Disappointing news from the US Senate this week as the “AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act” failed to advance in the sausage-making legislative process. We’ve previously covered this bill, which aims to force vehicle manufacturers to provide the means to receive terrestrial AM broadcasts in their cars and trucks without the need for extra subscriptions or charges. The bill’s sponsors tried to get it through on a “unanimous consent” maneuver, but Senator Rand Paul decided he didn’t like the idea of the government mandating what equipment cars should have. The coverage we’ve seen on this bill leads us to believe its sponsors are missing the point. Instead of pitching this as an issue of freedom of choice in entertainment, what they should be concentrating on is the safety aspect of AM radio. We’ve seen how much the government has invested in keeping AM stations on the air in just about any foreseeable emergency, so it’s only natural to look at a car’s AM radio as essential safety equipment like airbags, antilock brakes, and backup cameras. Seems like that’s something that everyone can agree on.
Last week, NASA released a preview of flight number 68 of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, with a goal of covering a record-setting 828 meters. The flight was supposed to occur sometime last weekend, which gave us hope that we’d be able to feature the results on the flight here. However, try as we might we couldn’t find any news about how the flight went, or if it was scrubbed for some reason. That seems a little ominous to us; NASA is usually pretty forthcoming with news about their missions, even when they get delayed. We’re going to assume there was a scrub for some technical reason and hope for the best, because most of the other alternative explanations don’t bode well for the helicopter. Fingers crossed.
We don’t normally dabble in the occult here, but occultation is another matter entirely. Especially when it involves our favorite star Betelgeuse, which managed to be in the right place at the right time this week to get (very) briefly eclipsed by a main belt asteroid named Leona. To see the rare astronomical alignment, you had to be within a very narrow path — the only place to see it in the United States was southernmost Florida — and you had to be paying very close attention. The video below shows the supergiant star dimming as the asteroid passed in front of it, briefly but perceptibly. It’s a bit like what happens when we look for exoplanets as they transit the disk of their stars relative to our position; indeed, some of the data in this article looks a lot like the exoplanet data we’ve seen.
If you’ve ever been at a loss for just the right connector for the job, you’re in luck — The Electronic Connector Book should be able to help you out. This thing is a whopper — 730 pages, over 900 illustrations, and it appears to cover just about everything ever invented to get two or more pieces of wire hooked together. But as cool as such a book might be, perhaps even better is the companion website, where you can look up information on all kinds of connectors. It even has a visual search feature, which is fantastic when you don’t know what a connector is called, but you know what it looks like. The interactive connector timeline chart is a work of art, too.
And finally, if you’re a woodworker you surely know the name Lie-Nielsen, manufacturers of premium quality hand tools. Their planes are about the best you can buy, if you can afford them. The video below is a look at the process of making their Number 62 low-angle jack plane, from the foundry where the cast iron bodies of the plane are made right through to final assembly and inspection. The number of people involved is amazing, especially in an age where robots have taken over a lot of manufacturing processes. And it’s not like they eschew automation, either; there’s plenty of CNC machining involved. The foundry work is especially hands-on, and we’re equally impressed and appalled by how much the process — and the lack of safety equipment — resembles some of the Retrotechtacular pieces we’ve featured. If you enjoy either woodworking or toolmaking, you should check this one out. And make sure you stick around to the very last scene — you won’t be disappointed.
The “AM for Every Vehicle Act” is pure politics. What is said on AM radio in the U.S. may be in disagreement with a certain political ideology, therefore it must be SILENCED! Dissent now is not only treason, it is fascist.
Yeah because all the big players in political broadcasting are famously doing it over AM radio and not, for example, the internet…
Lol.
Well, that supports my theory that radio is for old folk and morons, and that covers both the presenters and listeners.
For many decades, AM radio has served as one of the major backbones of the (then) Emergency Broadcast System now known as the Emergency Alert System. Not everyone has a cell phone. Not everyone drives a car to see the reader boards on the highways. Not everyone has a television nearby. And yes, not everyone has a car, but if there’s one thing that’s been a constant for the last 90+ years, it’s been AM radio.
Crystal receivers don’t even need a battery. I went to the store today to look for an AM-FM radio. No bluetooth, nothing, just a regular AM-FM radio. Nothing. The only place it seems to get a good radio nowadays is CCrane or your local ham shop. I had a transistor radio as a kid, and you can still find those on Ebay, but AM radio hopefully is here to stay. No matter where I am in the USA, even the National Radio Quiet Zone, I know I’ll be able to pick up at least one AM station. Nothing I’ve seen on the commercials for Verizon, AT&T, or other cell commercials touting their coverage maps even comes close to the coverage AM radio has.
