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Fewer cars with AM radios...

boombox4 said:
The main problem with DRM in much of the world is that the more developed nations are veering away from standalone radios, so the remaining analog systems are adequate for what they do. The UK and Norway and a few other EU countries had DAB radio sales incentive programs when they switched over to DAB, and a lot of DAB radios were sold in the late 2000s and through the early 2010s, but I don't think the sales have increased since them. Like we notice here in the US, the smartphone is replacing radios.

India does produce domestic DRM radios, and perhaps there will be a lot of them sold. Neighboring China still has an extensive analog radio network, and they produce a lot of radios for the domestic market, so in countries with hundreds of millions of poor people, like India and China, OTA radio systems can work. But in the Western world and alot of the former Third World, it simply isn't the case.

To bring this back to the topic at hand, I can see where auto manufacturers will eliminate radios period. It will all be smartphones connected to the dashboard controlled stereo system via Bluetooth. A lot of people I know use that now. They've replaced FM as well as the CD and MP3 audio system with Bluetooth and the smartphone.
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We still don't have unlimited, coast to coast reliable 5G. I imagine radios will be around awhile longer.
 
boombox4 said:
EVs are the future, but right now are simply too many trends running against it. To retool the country's vehicular transportation system the electrical grid needs to re-tool, and in a way that increases total electrical production, instead of keeping the total production stagnant at 2005 levels. The population is growing (it grew by roughly 15% from 2000 to 2022) and the energy needs of that increased population are growing. The grid is taxed in many regions because of it.

And while it's absolutely true that it took some years of transition to move from horses and buggies to gas powered vehicles and paved highways, energy production skyrocketed to meet that increased demand. Oil production more than doubled in just the 1920s alone -- in just ten years. And the 1920s were the transition period for much of America, when the Model T began to replace the horse and buggy everywhere, not just in the cities.

That sort of increase in energy production isn't happening now. 1.6% solar is 1.6% solar. 4.1 trillion kilowatt hours is 4.1 trillion kilowatt hours.

I agree with your overall consensus, I just disagree with the timing. My state has enacted a limit on new gas-powered car sales set for 2030, just eight years away. In my view, they're dreaming.
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Again, as I said a few posts up, I think a lot of people are conflating the end of ICE sales with total EV adoption. They are two very different things.

If we banned ICE sales tomorrow morning and had record new car sale years of 17 million per year, it would take 16 and a half years to completely convert the fleet. Between normal ups and downs of car sales, our current supply shortage, which we have no clear way of knowing when it will end, and the people who will take the "over my dead body" approach to EVs, it'll take longer than that.
 
Kelly A said:
That's because they communicate via UHF frequencies and digital formats (P25).
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I've heard of police radio switching to digital and that this is not a good idea because of the same problems digital TV has.

Police radio needs to reach all areas for obvious reasons. It can't blocked by interference.
 
boombox4 said:
To bring this back to the topic at hand, I can see where auto manufacturers will eliminate radios period. It will all be smartphones connected to the dashboard controlled stereo system via Bluetooth. A lot of people I know use that now. They've replaced FM as well as the CD and MP3 audio system with Bluetooth and the smartphone.
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I'm going to mention why on the COVID-19 thread but thought it would be better to ask about this specific topic here.

Wasn't the question asked on this thread if smartphones had the ability to pick up actual FM stations? I think the answer was no, but I'm in a situation where that would become necessary.
 
vchimpanzee said:
I'm going to mention why on the COVID-19 thread but thought it would be better to ask about this specific topic here.

Wasn't the question asked on this thread if smartphones had the ability to pick up actual FM stations? I think the answer was no, but I'm in a situation where that would become necessary.
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Some smartphones can receive FM broadcasts. It depends on the phone. It must have a wired earphone connector because the FM tuner uses the earphone cable as a receiving antenna.
 
michael hagerty said:
Okay, so, there’s only one AM that shows up in the ratings in Beaumont-Port Arthur, and it’s a talk station owned by iHeart.
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Non-subscriber KZZB, urban gospel, also shows at well under a 1 share and KIKR a sport station occasionally gets a tenth of a share. KZZB has a translator too.
michael hagerty said:
So, I’m still unclear on the idea that “a lot“ of 20-30 year olds are listening to an AM music station In that market.
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Anecdotally, maybe. But in the book.... no.
 
michael hagerty said:
Yes, it is—-and again, the only AMs showing up in the Houston ratings have spoken word formats:
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In all fairness there are two Asian formatted stations and one Spanish language station that occasionally get a 0.1, but they are not subscribed and I don't know how much music any of them play.

