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Car Makes & Models with No AM Band.

DavidEduardo said:
Yes, odd. I'd think both of those would be prevalent enough to warrant inclusion in the language options. I wonder how often they update the list, and what data they use to determine inclusion.

Also, what is the difference between Farsi and Persian? And where are Arabic and Spanish?
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Spanish is listed as one of the languages here:

Multilingual Services Program

www.lavote.gov www.lavote.gov

The website says this is how they determine which languages to include:

“Multilingual Services Program Background​

In 2006, federal legislation passed, extending the minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. Any county with more than 10,000 residents whose native language is not English and who indicated on their U.S. Census form a lack of proficiency in English, is required to provide election materials in the identified languages. A language is considered to be covered by the VRA as mandatory for the County's translated election materials if (1) more than 5% of the citizens of voting age are members of a single language minority and are limited English proficient OR (2) more than 10,000 of the citizens of voting age are members of a single language minority and are limited English proficient.”

Sounds like the list of languages that materials have to be provided in are updated after every census.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
In fact AM radio IS in the process of being being superseded by streaming. Just like cassettes were in the process of being superseded by CDs, and CDs were in the process of being superseded by MP3 players when the auto industry made their calls to drop those technologies.

I'm old enough to remember when each of those previous technologies started getting removed from new vehicles. People complained then too, but it didn't take long to see that the automakers were right about where entertainment tech was headed, and the complaints faded.

David, you are the one who constantly preaches on this site about research driving corporate decisions. The automotive industry has way more money to spend on research than the radio industry. Do you think they have not done their homework?
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A cursory glance at our intrepid administrator/moderator's posts should tell you that he's an evangelist. "Constantly preaches" is not far off the mark. On some level, I understand. You dedicate yourself to a business, live your life in said business, and do well for yourself along the way. It's hard to admit that something you spent your entire life working toward is going the way of the phone book or elevator operators.

Is there still an audience for AM radio? Yes. Is it a small slice of the population? Yes. Is it shrinking? Rapidly. "The kids today" are not running out to the Radio Shack to buy an AM transistor radio like I used to have. Time marches on.
 
Kelly A said:
Heard and interesting story this morning on NPR about the increasing number of "Swatting" incidents, where prank bomb threats and active shooter phone calls to police targeting seemingly random schools. Some suspects are students, and in a recent surge, the calls were traced to an IP located in Ethiopia. There are even on-line groups who get a kick out of recording or conducting swatting live online. The interesting aspect of the story, was that when news hits that a school is a recent victim of swatting, parents who have children in schools turn immediately to Facebook for timely news about their kid's school status. Not radio, not even local TV, Facebook.
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Here is what I think is the NPR Morning Edition story you referenced.
Kelly A said:
Last year there was a story about a southern state hit by a tornado. Residents were trapped in a church basement after the church had been leveled. They contacted help via Facebook on their phones.
The point being; we on some radio discussion forum are out of touch, when it comes to what people under 50 actually use today in emergencies. It isn't AM radio.
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And if someone loses their Internet or mobile network connection during a natural disaster, guess what is available that doesn't require Internet access? Radio. Especially if it's battery powered.
What people actually use vs. what's practically best is quite different, I could go on with other examples (like what kind of music is popular isn't the most artistically best).
Even scarier is the fact that teenagers confuse TikTok as a search engine. (What's that again about older people not being tech adept??)
 
408listener said:
Here is what I think is the NPR Morning Edition story you referenced.

And if someone loses their Internet or mobile network connection during a natural disaster, guess what is available that doesn't require Internet access? Radio. Especially if it's battery powered.
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The problem in counting on this is that fewer and fewer homes have radios.
408listener said:
What people actually use vs. what's practically best is quite different, I could go on with other examples (like what kind of music is popular isn't the most artistically best).
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In your opinion. All perceptions of art are primarily personal.
408listener said:
Even scarier is the fact that teenagers confuse TikTok as a search engine. (What's that again about older people not being tech adept??)
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That is because it "finds" things they are interested in. In that case, they don't want an encyclopedia, they want an amusement park.
 
Speaking of weather emergencies, car radios should have been mandated to include 162 MHz NOAA Weather Radio for a long time now. Especially now that they're all DSP-based and they already have a VHF front end for FM, it's only a matter of programming in support for it, with no extra physical expense required.
 
kevtronics said:
Speaking of weather emergencies, car radios should have been mandated to include 162 MHz NOAA Weather Radio for a long time now. Especially now that they're all DSP-based and they already have a VHF front end for FM, it's only a matter of programming in support for it, with no extra physical expense required.
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But that would mean consumers would need to know which NOAA WX radio frequencies are in use for their area, or knowledge that they would need to dial-around to find the appropriate working transmission. Not a practical idea. Average consumers are not radio nerds.
 
Kelly A said:
But that would mean consumers would need to know which NOAA WX radio frequencies are in use for their area, or knowledge that they would need to dial-around to find the appropriate working transmission. Not a practical idea. Average consumers are not radio nerds.
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I mean, they could hit "seek" and let the radio do it, but given that people are still saying "Hey! I just learned that the little arrow on the fuel gauge tells you which side of the car the gas cap thingy is on", I wouldn't count on them to say "Oooh! My car radio has NOAA weather capability!"
 
kevtronics said:
Speaking of weather emergencies, car radios should have been mandated to include 162 MHz NOAA Weather Radio for a long time now. Especially now that they're all DSP-based and they already have a VHF front end for FM, it's only a matter of programming in support for it, with no extra physical expense required.
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I actually own one of the few vehicles in North America that has a Weather Radio reception capability built-in from the factory.

