These are new cars, they do have a computer. Why not just to write an app and bake a chip for having AM, CB, SSB, LPD/PMR and any other frequencies and modulations if somebody needs that? Dropping AM saves nothing.
To depends on households to have an internet connection is a mistake already. Applying it to cars is even worse as they are on the move and often reach areas with weak or no signal.
Trains in Germany don't even get consistent internet signal when moving through less populated areas so cars having internet-only radio is even more unrealistic.
Maybe they could buffer the broadcast (e.g. music played yesterday) for such cases.
I remember being in an Audi in 2012 which could automatically record the traffic announcements - the radio station would send a signal that the host is about to read out some traffic info, and most cars' entertainment units have a setting to switch to that broadcast, pausing the CD player. The Audi had an auto-record feature in case you needed to hear them again.
I'd guess that the FM module is very cheap these days so it's probably easier to just throw that in than having some error prone internet-buffering system in place which would then also be confusing.
Going through a tunnel? Current news broadcast interrupted and music from yesterday starting to play doesn't sound like a good UX.
Most tunnels are required by law to have a leaky-feeder arrangement which rebroadcast the AM and FM bands so that emergency services can still be heard.
The problem is interference: Most modern cars are a nightmare of radio interference which is an absolute headache for manufacturers to eliminate. And the interference is much worse on low frequencies and especially for AM receivers. Much easier to simply delete the AM radio option. Source: Was an automotive EMC engineer for many years.
>> Already, EVs from Audi, BMW, Porsche, Tesla, and Volvo are sold without AM radios, and it's been that way for years.
Tesla aside, the primary reason for European car makers to drop AM radios is the decline of AM radio itself in Europe.
While it's a better, albeit lower grade, band for long distances and ieally suited to the sprawl of the central north american midwest .. it's FM that is king in the more compact European environs.
It's kind of funny to read that because I sometimes browse European MWDX write-ups on the web. DX is a bit of an addicting hobby, not dissimilar to fishing or hunting in a way. It's fun to read about someone in Finland picking up an AM commercial broadcast from Brazil. You can start thinking about watts-per-km and pretty soon you have your own record book or spreadsheet going.
Are you sure you are talking about AM and not just regular FM? I just checked for the European country I'm from and all the regular radio stations (state-sponsored, private, classical) are only available via digital or UKW (FM).
FM is also on the way out, being replaced by DAB. Here in Norway the switchover has already been done, other countries in Europe are also working on it but taking longer time. [1]
That's why many countries choose to wait until DAB+ has overtaken FM. In the Netherlands FM will at least exist till 2027 and will only be phased out once 70% of radio traffic goes through DAB+.
Also, some ISP's in the Netherlands have already stopped delivering analog radio over coax and most people I know actually did just... buy new radios / DAB+ receivers.
It will take que a long time and I don't it will be successful.
It will be easier to sell internet radios then DAB+ ones.
I tried to use DAB+ with the stations I listen to on FM (France Radio ones, west of Paris). I have reception holes while FM is perfect. I did not notice any improvement in the quality of the sound.
This is a good thing. AM needs to go. It's the least efficient way of transmitting audio.
From a technical perspective 2/3 of the power of an AM transmission is wasted with the carrier and that has no information in it at all. If you have a 30kw transmitter, 20kw is just burned on crappy modulation scheme.
This comment illustrates why it's confusing to have the AM band and AM mode namespace overlap problem in the US.
Parent is referring to the AM mode, not the band. However the band is unique and important in a lot of situations due to its propagation characteristics.
Also since CW is considered AM...the mode comments may even be questionable...
They are one and another when it comes to broadcast. Tied in unison until they are dead. As for the LF/MF/HF propagation modes, they are terribly unpredictable as anything other than line of sight. Groundwave <3MHz and lower, if you're lucky.
Non-deterministic propagation is interesting if you're an amateur radio operator or SW DXer but it's not important and is quite frankly a liability if you have to rely on it or have a target audience. Sure you can bash out some CW to Tasmania from Europe and tell a great story but you're probably dead if you need it at a specific time when the sun is sleepy.
For ref, ex CW operator. I use a UHF radio computer unit with a fruit on the back now.
Strange to read LOS in there in combination with the "non-important" argument to follow it. LOS is non-important for all practical reasons when you have the very predictable ionospheric propagation effect and a favorite talk show.
More like 99% is wasted when you consider the modern alternative: a QAM encoded signal with many subcarriers with ECC sending efficiently compressed digital data. Do that, and you can transmit to the same population with far far less energy.
Note that modern compression[1] now allows decent fm-quality music or speech in just 375 bytes per second! That's fixed bitrate too!
That means that compared to AM radio, you can have a 200x power reduction - or more likely, use the same power but far fewer transmitting masts, saving millions of $$$'s annually.
