Phones should have FM radio again (as an emergency safety feature)
Radio access could be a critical safety feature in the years ahead.
I didn't even realize Qualcomm removed the built in FM radio from their chips. Huh.
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There’s another type of radio that could save lives if implemented in smartphones. In the United States, the NOAA runs a network of radio towers that broadcast up-to-the-minute weather reports and automated alerts, which are specifically designed to stay running during tornadoes and other emergencies. The signals are broadcasted on 162.400 – 162.550 MHz, above the FM band, allowing the signals to travel much farther than regular radio or cell networks.
Higher frequencies travel shorter distances and permeate through buildings and trees less, so 162.4 - 162.55 MHz is going to be worse than the rest of the FM band (but still better than cell frequencies).
It's not that straight forward. And in a practical sense 162MHz is hardly significantly higher than 100MHz.
Apologies, I accidentally missed off the end of the quote, the bit I was commenting on:
The signals are broadcasted on 162.400 – 162.550 MHz, above the FM band, allowing the signals to travel much farther than regular radio or cell networks.
I agree that it isn't much different. However it is objectively worse than regular FM radio, not better as the article claimed.
I still disagree. There are far more significant factors than the frequency.
Longer wavelength isn't an instant blanket solution to better propogation.
Factors like typical transmitter and receiver configurations matter, location matters, object density matters, reflections etc.. etc..
Hence why UHF is preferred in some cases by emergency services and so on.
Ultimately anything above 60MHz is going to be line of sight or a reflection when assuming the receiving station is mobile or portable, and in that case if the user is indoors higher frequencies might reflect better.
Also narrow FM has more power density than wide FM for the same power level, hence why broadcast transmitters need to be so incredibly powerful to get anywhere.
