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Maui fires & cell phone service failed

forgot to say, in David's comment about me saying put a radio in a cell phone, David mentioned the need to go from analog to digital conversion, yes that is true - but see if AM & FM radio went digital years ago this hurdle would have been no more.
Regarding an antenna for AM , yes this would be a problem, plus noise from the cell phones circuits to AM (unless AM had moved higher up in frequency) - I know no frequencies, but FM would work.

I also feel you could easily fit a telescoping antenna in a cell phone - say a 4 or 5 section each the length of the phone top to bottom - and when it is collapsed no one would know it's there, it can recess abit.

Now some of you might say . . . people into cell phones will not deal with that - why not - they push the screen over & over to do things . . . all they'd have to do is pull out that hidden telescoping antenna, than go back to pushing the screen to go to FM radio.
They'd have to be told in the owner's manual, that the radio part can also provide you with emergency info & more if your cell phone will not connect to the phone system. Or you can just listen to the radio - I know some will say everything will be streaming, maybe not?
I think the cell phone user would think it is cool, the radio.

Another gadget in their phone, ya got a phone, a camera, a computer and now a radio - WOW !

All In One !!!

Al
 
alok said:
I also feel you could easily fit a telescoping antenna in a cell phone - say a 4 or 5 section each the length of the phone top to bottom - and when it is collapsed no one would know it's there, it can recess abit.

Now some of you might say . . . people into cell phones will not deal with that - why not - they push the screen over & over to do things . . . all they'd have to do is pull out that hidden telescoping antenna, than go back to pushing the screen to go to FM radio.
Click to expand...
Honestly, I think Sony answered that question more than 40 years ago when they designed the original FM Walkman to use the headphone cord as the FM antenna. Yes, it had an adverse effect on reception quality. But it was perceived as more convenient.

Just remember that this venue has lots of radio geeks, for obvious reasons, who will try to optimize their listening experience in various ways. But the vast majority of people won't bother with the extra effort. For them, either the station is there or it isn't.
 
these horrible wildfires are starting to bring back painful memories of how things were handled in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, i bet we are in for this disaster's version of "Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job" moment where the person who might get Michael Brown comparisons gets that compliment from a major political figure what might get people's eyes to roll in anger.
 
Will_H_69_9 said:
these horrible wildfires are starting to bring back painful memories of how things were handled in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, i bet we are in for this disaster's version of "Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job" moment where the person who might get Michael Brown comparisons gets that compliment from a major political figure what might get people's eyes to roll in anger.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure there's much comparison. Yes, FEMA and the W. Bush administration in general was ill-prepared to deal with Katrina when it struck New Orleans, but beyond that, the biggest travesty was how an entire segment of the population and race in that city was marginalized. You had the mother of the US President at the time talking about the fact that these people were basically animals who had very little, anyway, so stuffing them all in the Superdome and having them sleep on cots for days on end was fine treatment. Actually I just looked up Mrs. Bush's quote: "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them."

While there will certainly be lessons learned with regards to what caused the conflagration in Lahaina, including the non-native vegetation that burned quickly, how the alerts and even the cleanup and aftermath are being managed, I'm not sure I fully agree that this is another "Katrina moment".
 
www.khon2.com

LATEST: Lahaina fire fatalities remain at 111

HONOLULU (KHON2) – Maui County officials continue recovery efforts in Lahaina after the devastating fires that destroyed a large part of the town. UPDATE: 8/17/23 9:15 p.m. Maui Police Depart…
www.khon2.com www.khon2.com

Here is the current death toll that's been verified so far for Maui.

www.khon2.com

California firefighter survives Lahaina wildfires, hopes for proactive change

HONOLULU (KHON2) — A California firefighter, who lives in Lahaina and survived the wildfire, said he hopes the horrific incident results in a proactive change. Captain Dan Nelson, is a parame…
www.khon2.com www.khon2.com

And an El Dorado County, CA firefighter compares the Maui and some of the California wildfire he's been through.
 
Y2kTheNewOldies said:
Here is the current death toll that's been verified so far for Maui.
Click to expand...
According to an article that was published just yesterday, there are still 1,300 people missing. As @Kelly A correctly pointed out when articles listing "current death tolls" were posted here on RD a few days ago, the number of casualties is surely (and sadly) to rise.
 
Mark Roberts said:
Honestly, I think Sony answered that question more than 40 years ago when they designed the original FM Walkman to use the headphone cord as the FM antenna. Yes, it had an adverse effect on reception quality. But it was perceived as more convenient.

Just remember that this venue has lots of radio geeks, for obvious reasons, who will try to optimize their listening experience in various ways. But the vast majority of people won't bother with the extra effort. For them, either the station is there or it isn't.
Click to expand...

I understand that Mark, it has been said by David and others too.

But to me and others an antenna would be so easy to deal with . . . People I know that are not radio geeks, are willing to do these extra things to make an item do what it suppose too do.
But like you said, it's not all the people.

My main point on antennas in my last post was you can make a shorter antenna work on FM, I had a number of radios AM / FM portables over the years with pretty short telescoping antennas and on FM they worked good picking up stations. Naturally the better radios I owned had longer antennas, but the shorter ones did work decently.

Al
 
alok said:
My main point on antennas in my last post was you can make a shorter antenna work on FM, I had a number of radios AM / FM portables over the years with pretty short telescoping antennas and on FM they worked good picking up stations. Naturally the better radios I owned had longer antennas, but the shorter ones did work decently.
Click to expand...
First, half the market is using iPhones, which have no connection for any kind of wired earphones or antenna.

