Mediumwave (AM Radio) Reception in the Outlander PHEV

[STS134]

Are you kidding me?!? The amount of noise and interference generated by the vehicle itself tells me that the engineers were EXTREMELY sloppy. They did not properly shield the motors/batteries from the radio antenna, and it makes AM radio very annoying to listen to. The station I was listening to yesterday was KNBR 680, from Santa Cruz, CA. KNBR, which is licensed in San Francisco, CA and has its transmitters in Belmont, CA. It works fine in the Silicon Valley (San Jose area), but go over the mountain to Santa Cruz and all hell breaks loose with the noise and interference. For those unfamiliar with the area, Santa Cruz is south of San Jose but north of Salinas, which is easily well within the strong signal (2.0 mV/m) coverage area of KNBR. https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=KNBR-AM

In my ICE car, I can easily hear KNBR during the DAYTIME all the way south to near the Frazier Park and Gorman exits on Interstate 5 (Tejon Pass), which is south of Lancaster on the map and actually outside of the blue (fringe coverage) line. I can easily the skywave signals of KOMO 1000 out of Seattle, WA, and KFI 640 from Los Angeles, CA at night. I can even hear KOA 850 from Denver, CO, because the ICE car doesn't crap all over the mediumwave band. WTF were the engineers at Mitsubishi thinking? Did they even TRY to listen to AM radio before they started shipping these things?!?

 

[crussellsprout]

I think you are in luck, it looks like the AM KNBR station is also broadcast in HDFM at 107.7-2, so you should be able to listen to it in much higher quality in the PHEV than your old ICE car
http://www.knbr.com/listen-live/

 

[STS134]

I think you are in luck, it looks like the AM KNBR station is also broadcast in HDFM at 107.7-2, so you should be able to listen to it in much higher quality in the PHEV than your old ICE car
http://www.knbr.com/listen-live/

The range of FM in general sucks, and the range of HD-FM signals sucks even more than FM. HD-FM won't even get over the first mountain range. The whole reason you want to use AM is pure range. I can routinely hear KNBR, during the day time, near Frazier Park, CA, 265 miles from the transmitter. At night, I can routinely hear it in Hawaii, over 2300 miles away. FM won't even get 100 miles offshore, over water, with no obstructions whatsoever. So putting it on HD-FM is a sorry excuse of a workaround. 107.7-2 will only work in the Bay Area. Heck, 107.7-2 doesn't even work in parts of the Bay Area, like near my house, because it's behind a some small hills from the transmitter. Even the regular FM signal loses stereo around where I live. Manufacturers need to properly isolate the PWM generators that power the motors from the AM radio antenna so that the AM receiver can work like a proper car radio, not like a cheap clock radio.

 

[jaapv]

I didn't know anybody was even listening to AM any more. It is all DAB+ or 4G, 5G streaming through your phone, I should think.

 

[greendwarf]

I didn't know anybody was even listening to AM any more. It is all DAB+ or 4G, 5G streaming through your phone, I should think.

Not for those of us back here in steerage with our Gx3h and only a 2G phone. :lol:

Mind you I didn't realise my car radio had anything but FM until I checked after reading this thread. :roll:

 

[STS134]

I didn't know anybody was even listening to AM any more. It is all DAB+ or 4G, 5G streaming through your phone, I should think.

Sports leagues jealously guard the broadcast rights for their games. Even if a radio station has over-the-air broadcast rights, it does not hold the rights to stream the broadcast over the internet. They do this so they can then sell access to the games over the internet on their own. So basically, you can't stream live sports games over the internet unless you pay them a monthly extortion fee. And on top of that, you have to use mobile data to do it, which is unreliable, particularly in rural areas. When KNBR 680 broadcasts SF Giants (MLB) games, it cannot stream the same content over the internet, as per its contract with MLB Advanced Media.

 

[ThudnBlundr]

I have no trouble listening to the cricket streamed off Radio 4 LW, at least in this country

 

[crussellsprout]

I think you are in luck, it looks like the AM KNBR station is also broadcast in HDFM at 107.7-2, so you should be able to listen to it in much higher quality in the PHEV than your old ICE car
http://www.knbr.com/listen-live/

The range of FM in general sucks, and the range of HD-FM signals sucks even more than FM. HD-FM won't even get over the first mountain range. The whole reason you want to use AM is pure range. I can routinely hear KNBR, during the day time, near Frazier Park, CA, 265 miles from the transmitter. At night, I can routinely hear it in Hawaii, over 2300 miles away. FM won't even get 100 miles offshore, over water, with no obstructions whatsoever. So putting it on HD-FM is a sorry excuse of a workaround. 107.7-2 will only work in the Bay Area. Heck, 107.7-2 doesn't even work in parts of the Bay Area, like near my house, because it's behind a some small hills from the transmitter. Even the regular FM signal loses stereo around where I live. Manufacturers need to properly isolate the PWM generators that power the motors from the AM radio antenna so that the AM receiver can work like a proper car radio, not like a cheap clock radio.

Good points, and on a side note, I wonder why stations don't broadcast in HD-AM instead of HD-FM for digital quality at the same time as better broadcast range?

AM has worked fine in my area but I haven't tested it at long range as you have. It's too bad that apparently Mitsubishi didn't design and/or test the AM receiver for long range use =/

 

[crussellsprout]

I didn't know anybody was even listening to AM any more. It is all DAB+ or 4G, 5G streaming through your phone, I should think.

Sports leagues jealously guard the broadcast rights for their games. Even if a radio station has over-the-air broadcast rights, it does not hold the rights to stream the broadcast over the internet. They do this so they can then sell access to the games over the internet on their own. So basically, you can't stream live sports games over the internet unless you pay them a monthly extortion fee. And on top of that, you have to use mobile data to do it, which is unreliable, particularly in rural areas. When KNBR 680 broadcasts SF Giants (MLB) games, it cannot stream the same content over the internet, as per its contract with MLB Advanced Media.

Interesting, does that mean streaming services like IHeartRadio streaming KNBR 680 (https://www.iheart.com/live/knbr-680-5530/) will just have alternate content during games, or what happens during those times? IHeartRadio is supported in Android Auto too, on the off chance that might work for you (but still require mobile data reception, as you noted).

 

[TimPhev]

In Russia, broadcasting on long (300-30 kHz) and medium waves (3 MHz - 300 kHz) ceased in 2014.
Having traveled from the cities for 50 km, you have to listen to music only on a CD-disk or sd-card.

 

[STS134]

Interesting, does that mean streaming services like IHeartRadio streaming KNBR 680 (https://www.iheart.com/live/knbr-680-5530/) will just have alternate content during games, or what happens during those times? IHeartRadio is supported in Android Auto too, on the off chance that might work for you (but still require mobile data reception, as you noted).

Yes, they'll either broadcast alternate content, or they'll just broadcast an audio loop that says due to contractual obligations, the content presently being broadcast OTA cannot be streamed.