I used to listen to KGO-AM San Francisco every day on my commute to work. As Wikipedia says, “For over 30 years, from July 1978 to January 2009, KGO was the number-one station in the San Francisco Bay Area … a feat unmatched by any other station in the United States.”
It had higher ratings than all the FM stations for decades.
And now KGO-AM is 810 The Spread, devoted to sports betting–a big waste for a clear channel station.
I was under the impression the Mailing option in Word was more like a form letter maker. At least, that’s what I think I remember from that class I took back in 2005.
Also, around here, all the local stations seem to have either just FM or FM + AM. I don’t know of any that are AM only. Though, admittedly, it’s been a long time since I’ve bothered looking for new stations on the radio, and not just use the presets.
It will be just like the current world only better.
Boston sports radio was on AM for decades with WEEI. A new sports station came in on FM, and WEEI added an FM station, and basically dropped their AM channel. There are a few major old school AM stations but all of them have an FM version which has taken over the bulk of the audience. The exception in WBZ News radio (AM 1030) which is still going strong.
TL;DR: Automakers want to delete AM receivers because reduced receiver performance in electric cars will drive up service returns and reduce perceived quality.
I designed the IF downconverter chip for the first generation of HD radio in North America (first generation had separate chips for RF, IF, and baseband processing). I was witness to some of the issues raised by automakers with regards to HD radio implementation. One of the most onerous was driven by fear of increased service complaints / warranty claims (added cost was another issue, but that was at least partially solved by subsidies from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) who were terrified that the new satellite radio would drive local radio stations out of business and pushed HD radio to compete).
Originally the system was designed to provide CD-quality digital audio out to the 1mV/m field strength contour which the FCC uses to define the minimum required range of an FM station (“The transmitting location should be selected so that the 1 mV/m contour encompasses the urban population within the area to be served.”) Once below that signal level the necessary bit-error rate (BER) to sustain digital audio would not be guaranteed due to noise and interferers.
That was not acceptable to the automakers. Their argument was that customers were used to getting acceptable FM reception far past the 1mV/m contour with conventional analog receivers. Any digital solution that started dropping in areas where the customer was used to getting reception would result in the car being brought back - “The radio’s broken.” They insisted that (1) the digital audio would fail incrementally with decreasing signal strength and (2) reception in all cases will be at least on par with the existing radios.
For those of you interested in the nitty-gritty: these requirements led to splitting the digital audio stream into four channels with lots of error correction; the adoption of the Lucent Perceptual Audio Coder (PAC) which can encode the digital audio into the four channels in such a way that loss/error in up to three of the four channels would still allow the audio to be decoded (at reduced resolution); and synchronization of the simulcast analog broadcast and the digital broadcast to allow a seamless transition between the two when the digital craps out completely.
This drove up the cost of HD radio substantially, but the automakers are terrified of anything that drives up service visits and even hints at a reduction in quality.
If indeed AM radio reception is problematic in electric vehicles, I can see the desire for the automakers to drop it.
Thanks for posting that valuable insight.
Great post
Great post but this really hits the point - it’s not about a few pennies in cost for the AM chip or whatever. It’s the perception of quality driving up more expensive engagement through service visits, warranty claims, etc.
Jaguar’s iPace has an AM radio. It’s not great quality. And uneven, apparently worse with weaker signals (which makes sense I guess). I endure it to hear sports on occasion. Tesla doesn’t have one at all.
@Marvin_the_Martian thank you for your insight on car radio.
The tech has changed dramatically.
Congress to the Rescue!!!
Some manufactuers simply eliminated HD radio becasue of all the service issues they had due to signal dropout. Since HD radio was new tech it wasn’t hardly noticed when they did this.
As for AM, there already is technolgy developed for EV’s that allow AM reception to be as “good” as before. The Chevy Bolt and Nissan Rouge has solutions for this. The Tesla’s and BMW’s are doing away with AM for a different reason, for one it isn’t something their customers value and its also more profitiable for them to sell you streaming services (also something their customers don’t mind).
The whole “emergency necessity” thing seems odd to me:
"When the cell phone runs out, the internet gets cut off, or the television doesn’t work because of no electricity or power to your house, you can still turn on your AM radio.”
So if I’m in a storm with no power, I should go get in my car? And if I don’t have a car, I guess I’m just out of luck.
If you are in a hurricane Katrina or Sandy like situtation, then it may be a good option. We had a blackout situtation in Detroit for 3 days and yes, I got in my car and listened to the radio before I drove off to Ohio becasue they said that after a day and half that the gas stations were open.
Or, if you are someone who believes in a little bit of preparedness for such situations, you have a battery-operated AM radio.
Which will still operate inside of a moving vehicle.
Bingo.
Its old congress critters bowing to the needs of the lobbyist that are supporting their campaigns. Why would you find this odd? The public could be hurt if we don’t help them by using old radio tech! There is no other solution! Vote for me, the protector of the old guard!
Thank you @Marvin_the_Martian
So… people will complain that AM radio sounds worse…
But of %#^€<&$ course it sounds worse, those of us of a certain level of competency will say, it’s AM, dammit, that’s how it works, there’s nothing wrong with the gear.
Man, I’m getting old…