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Car Makes & Models with No AM Band.

Nathan Obral said:
SDR had entered my mind but where would the signals be received *from*? The transmitter sites or the cars themselves?
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All the in-vehicle entertainment systems use SDR's capable of decoding/demodulating pretty much any received signal within the bandwidth of a shark fin, or window antenna. Over the past fifteen years, the SDR is part of the BCU (Body Control Unit).
I suspect if you wanted to have your radio updated in a Ford vehicle, you would need to take it to the dealer.
 
Ford didn't say it'll be good AM reception. If the inverters cause too much interference while driving, their excuse could be that in the event of a serious emergency, you should stay off the roads anyway, and listen to the radio while the vehicle is parked.
 
Kelly A said:
I suspect if you wanted to have your radio updated in a Ford vehicle, you would need to take it to the dealer.
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I'd simplify by saying "if you wanted... a Ford vehicle."
 
Kelly A said:
Great example. Trail derailment, fire of burning toxic stew. Cue the outrage that EAS wasn't activated, nor did Les Nessman end up going live on any of the local radio stations, or go live from the scene. The reality was found to be reality: Stations weren't in a position to staff in the middle of the night, let alone on a weekend. Local fire and EMS were up to their eyebrows with dealing with the scene on the ground. No time to deal with EAS.
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I got a phone call in the middle of the night with a tornado warning. I think this was some automated system that called everyone.
 
DavidEduardo said:
But, if you look at the materials carried in a large portion of tanker train cars, that would be something that occurred several times a day on that route in the Dakotas.
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I've posted about this before, but I was once stopped at a crossing for a really long time and the number of tank cars with a hazardous material warning at that crossing was quite scary. If someone had known how many there were and wanted to cause an incident ...
 
DavidEduardo said:
Ah, you gave me a big flashback...

In the height of the disco era, one of the big trade publications had a radio programming convention at a swank hotel on the west side of LA. And a label which we can call "Whitehouse" had an invitation-only evening "affair" in the royal penthouse, right after their showcase in the ballroom, headlined by an artist named after a season of the year.

Having worked in radio for the same company as the label's head of promotion nearly a decade before, I got an "invite" and took the golden elevator up to the party. After getting my glass of champagne, I explored the palatial venue. In one of several big, big bedrooms, a bunch of PDs found that their answer was more than blowing in the wind. In the other immense bedroom, silver trays were in serious need of a call to housekeeping, being, as they were, covered in little piles of white dust.

A bit later, several now-happy PDs tried to throw the balcony furniture all the way down into the pool, but by then I had decided that my tiny room many floors below had a lower risk of arrest and infamy and I'd already left the scene.
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This is off-topic, but in response to your story, I have heard of this happening constantly in the music business and entertainment business in L.A. I think it is why so many talented artists and radio people wind up having their lives ruined by alcohol and drug addiction, not to mention HIV infections.
When I taught high school, I had a student who was a teen actor, who worked for Steven Spielberg. I helped him with a lot of independent study projects, so we chatted quite a lot about his work. The drug scene was out of contol, and the parties were exactly as you described. ( This is a separate topic, but anyway, your story matches the stories I used to hear from my student who worked in the film business. -- D.
 
I wish I could link to a really good letter to the editor explaining why AM should remain in cars. I looked and the most recent letters to the editor on that newspaper's web site are from May 21.
 
Mark Roberts said:
The Netherlands did. It's still around, but not what I would call a resounding success.
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They were at least smart enough to relegate the 'radio sandbox' players to a band where congestion isn't a concern. Not in the U.S. We stick them right next to professionals where they can play in the sand, including cat droppings.
 
Nathan Obral said:
Sounds like you have a better idea. ;)
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Yes, not to buy a Ford. The last one I had was in about 1977, and it had the habit of turning itself off right on the Expreso Las Américas in San Juan. After multiple lengthy stays in the dealer, Ford simply refunded my money and I have not had one since then.
 
kevtronics said:
Ford didn't say it'll be good AM reception. If the inverters cause too much interference while driving, their excuse could be that in the event of a serious emergency, you should stay off the roads anyway, and listen to the radio while the vehicle is parked.
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By far the worst AM radio I've ever had was in the Ford I owned from 2013-22. Reception in the upper part of the band was decent but interference from about 1100 down was awful. It was clearly a wiring problem but anybody I ever asked at a dealership was completely clueless about how to fix the problem. Realistically they gave it next to no thought or none at all.
Eventually transmission problems forced me to get rid of the car, so now I have a Honda and the AM radio is excellent.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Yes, not to buy a Ford. The last one I had was in about 1977, and it had the habit of turning itself off right on the Expreso Las Américas in San Juan. After multiple lengthy stays in the dealer, Ford simply refunded my money and I have not had one since then.
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Good lord, I can’t blame you one bit.
 
Re: % AM radio users & other vehicle safety systems (seat belts, air bags, safety glass) - anyone know the % of vehicles where the safety systems are used (obviously an accident) compared to all the vehicles in use on a given day?

Maybe 5% or 14% or whatever AM radio use in a given day is is greater than the other vehicle safety systems used in the same given day.


Kirk Bayne
 
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