324
AM radio law opposed by tech and auto industries is close to passing | Ars Technica
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
324 points (98.2% liked)
News
23267 readers
4644 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't think I've ever heard an AM transmission in my life, is there a benefit relative to FM or digital radio?
Range is the biggest. KMOX in St Louis was known to reach Colorado from my understanding. There are/were a lot of Cardinal fans because of it in that area before they got the Rockies. I don't think they broadcast as strong now, not sure. FM will cut out in under 75 miles* unless you have a "good" antenna.
*Not sure the proper range.
And at night the way the signals bounce they can be heard for a thousand miles or more. Due to interference only some stations can run full power at night while most have to turn off or turn power way way down.
Occasionally it can be heard across continents even
In emergency situations the benefit is range. You can broadcast further and reach more areas with one station.
AM stations have to cut their power to like 10% (often even less!) at night, it's wild
https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/am-stations-at-night
some am stations go dark (off the air) at night, even. there's a 'daytimer' near where i am. it's weird.
I think the longer wavelengths of AM transmissions travel a lot farther, and are less prone to scattering, but that's about it. FM allows for more information density (you can broadcast in stereo, for example), and is less prone to the static that plagues AM radio. That's why AM is mostly talk stations, and FM tends to be mostly music.
The AM band is the strongest of the two. Some countries however have made AM illegal to use in consumer vehicles, because it is used by military and state.