Hearing things
Baltimore Sun: Public radio seeks recall of FM devices used in cars. Specifically, … And, … On the one hand, NPR has a case. I've noticed that my Sirius satellite radio puts out a signal strong enough to hear up to 30 or 40 feet away, while my Belden TuneCast II …
Context & Ripple Effects
Public radio's recall request against car FM transmitters lands mid-year in a string of friction over who gets to put audio on the airwaves from inside the car: back in March, Reuters covered how fans putting satellite radio on cellphones drew fire from incumbents. Doc Searls's post adds a first-person wrinkle — his factory Sirius receiver is audible 30-40 feet away while his Belden TuneCast II stays faint — which muddies the assumption that the small plug-in transmitters are the real source of band pollution.
First-order effects
- Retailers and makers of low-power FM transmitters face a recall campaign backed by public radio's clout, threatening an entire cheap-accessory category that exists only because car stereos lack aux inputs.
Second-order effects
- Searls's side-by-side observation invites scrutiny of Sirius's own receivers as interference sources, weakening satellite radio's ability to sit out the dispute as the 'legitimate' broadcaster.
Third-order effects
- If broadcasters answer gadget-borne interference with recalls rather than engineering fixes, every new class of short-range wireless audio accessory entering cars inherits an adversarial regulatory path instead of a market one.
The trend: The car dashboard is becoming contested spectrum territory, where incumbent broadcasters' complaints — not standards bodies — are setting the terms for portable audio accessories.