Re:It's a shame what's happened to radio
by unixhero on Wednesday July 22, 2026 @10:59AM
(#49007866)
FM is a technology that was a solved problem. It didn't have to go.
So was Morse code
Not comparable but okay... so were smoke signals
Indeed. They didn't have to go away. We should mandate mobile phones to have smoke signal decoders.
Re:It's a shame what's happened to radio
by kanbankaren on Wednesday July 22, 2026 @11:11AM
(#49008069)
What a ridiculous comment!
Cellphone emergency broadcasts turned out to be not reliable during the Hawaiian Island fires.
RDS in FM has a special mode for emergency broadcasts and some countries use them. As FM signals easily cover a 50-75 mile radius, the coverage area is huge versus cellular emergency broadcasts requiring the towers to be powered on which have also failed during natural disasters.
I assume they'd also mandate headphone ports, since without a wired headphone to use as an antenna I don't know how you'd do cheap FM in a cell phone.
Which, if the motivation is to provide emergency notification, I also assume means mandating that users carry wired headphones?
Sliding down this slope looks fun...
Cellphones got cellphone emergency broadcasts before they lost FM radio, so they still show emergency broadcasts.