> complexity
Yes, you're right - but it's all software, so when you've done the one-time effort of writing said software, the complexity is 'resolved' - it's not like a complex circuit where every single device must have more components, more labour to assemble, more expense, etc.
You can fashion an AM radio receiver from very basic parts and it needs very low power. Transmitting and receiving is very easy, although the transmitter needs more power.
Digital radio is bad when it comes to components, for both transmitters and receivers. Receivers also have a very high power draw compared to AM radio.
In case of a catastrophic event (like war) digital radio will be next to useless and analog will be king. Decommissioning a fully working system while Russia is reviving the cold war again, is foolish. Especially since renewables are coming up strong now and the power draw of transmitters in terms of ecological impact won't matter anymore quite soon.
FM is no more complicated than AM to transmit and receive.
Simple FM discriminators for receivers like pulse counters only require a few components. On the transmit side, it's a lot easier getting decent high power modulation on an FM transmitter than an AM one. The AM transmitter you tend to have to modulate the power to the final amplifier which requires huge great obsolete tubes running in semi-linear modes. The FM one you do the modulation further up the chain, be that at one end something digital or just a simple varactor and the final amps work entirely outside the linear region meaning low power dissipation with filtering on the output. Cheaper and simpler.
Agree with digital radio concerns. That's absolutely no good for anyone.
Analog may be king but don't be too romantic about it. If you've ever actually done any operating on any analogue radios you'll know what I mean. I spent 20 years designing and building them for fun.
"FM is no more complicated than AM to transmit and receive."
FM is simple compared to WiFi6, but its an order more complicated than AM. An AM receiver only needs a diode and a coil of wire. The diode can be a rusty blade.
I dont think you can make an FM receiver without a transistor (which for me, as a former solid state guy is an order of magnitude more complicated than a diode)
Try building an FM crystal set. It can be done (as many hobbyists have demonstrated) but it will only receive very strong and local signals. Unlike an AM crystal set which can hear stations many hundreds of miles away.
I’ve built AM crystal sets before back in the 80s. Fine if you have the space and materials for a high up long wire antenna or something. But absolutely hell if you have any local noise sources.
I actually had a large inverted V trapped dipole on my property which could be persuaded to tune up on AM broadcast with some effort and pick up all sorts. But ugh you need a decent noise blanker or nulling device unless you live in the middle of nowhere.
Add a couple of transistors and some discrete components and you can build a fairly decent FM receiver instead of a crystal set which performs adequately with a couple of metres or so of wire taped to a bamboo garden cane.
AM broadcasting on the Medium Wave band is pretty much the only way to cover the enormous distances in places like Australia, etc.
Most FM transmitters also broadcast at high power levels, but as they are limited to line-of-site, they have very poor penetration into rural areas, forested areas, buldings, etc.
Yeah aware of that. However I know someone who ran VHF repeaters out there because that was the only viable two way communications out there back in the 80s. He runs rural Wi-Fi now!
AFAIK the exact mode doesn't usually figure into what is a frequency/band-related issue. Signals are just spraying all over the spectrum in these darn-fangled electro-vehicles! Who needs a kilohertz-band source anyway?
But the article does a good job pointing out that some carmakers are able to make the band work fine while others treat it as if their cars are made from cheap AliExpress parts. That's kind of an embarrassing point if pressed home, IMO.
Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) broadcasting was expected to become standard (on the MW band) in Europe and Asia/Pacific, however the trials have been a complete failure.
Strangely enough, DRM has been a huge success in India.
Edit: I don't care about SW, WB, CB, AM, FM, or Sirius as standard. They serve no purpose for me and most people. Maybe people who enjoy commercials, mainstream or extremist hate radio could enjoy some them with their innate static and reception problems. Plus, AM is an inferior encoding technology and band requiring a lot of power and nearly line-of-sight, so forget it around hills or mountains. Digital with turbo coding moonwalks over its grave.
53 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadIf every vehicle had internet access, one could conceivably remove FM (and possibly SiriusXM satellite radio).
Trains in Germany don't even get consistent internet signal when moving through less populated areas so cars having internet-only radio is even more unrealistic.
I remember being in an Audi in 2012 which could automatically record the traffic announcements - the radio station would send a signal that the host is about to read out some traffic info, and most cars' entertainment units have a setting to switch to that broadcast, pausing the CD player. The Audi had an auto-record feature in case you needed to hear them again.
Going through a tunnel? Current news broadcast interrupted and music from yesterday starting to play doesn't sound like a good UX.
Tesla aside, the primary reason for European car makers to drop AM radios is the decline of AM radio itself in Europe.
While it's a better, albeit lower grade, band for long distances and ieally suited to the sprawl of the central north american midwest .. it's FM that is king in the more compact European environs.
https://www.wbaa.org/general-news/2022-04-26/finnish-am-radi...