Second, an antenna inside the case would not be viable. Added circuitry and the antenna would just not fit in today's small sized cell phones. And the smaller the antenna, the less sensitive the radio would be, limiting station choices
 
DavidEduardo said:
First, half the market is using iPhones, which have no connection for any kind of wired earphones or antenna.

Second, an antenna inside the case would not be viable. Added circuitry and the antenna would just not fit in today's small sized cell phones. And the smaller the antenna, the less sensitive the radio would be, limiting station choices
Click to expand...
That, and the case is a milled aluminum alloy that acts as a mu-metal RF barrier.
 
Mikey Radio said:
According to an article that was published just yesterday, there are still 1,300 people missing. As @Kelly A correctly pointed out when articles listing "current death tolls" were posted here on RD a few days ago, the number of casualties is surely (and sadly) to rise.
Click to expand...
The town became a Crematory. It's a very sad situation.
Obviously, opinions differ greatly on the sirens issue. It seems that even if the sirens had sounded, the outcome would have been the same...
 
DavidEduardo said:
First, half the market is using iPhones, which have no connection for any kind of wired earphones or antenna.

Second, an antenna inside the case would not be viable. Added circuitry and the antenna would just not fit in today's small sized cell phones. And the smaller the antenna, the less sensitive the radio would be, limiting station choices
Click to expand...
David, how do you know the market is using 50% iPhones? Just curious?

Also wasn't it Apple with the iPhone that did have an FM radio in some of their phones a number of years ago, are you going to tell me than Apple had then on their phones an FM wire antenna? They must have - I don't know?
If I recall correctly Apple would not tell people how to make work or activate the FM radio, because Apple did not want people listening to music on their phones from a radio station (I guess they realized it would hurt their business, forget an added feature to help people) . . . they rather you subscribe to the Apple music streaming service.
The radio disappeared from the Apple phones soon afterwards.

I am not talking about putting any antenna inside the phones case - you know that. An FM telescoping antenna would telescope out of the case. And as far as the added circuitry, the people that design the circuits, IC's,SMD's etc. know how to do that, leave it to them- again Apple had an FM radio back a number of years in some phones, they did it.

Yes, some people would not want to pull that antenna out of the phone - too much work per many here on the forum. But the people I know and I'll bet you know that are not in broadcasting or electronics (not radio geeks) would easily pull a short antenna out of their phone for the added feature- RADIO - to make that phone do even more - a device that you can call people on / take pictures with, use as a small compute ,etc. now WOW a RADIO too!!!

Young people can say proudly, my cell phone has a radio in it, kind of like the old fashion radio my parents had in the kitchen on the counter . . . but my radio is way smaller & works great and it is in my cell phone - again, WOW!

Al
 
Just like any other business or manufacturer, cell makers do research to find out what their customers want and expect in a device. If enough customers were truly telling them they demand an FM tuner or would be more likely to buy their phone vs. a competitors if it had a tuner, they might consider it - but I'm strongly guessing that's not the feedback they're getting from an overwhelming majority of the people they're poling - especially those in the core age they're trying to target with their products.

The other thing to consider is that design matters, and design vs. functionality can often result in a trade off. Using the headphone cable as an antenna was a simple, completely unobtrusive solution and it didn't take away from the appearance and design of the phone. I'm guessing if you showed people a cell phone with a retractable antenna sticking out of it, they'd laugh. It's not even "cool in a "retro kind of way". Also, it's not terribly functional. If you're walking around with a cell phone with the antenna extended, where are you going to put it? Belt holsters haven't been in fashion for years. Are you going to walk around with your phone in your pants pocket with the antenna sticking out?
 
The cell phone service providers mentioned moving satellite based cell phone systems to the Maui area to allow some cell phone service until the terrestrial based cell phone system can be repaired.

It seems like a good idea to have this satellite based cell phone system as a permanent thing in most areas (possibly with a battery backup so it will operate for, say, 24 hours without external power).

Capacity may limit the satellite based cell phone system to text only, but it would likely still work even in a wildfire situation.

(I haven't Googled the details of such a satellite based system)


Kirk Bayne
 
radiofan2023 said:
Phones already have the ability to stream radio stations all over the world using the internet.
Click to expand...
True, but I think the main purpose @alok had in mind was for cell phones to have FM receivers so they could receive OTA emergency activations and information in the event the cell system or data/WiFi is knocked out or goes down.

kfbkfb said:
The cell phone service providers mentioned moving satellite based cell phone systems to the Maui area to allow some cell phone service until the terrestrial based cell phone system can be repaired.
It seems like a good idea to have this satellite based cell phone system as a permanent thing in most areas (possibly with a battery backup so it will operate for, say, 24 hours without external power).
Capacity may limit the satellite based cell phone system to text only, but it would likely still work even in a wildfire situation.
(I haven't Googled the details of such a satellite based system)

Kirk Bayne
Click to expand...
I think the types of systems they're placing in Maui are similar to the ones they bring to large sports stadiums or events when they need more capacity than the permanent systems already installed in those areas are capable of handling, and that can be moved into position to function in cases where the permanently installed cell systems have been knocked out or fail for whatever reason...In Lahaina's case, the fire.
 
I can’t get over the comical idea people are going to accept a freaking antenna tucked in their phone. Setting aside the impracticality of it in devices where every fraction of a millimeter is carefully scrutinized. Just the idea people are going to pull out an antenna and try to find some random station in the middle of an emergency, in 2023 A.D….that just isn’t going to happen.

Years ago, Apple sold a device for iPods that used the 30 pin port to turn it into a radio. The screen would show the frequency, and you scanned up or down the FM band with the controller at the end of the small cable. Cute enough, and I had one for my iPod, but guarantee it never sold that well. I’m an outlier. And even as an outlier I’m not remotely interested in an antenna in my phone like it’s 1976. Sorry.
 
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