[dhon_]

Cars radios are battery powered so will continue to work during power outages, and large enough that adding an AM radio + antenna is not really an issue - unlike a mobile phone. Seems like a good way to ensure most of the population has access to emergency broadcasts.

Edit clarified car radios are battery powered

[kevin_thibedeau]

I'd bet good money that many phones have an FM radio tuner that isn't usable only because they follow one misguided company and won't make a headphone jack available.

[dagmx]

Schrödinger’s Apple. They’re simultaneously behind Android manufacturers for not following their stead, and to blame for anything negative Android manufacturers do as well.

Why can’t the Android manufacturers just be accountable by themselves?

[Terr_]

Recently I was surprised by not-finding any phone-accessories that are basically a USB-C plug, a little blister of inline electronics, and then more wire for an AM/FM antenna. (And an app to control the tuning/presets, etc.)

It seems like something that ought to be technically doable, but perhaps the market isn't there compared to just selling standalone little radio-things?

[RajT88]

I've read that most phones have a built-in FM tuner, but it's disabled for the US market because telcos wanted you to buy music from their store.

It was true at one point - I owned at least one phone with a disabled FM radio.

Some cursory checks on my current phone suggest it's got one (just doesn't work for some reason with FM Tuner apps).

[giancarlostoro]

I had a phone in 2010 that would receive FM / AM iirc if I had headphones plugged in, used the wire. I think it was a Motorola phone.

[musicale]

According to a post below, you would lose the bet. Reddit also claims that several phones have supported FM antenna passthrough via USB-C.

I imagine adding analog FM radio isn't a major selling point on a phone where you can already stream the digital feeds from most FM stations – not to mention Spotify, Youtube, Apple Music, etc.

[robotnikman]

I remember a few of my old Android phones did have FM radio capabilities, and if you downloaded a tuner app you could actually listen in to them

[rjsw]

My current mobile phone has an FM radio, works well.

An AM radio doesn't even need a battery, I built a crystal set as a child.

[K0balt]

This exactly. With a little screwing around, you don’t even need a “crystal”, just a corroded piece of metal, lead corroded by sulphuric acid works well. Aside from that, you can make an earphone out of some fine wire and a small magnetic fragment, and a suitable capacitor using aluminium foil and paper or plastic film. That’s it. 3 components and some wire. Not even a battery is needed for relatively powerful AM broadcast signals. If you want to get fancy you can wrap some wire around a paper towel tube for a tuning resonator.

Or, you can just use the old wood stove in my childhood home. We had some wire racks for drying gloves and mittens supported above it, and the whole contraption played the 670khz radio station broadcasting about 15 miles away, sometimes at an annoying level of volume. You could quiet it down with some wet gloves, though.

It also would shock you when it was being loud. Somehow, the demodulated signal ended up at a pretty high voltage. I’ve often tried to imagine the circuit that was going on there between the stove, grounded at the bottom and with a 30 foot high metal chimney, the aluminium foil backed insulation in the house, the two metal pipe penetrations connected to the huge foil planes 9 feet apart on the first and second stories, the gasketed top of the stove that was somewhat insulated from the grounded base, and attached to the chimney at the top, and the corroded bolts that held the bottom to the top.