That said, the only cases of music stations on AM getting ratings among people under 55 are either ethnic or they have translators. And in the case of ethnic stations, they only seem to get numbers if there is no comparable FM or translator.
 
vchimpanzee said:
I've heard of police radio switching to digital and that this is not a good idea because of the same problems digital TV has.

Police radio needs to reach all areas for obvious reasons. It can't blocked by interference.
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The main reason for the switch to digital -- encrypted digital at that -- is to prevent people the police don't want listening from listening: the bad guys, obviously, but they've never been comfortable with the media listening in either. I was in the newspaper business when the local PD went encrypted digital; we had to turn the clock back decades and have a reporter in the police station for a while. Finally the PD supplied an encryption key.
 
DavidEduardo said:
In all fairness there are two Asian formatted stations and one Spanish language station that occasionally get a 0.1, but they are not subscribed and I don't know how much music any of them play.

That said, the only cases of music stations on AM getting ratings among people under 55 are either ethnic or they have translators. And in the case of ethnic stations, they only seem to get numbers if there is no comparable FM or translator.
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Case in point: About 20 years ago, Portland had a Spanish language AM that regularly delivered 3+ shares and I even heard it once out the window while driving down the street! A fairly low powered Class C3 FM went on with the same format, their ratings dropped to nearly nothing and they eventually switched to Russian religion! This year, they closed down their 50K/15K transmitter site and are getting ready to share a tower for 5K/42 watts!
 
DavidEduardo said:
In all fairness there are two Asian formatted stations and one Spanish language station that occasionally get a 0.1, but they are not subscribed and I don't know how much music any of them play.

That said, the only cases of music stations on AM getting ratings among people under 55 are either ethnic or they have translators. And in the case of ethnic stations, they only seem to get numbers if there is no comparable FM or translator.
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I'm waiting for specifics from Continuous Wave. Either I'm missing something or present tense got used instead of past tense.
 
michael hagerty said:
I'm waiting for specifics from Continuous Wave. Either I'm missing something or present tense got used instead of past tense.
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I think "past tense" in this case is measured in decades... at least two or three of them.
 
boombox4 said:
Now, maybe some of the home solar supplies escape the EIA's radar screen. However, a recent article in a renewable energy bulletin appears to disagree. They say that although the renewable portion went up from 20% to around 23% (mostly due to wind and solar), the total electricity produced in the US remained roughly the same, at around 4.1-4.2 trillion kilowatt hours, because fossil fuel plants are being shut down. EVs aren't like electric bikes. They require a considerable amount of power. And if you're talking EV trucks and EV buses, even more.
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You turned my engineering mind loose, so I did some math:
First, yes, it appears household solar is not counted. Only grid-scale solar.

The total utilization for the whole year tells you little about the peak capacity. The grid today has significant surplus capacity during off-peak hours on just about any day of the year.

Let me start by saying I looked only at household charging, for which a common standard is 32A at 240V or 7.7 kW. This is similar to the load from two household central air conditioners. The rapid charging varies a lot and I didn't want to try and model that. I looked at the Mid-Continent Independent System Operator, because that is where I live. They serve about 1/8 of the United States population, serving portions of 12 states, from Minnesota to the mouth of the Mississippi.

For example, on May 1st, 2022, there was enough theoretical capacity in the Midcontinent region to charge 6 million EVs. During midnight to 8am, that stretched to 8.5 million. Because this condition lasted all day, and most EVs will charge in 8-10 hours, there could have been enough grid capacity to fully charge 20-25 million cars.

The hottest or coldest days of the year are a different question. On June 21, when the temperature reached 100 degrees in Chicago, the available capacity in the grid was much lower. I can't say exactly how much lower, but the available capacity on the afternoon of the 21st was probably 10s of thousands and not millions of EVs charging.

The good news is that, should it be necessary for grid stability, automakers and electric utilities could implement load shedding, similar to how utilities will give you a small rebate if you let them cut off your A/C for an hour.

boombox4 said:
I agree with your overall consensus, I just disagree with the timing. My state has enacted a limit on new gas-powered car sales set for 2030, just eight years away. In my view, they're dreaming.
Click to expand...

In spite of all the figures I quoted above, I agree that we probably aren't ready today for a wholesale changeover. But I figure someone must be thinking ahead as far as what would be needed in the grid for a large scale changeover. Call me an optimist if you will :)
 
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