially during a thunderstorm), it's not being played in most all cars these days.

    Many of the AM stations play either religious or political focused content that people ofte

    • Re:

      The only time I've switched to AM in the past 25 years is by mistake. Terrible quality audio and it's all politics or religious. If they shut if off people's blood pressure will probably go down.

      • Re:

        The funny thing is that I pretty much haven't listened to the radio since I got my Tesla, precisely because it has no AM, and XM, FM, and live Internet-based radio don't carry well enough in the mountains to be viable, with the exception of music streaming services that buffer ahead by several minutes at a time.

        Before that, I mostly listened to KCBS AM.

        • Re:

          LOL...

          KCBS was the last AM station I listened to as well. Until CarPlay and maps with live traffic, I kept up the hope upon hope that their traffic reports would help me find my way around jams.

          After KCBS started (or, after I discovered they have it) their FM simulcast, the only times I've switched to AM have been by mistake. These days, I barely even tune into that... all three of the big map apps route around traffic jams now. And between Apple Music, podcasts, and Audible; give it a few more years and

    • Re:

      I routinely listen to a AM radio station but rarely AM radio. There is a AM station that has local news and sports but the signal is just horrible. But they have a icecast server set up so I can listen on my phone. The quality of the icecast feed is near perfect.

      • Re:

        The car makers might do well to introduce a pseudo-AM band where they offer the Internet links to the live feeds for each frequency in range. Most of that is well defined by government regulation of broadcast power, and you'd get a clear "signal" out to the theoretical boundary of the radio signal.

    • Re:

      Dude....

      In my market - Chicago - all the baseball games are on AM radio. Without it, you need to pay $150 per year for an MLB.com subscription that gets blacked out if you're local.

      There are 3 sports talk stations on my regular AM dial, plus a general talk station (WGN) that's been there for eons.

      I'm on AM more than FM these days.

      • Re:

        The Venn diagram of the intersection of the sets, $AM_Radio_Sports_Listeners and $New_Ford_Owners will be a null set. I don't think Ford cares.

    • Re:

      "People want Bluetooth or a 3.5mm jack."

      IPod connected by USB for me, but the same idea.

      When the iPod finally dies I'll have to change to something else. I'll worry about it then.

  • Re:

    It really doesn't make much sense. At this point, every mainstream radio could probably be set up using an SDR anyway.

  • • Re:

      It's not the spark that generated the interference. It's the high voltage needed to create said spark.

      High voltage that is omnipresent in EV motor coils with far more energy behind it.

      • Re:

        It's as much the current as the voltage. Remember it's Electro Magnetic radiation. It's the current that creates the magnetic component.

  • Re:

    From the summary, "GM shields its AM radios in its electric cars to they don't get any interference."
    
    In case you're not aware, Chevrolet is a GM brand.

  • I felt a great disturbance in the Electric Field

    You have no idea about interference close to RX.
    The problem is that the EMC standards are meant to prevent interference in a 1970's world, with electronics equipment spaced 10's of meters (especially receiving antennas), while today, you have your receiving antenna of your car radio just a few centimeters away from the next module with crazy microcontrollers, and other noisy window motors.
    The level of interference is at least 40dB worse than what FCC is regulating.

    It does not cost much to add an AM receiver

  • Re:

    If you're already doing FM radio, you may or may not need another chip to do AM — depending on whether the FM radio is in a SoC, or you're using a stand-alone radio chip. But the manufacturer would rather steer you towards a satellite radio system from which they get a kickback, so they don't care how good the AM quality is.

    My understanding (from the last time this came up, and some browsing I did then) is that if you don't need another chip, and possibly even if you do, the cost of the external compo

  • Re:

    I've yet to heard any noticeable radio interference on AM, and my oldest vehicles are from the late 1970s and early 1980s - all gasoline-powered.

    That includes a vehicle with a "traditional" distributor-wires-plugs setup. As well as some with early electronic ignition systems, which likely are far noisier than modern electronics.

    I would imagine a modern coil-on-plug (COP) system would be much less noisy. While EVs should also have enough shielding to prevent interference.

  • Re:

    I suspect they don't want to buy chips needed to do Amplitude Modulation reception. That relies on level and and frequency or phase.

    That's BS. Modern car radio chips are SDR based - I've used chips that combined did AM, FM and DAB in a single chip - it was just contorlled over I2C or SPI and the decoding happened via the firmware programmed on it. Oh yeah, that chip also had I2S inputs in order for audio playback from the infotainment system, as well as I2S outputs for audio captured via the microphones for

  • Re:

    An alternate theory is they intend to skimp on EMC to reduce BOM and don't want to field resulting complaints by people who listen to AM radio.

