Car radios

[Scott Fybush]

At 10:49 AM 1/2/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>I"ve never seen a car radio that had -NO- manual tuning control, but this 
>is a major annoyance of mine, too....car radios with 94 dinky little 
>buttons (some performing different functions depending on whether you're 
>using the radio or tape/CD).  Aftermarket radios have been doing this for 
>a long time.  Tough enough just to even use it if you have large hands, 
>but as you said, nearly impossible to adjust the radio while 
>driving.  Hey, it's hard enough to find a particular control when 
>parked!  I've never owned a vehicle new enough to have radio controls on 
>the steering wheel, so I can't comment on Garrett's experience, though 
>this seems to just add even more clutter.  Alas, more clutter & lots of 
>tiny buttons seems a general trend, be it automotive, or on audio/visual 
>equipment.
>
>Give me simplicity anyday.

This was an important criterion when I was car shopping a year ago - I 
wanted something with both cassette (for all my aircheck listening) and CD 
(for entertainment on longer drives, like this coming weekend), and it HAD 
to have real knobs for tuning and volume. The factory (Monsoon-brand) radio 
in my new VW Jetta fit the bill perfectly, though it's not quite as 
sensitive or selective as the Delco radio in my old Saturn, as I was 
reminded when I took Lisa's Saturn to Ohio last weekend. The Jetta radio 
also has an annoying tendency to not respond immediately to a turn of the 
tuning knob, or to jump more than one channel with each click. And because 
it uses a tuned, amplified AM antenna in the whip mounted above the rear 
window, there's sometimes a brief lag when flipping over to AM while the 
antenna adjusts itself. I'd rather have a bigger, untuned whip like the 
Saturn - but VW's aesthetic sensibility got in the way of that (and it's a 
much more pleasant car to drive overall.)

The Jetta radio is also mercifully devoid of little teeny buttons. There 
are six BIG buttons under the radio display for presets (two sets for each 
band, 24 total), four BIG buttons on the left to select AM, FM, tape or CD 
(and unlike the Saturn, you don't have to eject the tape to listen to the 
radio), one BIG rocker on the right that triples as radio scan up/down, CD 
track up/down and tape FF/rew, a Dolby button for the tape deck, and one 
button marked "AS" that auto-stores the six strongest AM and FM signals in 
a separate bank of presets, which is actually very useful in figuring out 
whose transmitter I'm driving near :-)

s