Much of my car time recently has been short trips - chauffeuring kids locally and running errands. Lately I have been relying upon the radio more than CDs. But I’ll be darned if I can find enough stations that I want to program onto my car radio presets.
I live in the Chicago area. My cars each have 6 AM and 12 FM presets. It surprises me that I have a hard time filling them.
AM is 2 talk radio stations, 1 all news, and 2 sports talk stations which I rarely listen to. I’ll be darned if I can find a 6th station that is not religious or foreign language.
On FM, I have 2 quasi-progressive/alternative stations, 2 hard/classic rock, NPR, 1 classical, 2 college, 2 top 40 (for the kids). So even including the top-40 which I would personally never listen to, and the college stations which have limited range and wildly variying programming, I still have 2 open presets.
At times I find myself scrolling through the dial, seeing if there is anything out there to toss on my remaining presets. But I have no reason to program in country, or something else I will never listen to.
How bout you? Got all your buttons covered?
(Aside: what law is it that requires that every single radio station goes to commercials at the same time?!)
They all climb from low on the dial on the left to highest on the right.
AM - talk and news
FM1 - My music
FM2 - Lady Chances music
FM3 - News and Talk
XM1 - Music (Rock and roll stuff)
XM2 - News and Talk
XM3 - Miscellaneous (old time radio and other music)
Yep, but with changing formats and station ownership it’s getting harder to find stuff. 18 FM and 6 AM presets:
FM 1-6: 3 different NPRs (2 from AL, 1 from MS), 2 modern rock, and a decent catch-all rock station.
FM 7-12: 2 oldies stations, a classic rock dinosaur (all three owned by Clear Channel - boo!), 2 catch-all pop stations (early 60s to modern day, both from out of state), a lite pop station.
FM 13-18: a Top 40 station, 2 catch-alls with spotty signals, a good classic rock station from MS (comes in good during cloudy weather), 2 music stations that turned to all talk on me and haven’t found replacements yet.
AM: 5 talk stations now, 2 changed over in the past 6 months. The last one is a station that still plays old cheesy pop during the day, but plays Latino music after 4 pm and on weekends. The old songs sound good on the AM band, so it’s a sentimental favorite.
I’m not sure how to set or access more than four of them, but my radio seems to have either 6 or eight of each- it involves pushing buttons together or some such nonsense.
None of my AM buttons are set, because I don’t purposely listen to AM radio, ever, because there’s nothing I like less than listening to people on the radio talk. Which is why I hate being stuck in a car or office with people who like sports radio or NPR. Acually, people who have driven my car have probably set them to something, but I don’t know or care which stations those might be.
Of the four buttons I’ve actually set for FM:
the first button is for the Portland Alternative Station, WCCY, which is the one that plays ME and Boston bands on a regular basis.
the second button is for the Portland to Alternative Portsmouth radio, WFNX, which I like slightly less because it has a morning show (people talking annoys me, natch) and no Top 5 at 5 count down, but does come in clearer and doesn’t play oldies between 11-1pm.
the third button is for WBCN, in case of emergencies, like station one is playing System of a Down at the same time station 2 is playing Godsmack.
the fourth button is a Boston “mix” station (Kiss, although I don’t know the actually call letters since it obviously doesn’t start with “k” despite the station name), which is handy when station three is playing DMB at the same time the other two stations are playing terrible songs. It’s also good for when I drive so far south I’m completely out of range for the first two stations.
I don’t use any of the AM ones because I never listen to AM radio. I have something on all my FM ones, but honestly, I spend most of my time listening to tapes, so I hardly ever listen to the radio. When I do, I realize there are more stations out there that I’d like to have on my presets because I often can’t remember the local college music station, which has got some pretty good stuff…when it’s not sucking major donkey dick in the precepts of being “cool and independent” (sometimes college folk just try too hard, knowwhatImean?).
I have 18 FM presets, but where I live there aren’t enough stations to fill them are (well, actually there are, but this would mean setting most of the active frequencies in my area with stations I never listen to, which would defeat the purpose of presets). So I just use the first six and have them set in ascending order of frequency:
1- an “eclectic” station, plays lesser-known music as well as songs that made the charts for a few weeks but never became big hits. I only listen to this one once in awhile.
2- Classic rock. I listen to this one if nothing good is on stations 4 or 5.
3- Rock hits from the 70s - 90s. This one is okay and I listen to it fairly regularly, though the signal doesn’t always come in strong.
4- Alternative rock. I listen to this one the most.
5- Rock (mix of alternative, heavy metal, classic rock). My radio will usually be on this station if it’s not on station 4.
6- 70s hits. This one sometimes serves as an alternative to 4 and 5.
I don’t use the AM presets since I never listen to AM stations.
The AM has 1 news (WBZ), 2 talk/sports, and 2 sports. One remains unfilled, and will probably stay that way.
As for the FM, I have 4 Top 40 and 2 classic rock from Boston on FM1, and 2 top 40, and 2 classic rock stations from Albany on FM2. That way, whether I’m at home or at school, I have presets available to me.
I want to know why were forced to have a set number of AM presets. Apparently many people don’t use most of them. Car radios should allow a number of presets – 20, let’s say. You decide how many for FM, how many for AM.
I only use 5 of the 12 available. We really only have two stations here, Lynard Skynard and country, but I have a few others set to news or some christian network thing.