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Why is static worse in newer cars?

R

Radio Wreck

I have two cars. One is an '09 Ford Explorer and the other is a 1983 Oldsmobile (what can I say, it was free and in "like new" condition). Anyway, in the Explorer, KYW is unbearable in certain areas because of the static.

However, the Oldsmobile has a Delco "dial" type of radio which I assume is the original radio. There is virtually no static on the AM Band. When I drive under a bridge or near a tall building, the signal just fades away to absolute silence and then the audio simply returns when I drive past the bridge or building.

Why can't the new car radios be designed to fade like that when the signal disappears temporarily? I would be able to tolerate 1060 and 1210 so much better in my Explorer if the radio were designed like that.
 
Newer, lower rolling-resistance tires are also partially to blame - less rolling resistance = better gas mileage, but also more static.
 
In todays cars AM radio is just there to comply with a regulation. The older AM only radios were built with better circuits that filtered out much of the crap.
Back in the day even record companies designed the records to be heard with a single speaker. I also sure radio stations cranked up the modulation a bit too.
 
Bobf said:
Old Delco radios were built to receive AM. AM reception is now a lost art.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I've noticed the same thing. I think it's as simple as car manufacturers think no one cares about AM anymore (probably true) and they make crappy AM radios, but good FM radios. Also the theory that all the electronic stuff in cars nowadays interferes I think is a valid argument as well. My dad had a 1976 Ford Torino that could pick up KYW all over Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, clear as a whistle. Forget that in today's cars.
 
FlyersPhilliesFan said:
I am sure the companies that own the AM stations would rather you listen to them on the internet or with the smart phone apps anyway.
Click to expand...

The one place I need to drive back and forth every day in Chicago/to/from/suburb, there is NEVER ever enough signal to stream anything
from the internet. Sufficient capacity and throughput will never built into the system.
Oh, and this morning, I checked when a stream stopped, because I was also stopped in traffic, and guess what?
The icon for the comm app showed full strength, but no data ticking....checked on the AM dial and it was in a
section of road maybe 1/4 mile where almost all even 50kwers are overcome by a 60 hz buzz.
So if noise gets bad enough digital modes won't work, either.

All the above reasons for poor AM reception are correct.
Physically it means the circuits of the AM section have been over-minimized and now have too few parts to be either sensitive or
selective.

Meanwhile all the other aspects of the vehicle's electronics, and the rest of the world's as well, have grown in ingnorance and
with utter dispregard for the relationship between electronics, current flow and the creation of rf.
 
It's not just the radio. Computers on newer cars make lots of noise. It's also the antennas. Shorter antennas with higher amplification cause a lower signal to noise ratio. Designers want to hide antennas. It make look better but it doesn't work as well as an external mast.
 
spm1036 said:
It's not just the radio. Computers on newer cars make lots of noise. It's also the antennas. Shorter antennas with higher amplification cause a lower signal to noise ratio. Designers want to hide antennas. It make look better but it doesn't work as well as an external mast.
Click to expand...
I will say, my '82 Pickup with the In-Glass Antenna actually has excellent reception AM & FM. The Original Delco isn't in there anymore though.
 
I think everything's made crappy now...as far as analog is concerned. Just had a thought. Why doesn't SiriusXM offer nationwide broadband?
 
spm: Give the man(?) a cigar...we have a winner! It's the antenna, crap I.F. sections, and lack of necessary noise blanker circuits. I've had this discussion ad nauseum on the engineering board with Frank Foti and Rob Orban. Tom Wells was part of it as well, and gave a brilliant intellectual insight. I gave up. The issue, and saving AM, is dead. Why invest in an expensive upgrade in audio processing if you own an AM station, because with the 4Kc bandwidth, few can hear the difference anyway. Now, with the noise floor and IBOC and duck antenna, few can recieve it!
 
All this is making me want to keep the original car radio in my 2008 Honda until it broken and unrepairable. The in-glass antenna seemed to work well on both AM and FM.
 
Like in the movie Pulp Fiction, my auto fixit man is named Wolfe.

Wolfie has seen the undersides of my car so often, as it dangles up there on the lift -- as though it's a native habitat -- that he's almost been restoring the digestive system of mummy in recent times.

But Wolfe also taught auto mechanics and electronics at a school up here. In short, what he says is gospel.

The more motors in a car, he says, the more engines are spinning off electromagnetic fields. Even wee computers do bad stuff. The more the messier.

His suggestion for better AM in the day was to turn on the headlights. I forget his explanation, but it works for me. Even the dims do the trick. At night, you drive with them on anyway. Or so they recommend. That's why you get less of those blazes of noise from all those cute computer toys and whirling power plants in the car.
 
It's old school, but a car with an antenna looks cool. Eh, maybe only to radio dorks. Still... if you're serious about AM, gotta have a stick on the car or truck. My '87 Chevy 'winter car' has the best AM radio I've ever heard. Great selectivity and very good Q. It's an old Jensen, and the AM section is the balls. Besides the heater and brakes, it's probably the only thing on the car that works, but I only drive it from December to April. Then it's back to the #@%! Lexus. Nice car, but the radio? Not so much.
 
Just returned a rental Nissan with an appallingly bad audio system, AM fidelity when listening to great sounding WRKO was hollow very narrow bandwidth sounding.... just hideous, FM was not much better. FM blend circuit is so bad there was little hint of anything stereo across the dial. During the 90's I got a new Nissan Pathfinder company lease car every 2 years (boy those days are over) and the Nissan sound systems though not spectacular were quite good.....Could not wait to get back in my Ford SUV.
 
I also had a rental Nissan. XM/Sirus sounded great. FM okay. AM? Sheese!
 
If turning on the headlights cuts noise, it's acting as a choke circuit. Poor Grounding engineering somehwere is the likely culprit. The '70's GM windshild dipole antenna were notorious for spark plug noise that dissapeared with the application of the brakes (turning on the lights).

Element...I've written this story before. A friend purchased a new (2009)Lexus SUV with a whizbang audio toybox with dreadful performance on terrestrial radio: stereo to mono blending on all but the closest stations and near nonexistant Class D AMs, even the big signals had noise. I told him it was because it was that crap antenna. We took it to a local auto audio store, and had a REAL fixed mast antenna installed on the fender with a Y connector for the satellite. $70 w/ labor. The radio pulls in the moon now...edge to edge AM/FM stations. The radios are just starved for signal.
 
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