Is What Anne Korin Said True?

[Richard Chonak]

On 08/09/2008 04:24 PM, Laurence Glavin wrote:
> A few days ago I was watching an energy expert named Anne Korin speak on
> C-Span.  [...] 
 > she repeated that yes, the Feds require FM radios in
> cars for national security reasons.  If the government does in fact
> require radios in cars for that reason, I would have instinctively assumed
> that the bare minimum requirement would be for an AM tuner because we've 
> had a decades-long infrastructure allowing very powerful transmitters for
> this purpose, and for all its faults, AM offers long-wave ground propagation
> as well as nighttime skywave.  


I can't offer any confirmation that there is such a regulation, but I 
can think of a possible rationale for it: AM radio is subject to 
jamming, even by transmitters located outside the US, whereas FM is less 
susceptible to intentional interference from distant sources.

Now, whether the national-security justification be legitimate or not, I 
suspect that Washington's real purpose in instituting such a rule was to 
promote the commercial development of FM radio.

--rc