Someone at Ford must like the old Jewett Radio and Phonograph station

[Ai4i]

I guess here is about as good a sub-forum as any to post this.
It just occurred to me that every Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury car radio that I have had over the past decade or so always defaults, after power has been restored to it, to 760 AM.
Do they use WJR as a test signal or something?
WJR would provide the same signal strength all the time.

 

[seattlesarchiebunker]

I had to think about it (I’m not including SYNC or any infotainment systems in this), but yeah, all those good ‘ol black LCD Ford radios default to 760 when you pull the battery.

My guess, from working in an assembly line job for several years, is that someone saw it took the person who checks the sound system 5-10 seconds per radio to tune a station. By having the radio automatically default to a station most Ford plants (at the time mostly in the Great Lakes region and more specifically Detroit) could tune, that saved several seconds per vehicle.

Doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you have 3-4 line inspectors at a time tuning 20 radios per hour over 2,000 hours/year, it adds up big time...even factoring in reengineering costs!

My guess is since Ford has slowly divesting itself away from Michigan and since radios have mostly become integrated into some sort of computer in vehicles, the 760 default probably died off in 2013 or so when the last E-Series truck was made (they and the Crown Victorias were the last I remember using the “old” style of Ford radios)

 

[Ai4i]

My favorite Ford radio feature has got to be, "Speed Volume",
not available for the entry level Police Interceptor and Taxi models.