Re: FCC Orders All TV's To Have Digital Tuners By 2007

[Dan.Strassberg@att.net]

Couldn't have been the early 70s. I bought a brand new 
Dodge Dart in 1972. It had a factory-installed AM radio. 
Little did I relaize that, when I paid the dealer to 
replace it with an after-market AM/FM radio, I could get 
such an unmitigated piece of crap. My take was that the 
technology of AM/FM car radios just wasn't there yet in 
1972.

Nine years later, when I bought an '81 Toyota Corolla, 
the factory-installed AM/FM radio was orders of 
magnitude better, but still far from perfect. The most 
annoying feature of that radio was that in weak-signal 
areas, the FM would switch abruptly between stereo and 
mono. To reduce noise, the audio bandwidth in mono mode 
was also reduced. Extremely disconcerting! Modern car 
radios perform the same function but make the changeover 
gracefully enough that the mode change is hardly 
noticeable. 
--
dan.strassberg@att.net
617-558-4205
eFax 707-215-6367
> Garrett Wollman wrote:
> > 
> >  ...There has never been any requirement, other than a market requirement,
> >  for radios to tune both bands...
> 
> I *think* you might be wrong about that, but I'm only working from
> memory here. I thought that at some point in the early to mid-70s new
> car radios were required to tune both bands.
> 
> - Chip Austin