• • Re:

    If you are among the tiny few who care buy an AM emergency radio which has the advantage of better reception and portability in an emergency which may include your vehicle being disabled.

    If you go that far away from civilization an EPIRB and a CB are even better ideas along with a Motor Carriers Road Atlas and compass (all my vehicles get the map and compass since they're dirt cheap).

• by Orgasmatron ( 8103 ) on Sunday April 02, 2023 @10:18PM (#63420868)

  I was under the impression that Part 15 of the FCC rules prohibited interference with licensed spectrum usage. If these EVs are actually noisy in the AM band, shouldn't the FCC step in?

  • Re:

    If you haven't already, you might want to read "blastards" comment, which appears immediately below yours. It addresses your remarks directly.

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  • Re:

    Could be. But I'm pretty sure there are range limits on that. I recall a short-range AM* microphone thing I had as a kid, from Radio Shack. It broadcast on AM so you could listen to yourself on your radio. It had a range of something like ten feet.
    
    * A little research suggests what I had was similar to but not actually a Mr. Microphone, which was FM. It's possible what I had was also FM, but the point remains that there are limits to FCC interference ranges and they probably apply to both AM and FM.

  • Re:

    EVs don't really broadcast interference, the effect it highly localized. It's not that hard to make an EV with a working AM radio, but it's not worth the effort since most people wouldn't use it.

  • Re:

    go read the rules again.

  • EMC rules aint that easy.

    >> I was under the impression that Part 15 of the FCC rules prohibited interference

    Nope, does not work that way. Your impression is wrong.
    EMC rules try to limit interference to a reasonably low level.
    It's a compromise between cost of filtering electronics, and inconvenience.

    The problem is that the EMC standards are meant to prevent interference in a 1970's world, with electronics equipment spaced 10's of meters (especially receiving antennas), while today, you have your receiving antenna of your car r

• What about highway alert radio? Those are ALL low-power AM stations that broadcast a short range signal targeted at traffic. Around me, there are billboards with the AM frequency and flashing lights if there's something going wrong on the highway.

  Yeah, AM is essentially worthless for everything else, but those seem like a pretty important reason for cars to have AM radios.

  • Re:

    I was thinking about that too. Around here (Washington state) it's not uncommon to see those stations being used - sometimes for significant highway construction, sometimes for big special events (concerts) that will impact traffic, and especially for mountain pass road reports during the winter.

  • Re:

    The flashing lights probably contain most of the value; if you in addition replace one in four of the billboards with a low-resolution matrix display then you could summarise the problem for the benefit of everyone who doesn't want to or can't use the radio. It works in plenty of other places...

• Would the answer to this be a low frequency FM transmitter which is often used as a lowest common denominator? It isn't as good as having it built in, but at least it would be an option.

• At some point during an emergency you may be walking.

  • Re:

    I think that's reasonably common on phones with a headphone jack. Though it requires a pair of wired headphones to act as an antenna.

    Still, what's a cheap transistor radio cost these day? Like a dollar?

    We should start telling kids about this cool way to get music for free "without wifi". It could save radio.

  • Re:

    Even my flip phone has FM, but you need an external antenna, usually the headphone.

• A single AM station can broadcast for 100 miles (and multiples of that at night), FM is limited to visible horizon and cell towers have comparatively tiny range. If things go bad, don't you want to be able to communicate with affected population?

  • Re:

    A single AM station can broadcast for 100 miles

    Far more, though I gather longwave radio isn't really a thing in America?

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• As a born and raised St. Louisan, AM 1120 KMOX feels like a "staple" of our region. Since it has a clear channel license, it's been known for decades as one of the radio stations you can pick up across a large part of the country when conditions are right.

  Sure, it's just another "talk / news" format station, which may younger people have no interest in. It caters to the "boomer" generation, quite clearly. But it's also the "go to" when people want to hear radio broadcasts of Cardinals baseball games. And ov

• Because there's still many sections of road that use a local radio for weather reporting or other information, these sections exist were no cell service exists
• Although I don't listen to AM much, the most time I *DO* listen to it is while I am driving, listening to road condition reports in my area that are updated every 15 or so minutes throughout the day. There is no equivalent FM radio station in my area.

• Suppose there's a serious disaster capable of destroying tons of infrastructure - like Katrina or the 1906 SF earthquake. Afterwards, you need to get crucial disaster relief information to a million survivors.

  To get that information to everyone by radio, you need to get a power source and a well-placed broadcast transmitter.

  To get that information to everyone by cellular internet, you need...

  OK, I don't know cell networks well enough to be sure what's required. But the infrastructure we normally use in a large city involves thousands of access points and thousands of miles of fiber backhaul and

  In an emergency, if significant amounts of infrastructure have been destroyed, all you need to get radio transmission back in working condition for a city of millions is a power source for one broadcast transmitter.

