How do you tune an AM Radio station?

[TyPope]

I'd wager that they were simply made to look like an OEM AM/FM antenna. If the AM/FM radio remained functional, it likely used an antenna in the glass, or similar, because connecting both it and the VHF transceiver would have toasted the car radio the first time the transceiver transmitted...for the same reason you got the RF burn. Those burns are no joke. At that time, the transmit power was likely no greater than 50 Watts, so you were at least somewhat lucky!

A buddy of mine was the lot boy at a local car dealership one summer in high school. They serviced police cars and used to have chases around the lot with the lights flashing...

Now that you mention it, I remember cutting the holes in the fender and mounting those antennae. You must be right about them being glass mounted.

I'd get to drive the Mustangs from the radio shop up the hill to some other shop. Always liked driving them. New smell, party lights, pretty quick compared to my old '65.

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[CyberGus]

"Pull over safely to receive AM radio signals clearly." - future Tesla manual, probably

 

[YDR37]

Update: the "AM Radio in Every Vehicle Act" currently remains stalled in Congress, despite bipartisan support:

... the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act sits in congressional limbo, despite commanding more than 375 co-sponsors across both chambers. The bill, which would require the Department of Transportation to mandate AM radio as standard safety equipment in all new passenger vehicles, has been awaiting a floor vote in both houses.

However, the President has the clout to get Congress moving, and he has just recommitted to getting the Act passed:

President Donald Trump admitted that the fight to keep AM radio in vehicles had slipped off his radar — but recommitted to acting on the bipartisan AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act during an interview last week.

The pledge came during a call-in to Red Apple Media’s 77WABC in New York City, where host Sid Rosenberg raised the dashboard fight near the end of an extended conversation. “I got to stop that,” Trump said when Rosenberg mentioned the automotive industry’s move to pull AM from new vehicles. “Why are they doing that? Why do they want to take AM radio? It’s so ridiculous. Why?” The President then offered that he personally intervened to prevent AM’s removal during his first term.

...Tuesday’s call was not Trump’s first public endorsement of the cause. At the 2024 National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, he pledged to protect AM radio access in vehicles, telling attendees he would safeguard the medium and defend “pro-God content.”

So there is a good chance that Tesla will be legally required to install over-the-air AM radios in their vehicles in the future. Depending on how rigorously the law is enforced, Tesla could potentially also have to install shielding to prevent AM interference from the motors. Of course, this would also affect other EV manufacturers, like Rivian (currently FM only) or Slate (no plans to include radio as standard equipment).

 

[CyberGus]

So there is a good chance that Tesla will be legally required to install over-the-air AM radios in their vehicles in the future.

I'm waiting for the federally-mandated return of the 8-Track tape.

 

[BrockN]

Update: the "AM Radio in Every Vehicle Act" currently remains stalled in Congress, despite bipartisan support:

However, the President has the clout to get Congress moving, and he has just recommitted to getting the Act passed:

So there is a good chance that Tesla will be legally required to install over-the-air AM radios in their vehicles in the future. Depending on how rigorously the law is enforced, Tesla could potentially also have to install shielding to prevent AM interference from the motors. Of course, this would also affect other EV manufacturers, like Rivian (currently FM only) or Slate (no plans to include radio as standard equipment).

Awesome. Radios in cars, but no transmitters transmitting. About as smart as bringing back coal...

 

[rlhamil]

AM radio is the first generation of radio technology. From a technical perspective, it's like the horse and buggy. Massive land requirements for the broadcast antenna. High power just to be heard outside of town. And at night, the ionosphere gets the signal bouncing so you hear multiple stations at the same time (skip). At the frequency of the FM broadcast band, the signals typically don't bounce, so it's easier to coordinate frequency allocations to minimize overlap.

It's a dead technology walking. Similar to shortwave stations (Voice of America, BBC World Service, etc.) that are slightly higher in frequency and also using AM, stations are being shuttered and those remaining are predominantly nutjob religious and political stations, or pure propaganda (China for example).

