Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Don Y Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design Subject: Re: AM radio law opposed by tech and auto industries is close to passing Date: Sat, 4 May 2024 03:33:50 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 45 Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Sat, 04 May 2024 12:34:02 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="c5cd803a4c971ac4458aa4d6c475c735"; logging-data="1233457"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18LCDX8lrbBxfXpnRy+wx8M" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/102.2.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:e2GDK4JFGazW/0BwHnic8+OcSFI= Content-Language: en-US In-Reply-To: Bytes: 3248 On 5/4/2024 3:23 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote: > On 2024-05-02 21:34, Don Y wrote: >> You can legislate requirements for broadcasters (as a condition of >> granting them use of the air waves) mandating they "conduct periodic >> tests of (an) emergency broadcast capability".  But, you are ultimately >> reliant on them to maintain that capability, despite any pressure on >> profits, etc. >> >> We routinely lose TV reception due to outages on the mountain (where >> most of the transmitters are located).  Imagine the consequences of >> an earthquake or wildfire in areas where transmitters (or repeaters) >> are located.  Or, hurricane, tornado, flood, etc. >> >> Not everyone owns a cell phone -- or keeps it ON for the convenience >> of CALLERS!  The same can be said of all broadcast media (do I have >> to keep a radio/TV ON 24/7/365 "just in case"? > > The cell network is very vulnerable to disasters, you can not rely on it. Especially if the disaster is "local" to the folks you want to inform. >> AM radio can be leveraged for wide area coverage without requiring >> lots of other technology to keep it operational.  And, the receivers >> can run for long periods of time on batteries (that are likely >> stale) or clock-spring mechanisms (emergency radios). > > I have seen radios with a hand spun dynamo. I have one with a clockwork mechanism -- wind up a large spring and it drives a small "generator" as it unwinds. It takes about 5 minutes to unwind completely so it's a relatively low "winding" duty cycle. But, it is large-ish. It also has solar cells and a small, internal battery (which is toast; but, attempting to disassemble it to replace the battery would likely result in a mess of gears and torsion spring parts!) As the spring mechanism will run the radio despite the bad battery, it seems a safer plan to just tolerate the bad battery! > I saw some electronic magazine publishing one such radio made using the motor > from a floppy drive (if memory serves) as generator.