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Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars

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On Thu, May 18, 2023 at 12:48:36PM +0000, danny burstein wrote:
> Background: Electric cars, thanks to their motors
> and circuitry, cause lots of radio frequency interference.
> 
> If done cheaply, this badly crashes any attempt to
> listen to an AM radio.  Hence many car manufacturers
> are choosing the skinflint option of simply not including
> AM radios in their vehicles.

As should be their right. AM radios in motor vehicles have always been
subject to interference from a variety of sources, including spark
plugs in converntional engines, electric windshield motors, and the
display panels used to replace old-fashioned speedometers, and oil
pressure and temperature gauges.

It's not the fault of AM radios: AM was simply the first method which
was discovred for sending voices and music over the airwaves, and for
that reason, it became the de facto standard for broadcasting - and
the source of the immense fortunes gathered by manufacturers such as
RCA, plus the immense power which broadcasters accumulated by
portraying their friends in a good light and their enemies in a bad
one.

The point is that those whom profit from existing methods of
distributing a nation's propaganda always fight tooth and nail to hang
on to their privileged positions and profit model when new
technologies such as FM threaten them, and our leaders have always let
them get away with it. Elected officials at all levels of government
had learned hard lessons from the early days of radio broadcasting:
how racists like "Father Coughlin" could draw audiences numbered in
the millions, and how Franklin Roosevelt was able to use "Fireside
Chats" to help restore public confidence in the banking system and
advance a liberal agenda during the Great Depression. Never mind the
messages they sent out: what politicians count is votes, and the
broadcasters have never allowed them to forget it. That's one of the
reasons why Geostationary satellites(1), first proposed in 1929,
weren't available to carry TV reports until well into the 1970's.

> There's been plenty of kickback, and now Congress
> is starting to, maybe, get involved:
> 
> [Axios]
> 
> Scoop: Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars
> 
> A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to make it illegal for carmakers to
> eliminate AM radio from their cars, arguing public safety is at risk, Axios
> is first to report.
>    ======
> rest: https://www.axios.com/2023/05/17/am-radio-congress-cars

The Congress doesn't give a tinker's damn about "public safety:"
they've had souper-seecrit hidey-holes prepared for themselves and
their PR teams and families for decades, so in their viewpoint, the
public can be damned, in all senses of the word.

What the politicians fear is having their profligate lifestyles
revealed to the voters, and that's why every radio and TV station is
able to obtain oh-so-sincere statements about any issue of public
concern, with multiple versions to choose from, according to the
station's programming model and intended audience. All paid for by our
tax money, of course.

In return, the Congress goes to extraordinary lengths to delay any
technical change which threatens the existing technologies: cable TV
operators much, for example, pay royalties to local over-the-air TV
stations in order to carry their programming, and are forbidden to
carry network shows or stories which duplicate those of the local
stations, even if such broadcasts are already distributed for free over
the internet.

The congress is demanding that electric car manufacturers prop-up a
century-old technology that is useful only to transmit staged debates,
shock jocks, Father Coughlin copycats, and all the other propaganda
that the politicians need to keep themselves in power.

Bill Horne

1. The idea of satellites in geostationary orbit was first proposed by
   Herman Potočnik in his 1929 book, publissed in Berlin, Das Problem der
   Befahrung des Weltraums - der Raketen-Motor. Arthus C. Clarke, who
   is usually credited with the idea, cited this work as a reference
   in his 1945 paper.
   <https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=2140>

--
(Please remove QRM from my email address for direct replies)

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[telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "danny burstein" <dannyb@panix.com> - 2023-05-18 12:48 +0000
  Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Bill Horne" <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> - 2023-05-18 11:13 -0400
    Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Marco Moock" <mo01@posteo.de> - 2023-05-19 08:41 +0200
      Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Bill Horne" <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> - 2023-05-19 18:22 -0400
    Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Michael Trew" <michael.trew@att.net> - 2023-05-19 23:44 -0400
      Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Bill Horne" <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> - 2023-05-20 09:52 -0400
        Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org> - 2023-05-20 16:51 +0000
      Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org> - 2023-05-20 16:18 +0000
        Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> - 2023-05-21 16:45 -0400
          Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson@mishmash.com> - 2023-05-23 05:31 +0000
            Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Bill Horne" <digest-replies@telecomdigest.net> - 2023-05-23 10:25 -0400
            Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org> - 2023-05-23 20:07 +0000
              Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson@mishmash.com> - 2023-05-24 22:30 +0000
                Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org> - 2023-05-25 21:25 +0000
                Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Fred Atkinson" <fatkinson@mishmash.com> - 2023-05-26 20:31 +0000
                Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org> - 2023-05-27 21:17 +0000
                Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Bill Horne" <digest-replies@telecomdigest.net> - 2023-05-28 18:28 -0400
                Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Fred Goldstein" <invalid@see-sig.invalid> - 2023-05-30 11:24 -0400
                Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Bill Horne" <digest-replies@telecomdigest.net> - 2023-05-30 13:13 -0400
                RE: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Patton Turner" <address-withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> - 2023-05-31 02:06 +0000
          Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Bill Horne" <digest-replies@telecomdigest.net> - 2023-05-23 08:39 -0400
          Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Fred Goldstein" <invalid@see-sig.invalid> - 2023-05-23 11:30 -0400
        Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Michael Trew" <michael.trew@att.net> - 2023-05-30 15:57 -0400
          Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Bill Horne" <digest-replies@telecomdigest.net> - 2023-05-31 09:07 -0400
            Re: [telecom] Congress moves to preserve AM radio in cars "Marco Moock" <mo01@posteo.de> - 2023-05-31 16:54 +0200

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