Automotive Radio

[Kelleher, Daniel]

Ooooooh yes.
It goes back even further, for GM it was 1975. Think the in glass
antenna was about that time too. GM/Delco reduced the sensitivity of all
AM car radios and introduced mono/stereo blending in 1975. I bought a
1976 Blazer and the dealer changed the radio twice. Still the same. Met
with the GM zone rep. He told me this was a "new feature" so listeners
would only receive local stations". He sent me the GM advisory touting
these improvements. which were in response to customers complaints of
too much static and too many stations showing up on the AM band...if you
think they are deaf today, it is thousands or times better. BTW the
Kenwood Supertuner was the solution for FM back then, as sensitive as
anything we have today.
Dan 

At 8:43 PM -0500 11/12/08, SteveOrdinetz wrote:
 >
 >Something seemed to happen to car radios around 2001 or so.  It
 >doesn't seem to matter what make car, they all are pretty dreadful
 >now.  Since most auto makers offer factory satellite radio, I'm
 >wondering if they intentionally crippled the terrestrial portion to
 >make satellite look better.

Is the real problem the receivers or the antennas?  Most cars these
days have either an in-glass antenna or a short stubby one.
-- 
Larry Weil
Lake Wobegone, NH