AM definitely needs to stick around. I tune in most days to listen to Bongino on am 580 around here. I can remember Saturday nights when I was a kid tuning in the Grand Ol Opry on a transistor radio. Used to be a lot less static and that was several hundred air miles away. Now I can be looking at a cell tower a few hundred feet away and still can't make a call. Something just doesn't make sense.
About the only signal you CAN count on in a crisis is AM - even FM signals don't 'bounce' the way AM does. You're right, though - far more static than there used to be; too much digital interference seems to be a viable answer to me.
I too feel a bit of nostalgia about AM - a transistor radio at night, listening in to the local country station... Cash, Waylon, Tanya... good times. Cell towers are a bane, IMO.
Can’t believe I’m commenting on an almost two year old post! Stone, I got to clicking down your rabbit holes and wound up here because AM Radio is a national resource I care about. I was curious about the bill so searched for an update. It didn’t pass in 2023/24, but it’s back.
According to Grok:
“The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act did not pass Congress during the 118th session (2023–2024). Despite strong bipartisan support, with 271 co-sponsors in the House and 63 in the Senate, the bill stalled. It passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee (45-2 vote) in September 2024 and the Senate Commerce Committee in July 2023, but it was not included in the final major legislation of the session, the Continuing Resolution, due to opposition from Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and other factors. The bill was reintroduced in the 119th Congress in January 2025 (S. 315 in the Senate and H.R. 979 in the House), but as of May 20, 2025, it has not yet passed.”
AM definitely needs to stick around. I tune in most days to listen to Bongino on am 580 around here. I can remember Saturday nights when I was a kid tuning in the Grand Ol Opry on a transistor radio. Used to be a lot less static and that was several hundred air miles away. Now I can be looking at a cell tower a few hundred feet away and still can't make a call. Something just doesn't make sense.
About the only signal you CAN count on in a crisis is AM - even FM signals don't 'bounce' the way AM does. You're right, though - far more static than there used to be; too much digital interference seems to be a viable answer to me.
I too feel a bit of nostalgia about AM - a transistor radio at night, listening in to the local country station... Cash, Waylon, Tanya... good times. Cell towers are a bane, IMO.
💯 my brother. Progress not perfection. I’ll take it every time. 💪🏻
Can’t believe I’m commenting on an almost two year old post! Stone, I got to clicking down your rabbit holes and wound up here because AM Radio is a national resource I care about. I was curious about the bill so searched for an update. It didn’t pass in 2023/24, but it’s back.
According to Grok:
“The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act did not pass Congress during the 118th session (2023–2024). Despite strong bipartisan support, with 271 co-sponsors in the House and 63 in the Senate, the bill stalled. It passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee (45-2 vote) in September 2024 and the Senate Commerce Committee in July 2023, but it was not included in the final major legislation of the session, the Continuing Resolution, due to opposition from Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and other factors. The bill was reintroduced in the 119th Congress in January 2025 (S. 315 in the Senate and H.R. 979 in the House), but as of May 20, 2025, it has not yet passed.”