keydiver said:
LTLFTcomposite said:
Looking at what's going on on PR makes me think reception capability for terrestrial broadcasting should be a requirement. IP networks are too delicate to rely on in disaster situations.
Not being a sports fan, I couldn't care less about the lack of AM radio causing me to miss a baseball game, and I have used the FM radio in my Model S maybe once in 2 years. However, having just evacuated from a hurricane, I do worry that the emergency radio stations in the US seem to be primarily AM-based. The signs along the FL Turnpike all advised that I tune to 1620AM, or something like that, for emergency information. Some have mentioned that most AM stations are also available through streaming services, which *should* work fine for emergencies, as long as the cell service is still operational, although most games are blacked out.
Thanks for the reminder about other purposes of AM radio. I have seen signs on CA highways about tuning to some station on the AM band for highway info and I definitely remember using them.
http://www.dot.ca.gov/paffairs/pr/2017/prs/17pr005.html says
For the latest road condition information, the radio may be tuned to the Caltrans Highway Advisory Radio (HAR) at 530 AM, 1610 AM or 1670 AM or call the Caltrans Road Condition Hotline at 1-800-427-ROAD (7623). Real time conditions are also available online and for mobile phones at Caltrans QuickMap.
I wouldn't want to be doing much w/my phone while driving on the highway.
As for AM, I actually use it somewhat regularly in my Leaf, sometimes as often as a few times a week, mainly to listen to radio news and sometimes traffic conditions. I couldn't care less about baseball as I don't watch or listen to any of that.
As for FM, I actually use that less than AM radio... maybe a few times in a month?
Besides the above, most of my listening in my car is podcasts (well, I only listen to the TWiT podcast now, which is once a week and the ep is usually 1.5 to 2.5 hours long), NPR app, YouTube playing a show (only listening to the audio) via headphone jack from another phone, XM Sirius radio, music stored locally on my iPhone 6, Spotify, Pandora (not much).
The BMW i3 is another car where the AM radio was omitted. Well, the hardware's but not enabled. I've gotten conflicting reports as to whether the crippled radio when enabled is listenable while being driven, due to interference. Stationary, I hear it works ok.