It's a motorcycle.

An anecdote about that functionality. My wife and I are touring in the middle of Montana several years ago. Storm clouds are brewing, and we've got about 150 miles before our destination. I pull off the Interstate and pause at an underpass to wait out the storm movement.

I turn on the weather radio and listen. Here's this big huge list of counties and thunderstorm warnings, etc. I had no idea what county I was in. The information was virtually worthless. My paper map did not show county-level definitions, nor did my GPS. I could see the storm was crossing the Interstate; all I needed to do was wait out the passing of the storm across my path before resuming travel.

Moral of the story....Weather Radio reception capability, nice, but a cell phone is better.
 
kwthom said:
I actually own one of the few vehicles in North America that has a Weather Radio reception capability built-in from the factory.

It's a motorcycle.

An anecdote about that functionality. My wife and I are touring in the middle of Montana several years ago. Storm clouds are brewing, and we've got about 150 miles before our destination. I pull off the Interstate and pause at an underpass to wait out the storm movement.

I turn on the weather radio and listen. Here's this big huge list of counties and thunderstorm warnings, etc. I had no idea what county I was in. The information was virtually worthless. My paper map did not show county-level definitions, nor did my GPS. I could see the storm was crossing the Interstate; all I needed to do was wait out the passing of the storm across my path before resuming travel.

Moral of the story....Weather Radio reception capability, nice, but a cell phone is better.
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All great points. My Honda Goldwing also has NOAA WX radio built-in. Have probably used it once since purchasing the bike in 2007. But, you're absolutely right, I almost always use a smartphone app like RadarUS to see the location and intensity of any storm before bothering with NOAA WX radio.
 
wadio said:
BTW, there are plenty of conservation talk show hosts who don't share Levin's negativism. Their shows are fun and more forward-looking.
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Oops, my typo. Should have said, "... plenty of conservative talk show hosts ..."

That said, a talking point regarding AM in cars is that manufacturers could easily fix the interference. Of course the bigger problem is that auto manufacturers can't fix the interference from traffic lights, etc.

In the NY area, I heard a local host on WOR say that EVs could be designed to be interference free for about $65. Another on WABC (to his credit since the station has an online "Save AM Radio" petition) said that people should learn to Bluetooth their phones to the car and listen that way.

Again, proof that you can't paint all conservative hosts with a broad brush, or liberals for that matter.
 
wadio said:
In the NY area, I heard a local host on WOR say that EVs could be designed to be interference free for about $65.
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Per car. Which is exactly why Tesla dumped AM five years ago. Their best-selling model is the Model Y. They sold 252,000 of them last year. Making the car interference free at 65 bucks a car is $16,380,000.

For the Ford F-150 Lightning, which only sold 15,617, that's $1,015,105.

Remember, Pintos caught fire because Ford thought an $11 per car fix to the gas tank was too much and decided to roll the dice on liability. $65 to make AM work is an expense any bean-counter worth their salt is going to aim a red pencil at.
 
michael hagerty said:
Per car. Which is exactly why Tesla dumped AM five years ago. Their best-selling model is the Model Y. They sold 252,000 of them last year. Making the car interference free at 65 bucks a car is $16,380,000.

For the Ford F-150 Lightning, which only sold 15,617, that's $1,015,105.

Remember, Pintos caught fire because Ford thought an $11 per car fix to the gas tank was too much and decided to roll the dice on liability. $65 to make AM work is an expense any bean-counter worth their salt is going to aim a red pencil at.
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Do you even believe the $65/car figure? To completely eliminate the interference from an EVs end-to-end electrical infrastructure would require more than that, it seems to me.
 
wadio said:
Do you even believe the $65/car figure? To completely eliminate the interference from an EVs end-to-end electrical infrastructure would require more than that, it seems to me.
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I think if it was a lot more than that, you wouldn't see AM in any EV.

The difference is philosophy. The other manufacturers, never having considered not having AM, spent the money and probably added $65 to the MSRP.

Tesla needed to cut production costs and found a place that saved them tens of millions a year. Eventually, the other guys start asking how much they need AM, and there ya go.
 
michael hagerty said:
Tesla needed to cut production costs and found a place that saved them tens of millions a year. Eventually, the other guys start asking how much they need AM, and there ya go.
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Saw on CNBC just this morning, that Tesla has substantially superior margins over the other auto makers when it comes to EV's because of shrewd negotiations with parts manufacturers, and building their own batteries, software, and speed controllers. Tesla's margins were something like 20% for building and selling their EV's, where Ford and GM were between 2 and 6%. You don't get those kind of margins by adding RFI shielding to protect a bygone form of media.
 
Tesla charges $10/month for "Premium Connectivity" which includes access to streaming. Other car companies offer similar packages. They can also make money selling SiriusXM subs. They don't make money putting free radio in the dash.

Presumably they have research that shows they won't lose customers by dropping AM radio but they can make money from certain customers by pushing them to "premium connectivity" instead.
 
AM radio is the basis of EAS. When SHTF..FM won't be there, nor will the internet. Plus AM is used by hwy departments for emergency traffic/weather alerts.
 
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