The proposed bill makes little sense in today's world. People have stopped listening to AM, regardless of whether they have an AM radio or not. Running the stations is not economically viable, whether the bill is passed or not.

Propping the AM industry up with laws is not much different than mandating ICE vehicles.

AM is not dead, there are still radio stations that are AM only. “Nutjob” is in the eye of the beholder, but if they have local news and traffic, and are not quite 100% one-sided, I don’t think that’s a fair characterization.

Mostly the law is (as you point out, like some other mandates) stupid. But I wonder if there remain some safety related warnings that AM radio offers that may not get sent by texts or other means.

AM radio is the first generation of radio technology. From a technical perspective, it's like the horse and buggy. Massive land requirements for the broadcast antenna. High power just to be heard outside of town. And at night, the ionosphere gets the signal bouncing so you hear multiple stations at the same time (skip). At the frequency of the FM broadcast band, the signals typically don't bounce, so it's easier to coordinate frequency allocations to minimize overlap.

It's a dead technology walking. Similar to shortwave stations (Voice of America, BBC World Service, etc.) that are slightly higher in frequency and also using AM, stations are being shuttered and those remaining are predominantly nutjob religious and political stations, or pure propaganda (China for example).

The proposed bill makes little sense in today's world. People have stopped listening to AM, regardless of whether they have an AM radio or not. Running the stations is not economically viable, whether the bill is passed or not.

Propping the AM industry up with laws is not much different than mandating ICE vehicles.

AM is not dead. There are still AM only stations with a significant portion of their programming being local origin news and traffic and commentary, although of course they also have some national syndicated talk shows or whatever.

"Nutjob" is in the eye of the beholder, but as long as there's some practical content included, I don't think it's a fair label, not even of everything with political or religious content one may not agree with.

I tend to agree that mandates are usually stupid. OTOH, I wonder if there's not some safety info that gets sent by AM but not necessarily by other means (text or some sort of cellular notification), esp. if there are infrastructure problems. An AM station only needs electricity to broadcast, not an Internet hookup; and if they have a big generator, they can broadcast for awhile during a power outage. So if weather or some other event takes down power and most cellular, the AM could still be working.

One can always choose to keep a portable battery powered AM/weather radio in the vehicle (and check the batteries at intervals), which should work fine when parked. That's sufficient for practical concerns, IMO.

 

[BrockN]

AM is not dead, there are still radio stations that are AM only. “Nutjob” is in the eye of the beholder, but if they have local news and traffic, and are not quite 100% one-sided, I don’t think that’s a fair characterization.

Mostly the law is (as you point out, like some other mandates) stupid. But I wonder if there remain some safety related warnings that AM radio offers that may not get sent by texts or other means.


AM is not dead. There are still AM only stations with a significant portion of their programming being local origin news and traffic and commentary, although of course they also have some national syndicated talk shows or whatever.

"Nutjob" is in the eye of the beholder, but as long as there's some practical content included, I don't think it's a fair label, not even of everything with political or religious content one may not agree with.

I tend to agree that mandates are usually stupid. OTOH, I wonder if there's not some safety info that gets sent by AM but not necessarily by other means (text or some sort of cellular notification), esp. if there are infrastructure problems. An AM station only needs electricity to broadcast, not an Internet hookup; and if they have a big generator, they can broadcast for awhile during a power outage. So if weather or some other event takes down power and most cellular, the AM could still be working.

One can always choose to keep a portable battery powered AM/weather radio in the vehicle (and check the batteries at intervals), which should work fine when parked. That's sufficient for practical concerns, IMO.

No, it's not dead, but it's dying. The last ones standing will likely be the ones with the nutjob content I mentioned, because they're driven by ideology not financial reality. Poor fidelity alone put a stake in the heart of music stations on AM, late '60s, early '70s. FM listenership would have exceeded that of AM about 50 years ago (!). All that remains of AM is news/sports/talk, all of which are available via streaming wherever you are, not just in your car. The almighty dollar will decide, and is already deciding.