  To get emergency

  • Re:

    darn it, problem with the comment form. trying again

  • Re:

    There's no singular emergency broadcast. Emergencies are broadcast across all systems precisely because (and this is the important part) there's no assumption that one broadcast reaches everyone.

    So your car doesn't have AM? No worries. You can get cellular. Oh that's not working? Well there's FM, and Sirus as well. And if you actually live in a disaster prone area then you'd be insanely bone headed to rely on your car as a communications medium.

    No emergency response agency in America says "you got a car, yo

  • Re:

    Look to the sky man. The ground based internet was explicitly designed to survive major damage even including nuclear war let alone the literally thousands of communications satellite

• Conservatives have moved on to the right wing social media platform Twitter.

• I listened to an exciting basketball game Saturday on AM radio while driving because I needed to be somewhere, and again the Friday before when I had another commitment I needed to drive to. It was great to be able to hear those games.

  I bought myself a stereo for Christmas after my old Sonyâ(TM)s CD player croaked, and it took a lot of searching to find one with AM radio (shame on you Sony for not offering it anymore) because I can listen to local and neighboring cities sports programs.

  Iâ(TM)m

• Suppose there's a serious disaster capable of destroying tons of infrastructure - like Katrina or the 1906 SF earthquake. Afterwards, you need to get crucial disaster relief information to a million survivors.

  To get that information to everyone by radio, you need to get a power source and a well-placed broadcast transmitter.

  To get that information to everyone by cellular internet, you need...

  OK, I don't know cell networks well enough to be sure what's required. But the infrastructure we normally use in a la

  • A serious disaster happened earlier this year in New Zealand with Cyclone Gabrielle. "Old-fashioned AM radio was an information lifeline for many during Cyclone Gabrielle when other sources wilted without power" https://www.rnz.co.nz/national... [rnz.co.nz]

• + AM -- free to receive
  + FM -- free to receive
  + Streaming / mobile apps -- extra cost to receive
  + Digital -- extra cost to receive
  + Satellite -- extra cost to receive

  I wonder why they're ditching AM in favor of the other options...?

  Seriously, dropping AM radio capability will save them, probably literally, a nickel.

  I wasn't aware that all their vehicles will be EV only. Still, they could still support it and include a disclaimer about reception quality, if they seriously can't shield a radio ante

• ...the gov't began requiring FM in all radios that mostly only had AM. Why not do the same thing now for AM?

  OBTW, I won't be buying a Ford. If they can't make the motors electrically quiet enough for AM broadcast, then the electric motors will also be too noisy for my hobby radios and CB's which are also AM. I require my vehicles to accommodate my hobbies, as well as my needs.

• I wonder if these manufacturers provide DAB receivers in the Norwegian market?

  Driving through Norway 5 years ago was a surreal experience, nothing could be heard on either FM nor AM. They've switched off both and now it's all digital.

  • Re:

    Driving through Norway 5 years ago was a surreal experience, nothing could be heard on either FM nor AM.

    Some parts of Norway can receive Radio 4 Longwave, so you can still get the cricket.

• It's just the first salvo of removing non-subscription generating content from the infotainment system. FM will be next. If you want music (even AM or FM) you'll have to subscribe to that mobile broadband plan for N dollars a month and have it delivered that way. They already take a cut if you subscribe to satellite content.

  Next they'll bounce Carplay, Android Auto, and even the ability to mount your own media to play your own content.

  Coming soon.

  • Re:

    You're a couple days late...

    https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

    =Smidge=

  • Re:

    Gotta love the slippery slope https://owl.excelsior.edu/argu... [excelsior.edu] .

    There's no way auto manufacturers will get rid of Carplay or Android Auto. Unlike AM radio there are far too many people who use it.

• I bought an EV in 2019 in 2019, trading in my gas car. Since then, I've had zero access to AM radio and... I haven't noticed any impact at all to my standard driving and road trips. Heck, I seldom even use FM radio. I just stream. And should I reach an area where streaming isn't available, I just play music from my phone over BT.
  
  Perhaps radio, in general, is for pre-streaming-era cars.
• As a counter example, the entire country of Austria did away with AM radio [wikipedia.org] (known as "medium-wave" there) in 1976, and they've been surviving quite well without it for the past 45 years.

  Personally, I would rather see the spectrum removed from radio use and put to something more useful. What exactly that is, I don't know, but I'm sure the 1.2MHz of bandwidth could be useful to someone in that long-transmission-length spectrum.

• I don't travel as much as I used to. Back then, many roads and Disney, had travel alerts on AM radio, usually 1150 or there abouts. Have all those advisories moved to FM?