The reports of the death of automotive AM radio may have been greatly exaggerated. Regular readers will recall us harping on the issue of automakers planning to exclude AM from the infotainment systems in their latest offerings, which doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense given the reach of AM radio and its importance in public emergencies. US lawmakers apparently agree with that position, having now introduced a bipartisan bill to require AM radios in cars. The “AM for Every Vehicle Act” will direct the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to draw up regulations requiring every vehicle operating on US highways to be able to receive AM broadcasts without additional fees or subscriptions. That last bit is clever, since it prevents automakers from charging monthly fees as they do for heated seats and other niceties. It’s just a bill now, of course, and stands about as much chance of becoming law as anything else that makes sense does, so we’re not holding our breath on this one. But at least someone recognizes that AM radio still has a valid use case.
We’ve also spent a bit of time recently dunking on SpaceX for their brief but spectacular Starship flight, which ended when the range safety officer decided enough was enough and detonated the mammoth rocket’s self-destruct charges over the Gulf of Mexico. The destruction wrought by the 33 Raptor engines on the launch pad was epic, with concrete and rebar scattered over a fair bit of the Boca Chica launch facility. But now it appears that hackaday links
