The other day I got a press release about disaster preparedness for grade school kids.
It made mention of teaching kids how to use a battery powered radio to get information. And it suddenly struck me that my 8 year old nephew likely has never even SEEN an FM radio, much less would know how to tune one to a specific station.
Sure, in a technical sense, that’s true - the car radio in our 2025 Hyundai i10 is a DAB+ radio, which supposedly still has backup FM capability. Which is never used, as you just pick the station from a list. It’s never used anyway - I much prefer podcasts.
WiFi is of course radio. We just tune in and listen to it differently.
If you limited your bandwidth to 20 or 30 kHz, you could build a “radio” that you manually tune to a WiFi channel frequency and that produces audible noise. You could then build a 1980’s style modem to convert the audio back into a bitstream that you could run your network connection over.
It would be about many times slower than standard Wifi though modern compression could speed that up a bit.
I’m in my 30s and really never actually used an old radio like that. Like there were some laying around that nobody used anymore and I kind of played with them as a kid, but I’m right on the cusp of not knowing how to use one.
25 soon to be 26, my family liked to camp out in the Mojave when I was a kid so I do know how to use them but even for me I am far more familiar with stereos .
Actually that changed quite a long time ago. Even when FM radio was still a thing, most “receivers” stopped including radio and “tuners” became on external component that not everybody bought. I think our “stereo” in the 80’s had a stand-alone tuner even. That is for a real “stereo”. Boom boxes and the like had it all built in.
The other factor of course is that tuners went digital. Most factory car stereos continue to include digital tuners even today.
Fair enough but I ain’t using the radio element most of the time. I’m using the 8 track, cassette, record, or CD players not really a radio guy it’s been shit for my entire life.
The other day I got a press release about disaster preparedness for grade school kids.
It made mention of teaching kids how to use a battery powered radio to get information. And it suddenly struck me that my 8 year old nephew likely has never even SEEN an FM radio, much less would know how to tune one to a specific station.
Shit like that makes me feel reaaaaaaallllly old…
You probably still have an FM radio in your car. You just use it so infrequently that your forget it is there.
Sure, in a technical sense, that’s true - the car radio in our 2025 Hyundai i10 is a DAB+ radio, which supposedly still has backup FM capability. Which is never used, as you just pick the station from a list. It’s never used anyway - I much prefer podcasts.
Tell em it’s analog wi-fi
WiFi is of course radio. We just tune in and listen to it differently.
If you limited your bandwidth to 20 or 30 kHz, you could build a “radio” that you manually tune to a WiFi channel frequency and that produces audible noise. You could then build a 1980’s style modem to convert the audio back into a bitstream that you could run your network connection over.
It would be about many times slower than standard Wifi though modern compression could speed that up a bit.
Yeah, absolutely no channel hopping
My elderly father was confused when he bought an old style fm radio and found out it was only a Bluetooth speaker.
I’m in my 30s and really never actually used an old radio like that. Like there were some laying around that nobody used anymore and I kind of played with them as a kid, but I’m right on the cusp of not knowing how to use one.
I still know the kind you tune with a slider on a coil. Same age.
This. I have one right here on my bedroom
25 soon to be 26, my family liked to camp out in the Mojave when I was a kid so I do know how to use them but even for me I am far more familiar with stereos .
The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Most stereos had tuners.
Actually that changed quite a long time ago. Even when FM radio was still a thing, most “receivers” stopped including radio and “tuners” became on external component that not everybody bought. I think our “stereo” in the 80’s had a stand-alone tuner even. That is for a real “stereo”. Boom boxes and the like had it all built in.
The other factor of course is that tuners went digital. Most factory car stereos continue to include digital tuners even today.
Fair enough but I ain’t using the radio element most of the time. I’m using the 8 track, cassette, record, or CD players not really a radio guy it’s been shit for my entire life.