490
Phones should have FM radio again (as an emergency safety feature)
(www.spacebar.news)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
490 points (91.7% liked)
Android
27940 readers
85 users here now
DROID DOES
Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules
1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.
2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.
4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.
5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.
6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.
7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.
8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.
Community Resources:
We are Android girls*,
In our Lemmy.world.
The back is plastic,
It's fantastic.
*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.
Our Partner Communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
In a life or death situation it would be easier to construct an FM transmitter/receiver than a digital counterpart.
AM transmitters / receivers are far easier to construct than FM ones, though. If I was in an emergency situation where I couldn't communicate with anybody I think I might be able to at least make an AM receiver, even if there aren't very many components around... But I would need a reference to have any clue how to approach an FM one, and you'd definitely need more components available. Frequency modulation is quite a bit more complicated. If you want to transmit, CW is probably your best hope?
Realistically, though, almost anybody in an emergency situation is doomed if the only thing that would save them is building any kind of radio. It's not a skill set that most people have... Which I guess is why you might advocate for everybody's phones to be able to act as FM receivers in case that's the best way to get an emergency broadcast, because then they would have a device that's capable of it on hand. You're probably better off if you have a dedicated emergency radio, especially if you might lose power for an extended period of time, though.
Fair point.
Best part about a simple AM receiver is that it doesn't need a battery... For emergency situations it'd definitely be best as it's dead simple to construct, you can boost gain in radio station for more reach / power to the battery-less receivers, etc. and the transmitters are simple, too.
For emergencies it's also not a bad idea to have an offline copy of Wikipedia.
Kiwix is great and Wikipedia is surprisingly small :).