RadioActive wrote:

Last night, the battery on my car suddenly died and I called CAA to come and replace it. What does this have to do with radio? Just this: when he disconnected the thing to put in the new one, I lost all my settings on the radio and realized I would have to reprogram it.
 
And that’s when it hit me – I have a zillion AM stations I’d like to put there (but only 6 presets to choose from) and 12 FM settings, which are commonly known as FM1 and FM2. I had trouble remembering what I had previously set on FM and since I rarely if ever listen to music in the car, it renders that band virtually useless to me. (Perhaps with the exception of CBC Radio 1, Boom, Zoomer's 96.7 repeater, and Jewel 88.5. But they don't take up all the space available.)
 
A long time ago I needed to rent a car for a few weeks after some idiot totaled the one I owned while it was parked on a street – and I wasn’t even there. (To this day, I have no idea how he hit an unoccupied parked car, but I did get a brand new vehicle out of it courtesy of his insurance company.)
 
This particular rental had something in the radio I’d never seen before – two AM setting options instead of two FM. It was terrific! I programmed in all of the stations I normally listened to and still had room for a few others. And so when I had to reprogram the one last night, it got me wondering: why do they make car radios that force you to make this kind of choice?
 
I realize FM is far for more popular than AM and will be until everyone has streaming built into their vehicles. But I’ve never understood radios that force you to restrict the stations you may really want while not giving you the options to program in the ones you do.
 
I have a tiny Sangean portable I use when I walk the dog. I’ve purchased dozens of them over the years. Why? It has the best AM reception I’ve ever heard in a tiny unit and you can program all 19 presets however you want, with no restrictions. No 6 AMs and 12 FMs. If you want all 19 to be AM, so be it. So I know it IS possible. 
 
I’m guessing it wouldn’t be a bestseller, so that’s why it’s not made, but I wish car makers offered an option like that in their vehicles. I know I'd be willing to pay extra for it. Because as it stands now, I’ve got a lot of room on FM and nothing to fill it with. I just wish it was up to me – and not to some manufacturer.
 
I know I’m probably alone in this and Grilled.Cheese will instantly jump in with some predictably snide and unnecessarily insulting comment about how old fashioned and therefore somehow useless I am. But does anyone else wish they had more choice in programming their in-dash radios? I haven’t had a new car in a while – are the new ones more flexible?

My recent model car has 40 presets I can share with all bands (AM/FM/XM/HD etc), so i think it depends which one you get.   Sadly AM sounds awful because like most car radio's they cut out part of the sound spectrum on AM.   I tend to flip to the HD versions to over come this on MOST stations where it's available.   





 

Last edited by radiokid (August 31, 2020 10:25 am)

Hey, perhaps this is what I need! (I can't believe anyone thought this would catch on.)

Check Out Dodge’s Techy In-Car Disc Player From 1956

My car has 18 FM which I can’t fill but only 6 AM which is not enough.

I have six AM presets. 550, 680, 740, 900, 1010, and most recently 1220 which replaced 1150 from their oldies era. Some of the presets are selected for DX purposes.

I'm with you RA

I can easily fill the 6 AM presents and then some. The 18 FM slots are mostly unassigned.