Congress is passing a very small law that could have a large effect on the Foy Rebellion, the return to analog skills. They passed a provision requiring car radios to keep the AM band.
Why is this little piece of law important? A communication system needs both mouths and ears. From telegraph to telephone to record players to radio to computers, successful manufacturers provided both active and passive parts.
If nobody has eyes, there’s no reason for flowers. If nobody has ears, there’s no reason for music. If nobody has AM receivers, there’s no reason to transmit in AM and no reason to build components suitable for AM.
AM’s golden era won’t come back; drama and comedy moved to TV and classical music moved to FM. From 1960 to 1980 the band was rewilding. Rush gave it new life with national talk radio, but podcasts have replaced national talk radio. Nothing replaced local talk radio and local entertainment. Lots of licenses are held for speculative purposes, broadcasting canned timefiller.
As long as receivers are available there’s a chance of bringing the band back to life, perhaps through local groups buying those idle licenses.
Why is AM worth preserving?
Partly for the conventionally stated reason. Lower frequencies bend with the earth and flow around obstacles.
Polistra is cruising up First St toward the Arcade in Ponca, listening to KCRC in Enid bending around the elevator.
One transmitter can reach a metro area with low power, and a nation with high power. The ultra-high freqs used by cellphones need a dense network of transmitters, and even then you sometimes can’t get signal.
Mostly because AM is SIMPLE. You can build a usable transmitter or receiver with a dozen cheap generic analog components. No digital parts needed, thus no risk of hacking or remote control. If you have an earphone and wire you can even build a basic receiver without any bought parts. This level of simplicity is impossible with FM and inconceivable with digital crap.
Polistra's Mill 