When the power goes out (essentially, SHTF), it's a much bigger job to get an AM transmitter back on the air. They run kilowatts (tens of kW, like 25,000 to 50,000 watts typically for a local station), and generally plenty of them. That's a big genset. Their antennas are huge, and take up acres of valuable real estate. The local one here would be over 400' tall and have a massive grid of buried ground radials (thus the need for space). The tower is actually the driven antenna element. If a massive storm brought the antenna down, it would not be back up very quickly, at all.

By comparison, the local university FM station runs 400 watts. The local commercial FM stations run around 4,000 watts. So in an emergency, even a hundred watts on broadcast FM (100 MHz range) will be heard in the local area, from a much smaller, modest antenna (like, five feet or so!).. even one propped up on a short mast on the roof would do it. If you just need to spread information and not hi-fi music, that would be a good start. And the generator wouldn't be a massive beast.

AM is the original radio mode. Even ham radio operators left it behind in the late '50s. And mandating it be installed in all cars would be like requiring homeowners to install and maintain a horse watering trough on their frontage, so that the horses pulling the first responders fire wagon could get a drink when needed.

Times change. Technology changes too.

 

[TruckDaddy]

AM is the Blockbuster of the video world. Some people like the scratch noise of an LP vinyl.

 

[YDR37]

AM is the original radio mode. Even ham radio operators left it behind in the late '50s. And mandating it be installed in all cars would be like requiring homeowners to install and maintain a horse watering trough on their frontage, so that the horses pulling the first responders fire wagon could get a drink when needed.

Like it or not, the odds of the AM radio mandate taking effect have just risen significantly. In the House, the "AM Radio in Every Vehicle Act" got folded into the "Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026", which in turn is likely to be folded into the "BUILD America 250 Act" for funding surface transportation projects.

And if that happens, then if the House votes to fund highways and bridges, that approval will also include the AM radio mandate.

It was an unexpected turn on Capitol Hill, but now the fight to keep AM radio in the automobile dashboard has a new vehicle to a floor vote. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce voted Thursday to include the AM Act’s language in Chairman Brett Guthrie’s (R-KY) H.R. 7389, the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026 ...

What happens next matters more than the committee vote. H.R. 7389 could itself be absorbed into the BUILD America 250 Act, the surface transportation reauthorization package moving toward the House floor. Highway and transit authorities expire September 30, and leaders on both sides of the aisle have signaled urgency around getting the BUILD America 250 Act to the president’s desk before that deadline, giving the AM Act its clearest path to enactment since its introduction.

 

[BrockN]

Like it or not, the odds of the AM radio mandate taking effect have just risen significantly. In the House, the "AM Radio in Every Vehicle Act" got folded into the "Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026", which in turn is likely to be folded into the "BUILD America 250 Act" for funding surface transportation projects.

And if that happens, then if the House votes to fund highways and bridges, that approval will also include the AM radio mandate.

Well, I don't have a horse in the race, so I don't really care if it passes or not. And frankly, given it's regressive, archaic and stupid, I naturally assumed it would pass.

 

[CyberGus]

AM is not dead.

Morse Code isn't dead either, but that's no reason to mandate a shortwave radio in cars.

 

[CyberGus]

And if that happens, then if the House votes to fund highways and bridges, that approval will also include the AM radio mandate.

I thought we were funding highways with EV registration fees

 

[BrockN]

Morse Code isn't dead either, but that's no reason to mandate a shortwave radio in cars.

LOL, I actually use Morse on a regular basis, but that's out of interest and nostalgia, not necessity.

I intend to add an actual 'shortwave radio' to my truck eventually. But the antenna is huge and not really good to have attached all the time... (seriously).

 

[CyberGus]

Here's an idea: instead of mandating AM receivers, let's require all state-owned "Informational AM Stations" to add low-power FM. Heck, I'll even throw in a $10,000 credit for the equipment. Given there are about 4,000 such stations, this amounts to a budgetary rounding error (or about 1 hour of funding the Special Military Action with Iran).

 

[CyberGus]

LOL, I actually use Morse on a regular basis

"Hey Grok, tell BrockN to meet me for beers at 8PM, and send the message in Morse"

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