• FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ve been saying this for a while now. FM radios and such are invaluable in emergency situations.

    There have been times in the past where I’ve lost power to my house. No internet, no electricity etc in the middle of an emergency weather situation. I had to rely on battery powered radios to learn about what the situation was elsewhere and how long we’d be stuck etc. There is basically no reason why this can’t be incorporated into phones, aside from the fact that phone makers would rather you use Apple Music etc. It should be legislated for I believe.

    • Piers@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      One reason is that every implementation I’ve ever tried relies on using the wired earphones as an aerial and Apple magically convinced everyone that having a 3.5mm port is somehow a bad thing.

      • doktorseven@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Exactly. The real plea here is “bring back 3.5mm ports.” I’m afraid of the day my old phone dies because I have this fear that even cheap-ass phones are going to abandon 3.5mm headphones for cheap, unreliable, garbage bluetooth trash.

        • Piers@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Just double-checked. My current smartphone that I partially picked for it’s 3.5mm socket does have built in FM radio that works great and only functions with earphones plugged in.

    • CrayonRosary@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Just buy a $15 FM radio. Especially since you can’t charge your phone when you have no power, but a small radio takes AA batteries which can sit in a drawer for 10 years until you need them.

      • Pxtl
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        1 year ago

        You’d think so but every device around my house that I “put batteries in it and forget it” when I need it I find the batteries have exploded and the device is ruined (regardless of the decade on the expiry-date label of the battery). So my plan now is to keep the device separate from the batteries like it’s a freaking handgun and make sure my phone is charged so I can use its light to make my way to the drawer where we keep the batteries.

        • tarjeezy
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          1 year ago

          Alkaline batteries are the crappy ones that leak. Get the more expensive lithium batteries, or go full on rechargeable ones, and you can leave them in without worrying about your device getting ruined.

          • Pxtl
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            1 year ago

            Rechargeable batteries self-discharge and get damaged if left unplugged for too long, and explode if left plugged in. They are not ideal for something you want to pack away in an emergency kit.

            • dantheclamman@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Almost everything in an emergency kit expires. But many name brand alkaline and non rechargeable lithiums are now rated for ten years shelf life. In addition there are rechargeable eneloop branded batteries rated for slower discharge rate.

              • Pxtl
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                1 year ago

                Yes, but there’s a difference between “expires” and “leaks all over the inside of my emergency radio”. And they don’t make it to half their stated lifespans once put into a flashlight and the flashlight goes into storage.

      • DrinkMonkey
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        1 year ago

        In addition to being able to take AAs, my FM radio has a solar panel and a hand crank to recharge the included rechargeable battery, which can charge a phone in a pinch. Win all around!

        • Chobbes@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It probably also picks up the NOAA frequencies for weather forecasts and will have a standby feature for severe weather alerts. Emergency weather radios are pretty cool, and good to have on hand.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        A weather radio is even more useful. It usually has FM as well, but getting National Weather Service alerts can be vital.

      • jcit878@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        one of those windy radios you crank for a bit would be better for emergencies

      • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        You can make your battery phone last a lot when you are not using the display and disconnect from any networks. You can also have some powerbank around. Emergencies won’t necessarily find you in home or wherever your radio is stored in. You keep your phone with you most of the time, chances are, if an earthquake happens, for example, you’ll have your phone with you. Been there.

      • knotthatone@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Yes… but… this becomes one of those things that everyone should buy to be prepared but few actually do or they forget.

        I keep a little crank-chargeable radio in our emergency kit but most people don’t. If the cell networks go down (and they usually do in severe weather and most other big emergency situations) most people will lose all of their access to information.

    • knotthatone@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      I wholeheartedly agree, but I don’t think there’s any saving it at this point. Car manufacturers are dropping it from new models and that’s the only actual AM/FM radio most people actually buy these days.

      Same thing happened to the phone network. It used to actually be possible to call 911 when the power was out. The central stations all had battery banks and diesel generators. Unless the lines were cut, you had service.

    • Cihta@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I wanted to tag on to your post. I’ve been without power for weather stuff too a few times and one thing i learned was that my cheapie 40" TV would only pull 10-15watts with backlight all the way down. With a small battery bank you can go a good while on that and tune into your local station via OTA. It was very watchable especially given the only light around was my candle.

      For a couple more watts you watch shows off your memory stick as well once the event is over and you are just waiting for the power lines to get fixed… my phone drained nearly as much but to be fair i left the radio enabled so it was hunting for a tower.

      Just something to consider for your gear if you live near the coast or in Texas. Battery banks are pretty cheap.

    • Ataraxia@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I’m glad battery backup can keep the internet going for a long time but I also have data to use and never get close to making a dent in it. If service providers went down though I do have several radios around the house. I don’t go anywhere but I’d I did i would carry a little radio lol. That being said, I miss my smart phone and flip phone that had radio on it. I don’t care about headphone jacks but I definitely would love radio.

    • Dremor@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The components to make the phone able to decode FM radio take place. Which, in such small device, is valuable. If you really need FM radio for emergency situations, why not take a dedicated miniaturized FM radio receiver?

      • stealth_cookies
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        1 year ago

        Not sure if this is still the case, but in the past the FM radio functionality essentially came “free” as part of either the SoC or modem. Since it used headphone wires as the antenna, the death of the headphone jack pretty much killed any purpose for including it.

        • Dremor@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          There is no such thing as “free” functionality in hardware. Old SoC may have had this functionality, but it was at the cost of some die space, that has since been reclaimed by other function more useful to most users.

          • 📛Maven@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            The functionality is, in fact, still there, and basically every phone with a headphone jack turns it on.

          • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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            1 year ago

            Old SoC may have had this functionality

            Modern SoCs still have it…

            Further we’ve moved to Software Defined Radios in general… So it’s all programmable.

          • stealth_cookies
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            1 year ago

            Hence the quotations around “free”. Qualcomm isn’tgoing to tape out a custom chip without it for you just because you don’t want that block.

            that has since been reclaimed by other function more useful to most users.

            This was my uncertainty, do you know for certain that they don’t include FM functionality on their chips anymore or are you just guessing? The public facing documentation is not exactly detailed enough to tell for sure.

      • El Barto@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        FM radio was integrated in even smaller phones 20 years ago. And the tech to “decode the signal” is already present in today’s phones. FM are radio signals, just like NFC, Wifi, Bluetooth and cellular.

        • Dremor@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Not the same radio frequencies, not the sames technologies (analog vs digital). Those radio hardware are very specialized, and won’t work on frequencies or technologie they are not meant to.