Even though WWV/WWVH/WWVB are not in the standard 540khz-1710khz AM band, the mode they use is AM and that one station covers the entire United States. There is still a Sundowner station (stations that go off the air at sunset to keep from interfering with other stations on the same frequency) here in Washington,
KBRD on 620AM. I’m a ham radio operator and one of the hobbies I enjoy is broadcast band DX’ing.
How many stations can I receive, how far away are they? I did see a youtube video of someone in I think Ireland or Scotland receiving 1010 WINS in New York. Let’s see FM radio do that!
Related problems with space hardware that lasted far longer then they though it would:
The camera on Juno is finally starting to degrade after 7 years in Jupiter’s radiation hell. The latest batch is still visible but colors are awful.
“JunoCam is now showing the effects of that radiation on some of its parts. PJ56 images show a reduction in our dynamic range and an increase in background and noise.” https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing
Further discussion on http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8787&st=0, with some official insight by mcaplinger. Basically, there isn’t much more that can be done at this point. Juno was only supposed to last less than 2 years. And JunoCam itself was only a “bonus” instrument for the public, not a main scientific one, so it only used a standard commercial pushbroom imager. They’ve been making compensations but looks like they’re running out of options now. Even some of the science instruments are failing: the spin corrector for the infrared JIRAM has failed too so those images are streaks now.
“we’re equally impressed and appalled by how much the process — and the lack of safety equipment”
After reading that statement, I was truly surprised that the foundry was not Asian.
It sorta makes me want to buy one or more of their planes.
I’m disappointed that the author was appalled with the foundry scenes. It’s as if sparks are scary and automatically assumed as unsafe. I am sure OSHA is already involved if this is a US manufacturing facility, but I’m glad the US still has some trade-crafters in those fields. Once we sent all “appalling” looking tasks offshore, that’s a slippery slope that ends with exporting all jobs that get one’s fingernails dirty. Mike Rowe weeps for the future…
The end of the video mentions Enterprise Foundry,
Which is in Lewiston, Maine, USA
https://enterprisefoundry.com/
Given the name phonetic closenes Lie-Nielsen, I was almost expecting there to be a “what I do have is a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills at making jack planes.
The plane is $295 in case anyone else is wondering, or £320 if you live in rip-off UK like me.
With the way communications are made these days, albeit FM, AM, Cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. I personally think that although there is a rich history of AM radio which started in my hometown of Beaver Falls, PA with KDKA-1020 kHz AM Radio Pittsburgh, not many people have use for it today, honestly.The bandwidth in the AM RF Freq. range could be put to better use, I’m sure. For which purpose? I don’t know, but plenty of others have some ideas. The days of AM radio are long gone and nobody uses it anymore, especially in their vehicle. Hell, I don’t even use FM anymore. My vehicles radio is always playing either from USB or with a Bluetooth connection through my cell phone.
I don’t really think it is fair to lump an AM radio in with antilock brakes, airbags, etc. For one, there are still plenty of old vehicles on the road that don’t have either of those. It is obviously not great, but they are around. And, ask yourself, did you ever hear anyone say “thank God I had an AM radio in my car,” versus, say, being happy an airbag deployed? I mean, probably someone has but certainly airbags are of much more benefit to society than the stuff on AM now, at least in the US.
For emergency use, in any case, I have a cheap hand-crank radio that also has a built in flashlight and weather bands in the bug-out bag. Well, it used to be a bug out bag now its a bug-in bag which we used to just call an emergency preparedness kit but I was pretty surprised that about zero people even have one of those anymore.
Yeah, I have seen the articles about this on Hackaday and I find myself very much wondering what kind of disaster takes out FM radio and broadcast TV but NOT AM radio. I’m not entirely sure that’s a disaster I want to live through.
Connectorbook is worth its own article. More importantly, editors, use those tags!! Connectors would be a goog one for this article!
Yes, I am one of “those people” that listen to AM radio stations.
I hope they will be around for years to come.
Every law is a step away from freedom so each law should be well justified.
Most new cars don’t offer AM. Definitely not most electric cars. Most people don’t use AM, even in emergencies they’ll spend an hour on a cell before even thinking about AM. So it’s not a safety thing or a free speech thing.
There’s a cost issue due to modern high-speed electronic systems creating noise. Paul cites a report claiming manufacturers shaved a couple hundred dollars off the cost of each car by just removing AM.
Another mandate means additional cost as noise suppression becomes yet another thing the market doesn’t want to pay to be available in EVERY car. Tire pressure monitors, kidnap cords, electronic stability control, airbags, seat weight sensor for airbag override key switch for airbags, backup cameras, antilockbrakes, LATCH, adaptive cruise, blind spot, lane departure, collision avoidance.
Nearly everyone has a cell. Why not mandate all cells receive AM?