Behind iron curtain people only had the state ones, so some old folks are often still used to have it tuned and never bothered to change.
State sponsored are on FM.
[19 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Broadcasting#Cou...
I meant to type DAB, had a mild brain fart & ran with FM for want of a void to fill.
Take my points and prosper.
Also, some ISP's in the Netherlands have already stopped delivering analog radio over coax and most people I know actually did just... buy new radios / DAB+ receivers.
It will be easier to sell internet radios then DAB+ ones.
I tried to use DAB+ with the stations I listen to on FM (France Radio ones, west of Paris). I have reception holes while FM is perfect. I did not notice any improvement in the quality of the sound.
From a technical perspective 2/3 of the power of an AM transmission is wasted with the carrier and that has no information in it at all. If you have a 30kw transmitter, 20kw is just burned on crappy modulation scheme.
Edit: fix typo
Parent is referring to the AM mode, not the band. However the band is unique and important in a lot of situations due to its propagation characteristics.
Also since CW is considered AM...the mode comments may even be questionable...
Non-deterministic propagation is interesting if you're an amateur radio operator or SW DXer but it's not important and is quite frankly a liability if you have to rely on it or have a target audience. Sure you can bash out some CW to Tasmania from Europe and tell a great story but you're probably dead if you need it at a specific time when the sun is sleepy.
For ref, ex CW operator. I use a UHF radio computer unit with a fruit on the back now.
That WiFi exists...the more the merrier...
That means that compared to AM radio, you can have a 200x power reduction - or more likely, use the same power but far fewer transmitting masts, saving millions of $$$'s annually.
> complexity
Yes, you're right - but it's all software, so when you've done the one-time effort of writing said software, the complexity is 'resolved' - it's not like a complex circuit where every single device must have more components, more labour to assemble, more expense, etc.
[1]: https://ai.googleblog.com/2021/08/soundstream-end-to-end-neu...
Digital radio is bad when it comes to components, for both transmitters and receivers. Receivers also have a very high power draw compared to AM radio.
In case of a catastrophic event (like war) digital radio will be next to useless and analog will be king. Decommissioning a fully working system while Russia is reviving the cold war again, is foolish. Especially since renewables are coming up strong now and the power draw of transmitters in terms of ecological impact won't matter anymore quite soon.
Simple FM discriminators for receivers like pulse counters only require a few components. On the transmit side, it's a lot easier getting decent high power modulation on an FM transmitter than an AM one. The AM transmitter you tend to have to modulate the power to the final amplifier which requires huge great obsolete tubes running in semi-linear modes. The FM one you do the modulation further up the chain, be that at one end something digital or just a simple varactor and the final amps work entirely outside the linear region meaning low power dissipation with filtering on the output. Cheaper and simpler.
Agree with digital radio concerns. That's absolutely no good for anyone.
Analog may be king but don't be too romantic about it. If you've ever actually done any operating on any analogue radios you'll know what I mean. I spent 20 years designing and building them for fun.
FM is simple compared to WiFi6, but its an order more complicated than AM. An AM receiver only needs a diode and a coil of wire. The diode can be a rusty blade.
I dont think you can make an FM receiver without a transistor (which for me, as a former solid state guy is an order of magnitude more complicated than a diode)
Do a search on "Slope Detection" and "FM crystal set"
I actually had a large inverted V trapped dipole on my property which could be persuaded to tune up on AM broadcast with some effort and pick up all sorts. But ugh you need a decent noise blanker or nulling device unless you live in the middle of nowhere.
Add a couple of transistors and some discrete components and you can build a fairly decent FM receiver instead of a crystal set which performs adequately with a couple of metres or so of wire taped to a bamboo garden cane.
Most FM transmitters also broadcast at high power levels, but as they are limited to line-of-site, they have very poor penetration into rural areas, forested areas, buldings, etc.
But the article does a good job pointing out that some carmakers are able to make the band work fine while others treat it as if their cars are made from cheap AliExpress parts. That's kind of an embarrassing point if pressed home, IMO.
Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) broadcasting was expected to become standard (on the MW band) in Europe and Asia/Pacific, however the trials have been a complete failure.
Strangely enough, DRM has been a huge success in India.
Better audio quality? People suffering with 64kbps might beg to differ
Solar Hand Crank Emergency Radio
https://a.co/66NqV7M
Edit: I don't care about SW, WB, CB, AM, FM, or Sirius as standard. They serve no purpose for me and most people. Maybe people who enjoy commercials, mainstream or extremist hate radio could enjoy some them with their innate static and reception problems. Plus, AM is an inferior encoding technology and band requiring a lot of power and nearly line-of-sight, so forget it around hills or mountains. Digital with turbo coding moonwalks over its grave.
I sometimes switch to AM my car radio and launch the discovery mode. I get two or three stations, only one being barely understandable.
I have no idea why AM is still present here, nobody has used it for decades.