What happened to Car Radio Antennas?...

[Phil Allison]

Hi,

you may have noticed that few modern cars have any visible AM/FM antennas these days.
Many have a \"shark fin\" antenna on the roof for GPS and possibly 4G cell phones - frequencies used are similar.
Others have a short whip antenna somewhere, not much good for AM.

The answer ( found by Googling) is they often use the rear window \"defroster\" grid for AM and FM reception.
It can be made to work like a frame antenna for AM and a L shaped wire for FM. A booster amp is added near the window for impedance matching.

Some makers ( BMW ?) have two printed antennas on rear side windows that are boosted and fed into a selector unit that sends the stronger one to the receiver. This is called \"antenna diversity\" as is commonly used with radio mics.

If anyone knows more, make my day.


...... Phil

 

[Michael Trew]

On 7/29/2021 4:01 PM, Rob wrote:

Ralph Mowery<rmowery42@charter.net> wrote:
In article<slrnsg5p80.tb3.nomail@xs9.xs4all.nl>, nomail@example.com
says...

Ok so in Europe that is completely different and in many countries any
radio that has MW would also have LW.
Not all countries had active transmitters there, or had them only for
a limited time, so e.g. here in the Netherlands you could find radios
that have only MW. But I have a French car and in France there are
several LW transmitters (or at least, there were). They tend to have
a longer range and are less affected by propagation changes. And of
course they often use ridiculous amounts of power and large antennas.
A wellknown LW transmitter in Warsaw, Poland had a half-wave vertical.
(646.38 metres or 2,120.7 ft). It collapsed during maintenance work.



The US AM band of about 550 to 1700 KHz had lots of transmitters ranging
from about 250 watts to maybe 2000 watts. Many towns of populations of
30,000 or more peope often had atleast one and some two. The local town
to me had two. One was a 250 watt station and had a single antenna. The
other was a 1000 watt station and had 3 antennas about 50 or so meters
apart. During the day they broadcast with a directional patern that was
a circle. During the night they switched to a patern that was mostly
north and south. Those antennas were vertical towers that are about 90
meters or so high depending on the frequency.

During the day the AM stations usually covered from 10 to maybe 100
miles. At night they covered several thousand miles if ran at full
power so that is why they switched to a north/south directonal patern.

One of the larger towns had a transmitte that was 50,000 watts . I
think that is the most they could use and were called clear chanel
stations. There were only a small number of themin the US. I think that
at night they had to beam north and south.

Now many of the AM stations are off the air. Some had an AM and FM
transmitter and quit the AM and went totally to FM.

In Europe, broadcasting has traditionally been a state thing, and a
country had about 3 to 5 different programmes (even less early on)
that were transmitted by several transmitters in parallel to cover the
entire country. Depending on its size, that could be done with one or
two MW transmitter sites (as in a small country like the Netherlands)
or a larger number of sites. A single LW transmitter could cover a larger
country like France which is about the size of a smaller American state,
so that could be considered an alternative. Such transmitters typically
ran 500,000 watts, or even 2,000,000 watts as in the case of the LW
transmitter in Poland. But that covered all of Europe, some sources
say the entire world (but I think it is not likely that it covered all
of the world all of the time).

When FM was first deployed, it merely transmitted the same programmes
as the LW/MW transmitters but of course with many more sites to
achieve the required coverage. Once the deployment was complete and
the listeners widely got the required receiver equipment, the linking
was no longer done and the number of programmes doubled.

For a long time it was claimed that independent radio stations would
not fit in the rigid frequency allocation plans made across countries
to guarantee interference-free reception for everyone. Frequencies
were re-used only over very long distances. Conferences were held
every couple of years to adjust the allocations, and countries were
proud when they were able to score a new MW frequency or a number
of FM frequencies as required to deploy a new FM network for a single
programme.

Only much later this was all relaxed, and local and independent
stations were able to bid for frequencies. And now, all the stations
that were on MW have ceased transmitting there and have moved on to
DAB+ on VHF or sometimes to FM as well. And the plans to stop using FM
are on the horizon (some countries have already terminated FM broadcast).

I find these difference in broadcasting quite interesting, and I concur
with the majority of what Ralph has said about US radio.

Thank you for sharing!

 

[Phil Allison]

Michael Spew Troll puked :
======================

You have no conception of how silly you are, do you?

** You were not conceived at all - a lizard pooped you out.

Peter Wieck ...

** Geriatric, radio ham& psychopath.

Your posts are beyond obnoxious to read.

** My posts are all fucking brilliant.

But this NG is infested with total idiots- like you.

Weaky IS a reptile.


....... Phil

 

[Phil Allison]

ohg...@gmail.com wrote:
====================

** So there is simply NO countryside in the NE of the US ????

Sure there is open countryside,
** Not what I originally posted.
\" ... seeing as Teslas cannot do long trips into the countryside..... \"

My idea applies, not your fucked up one.

I still don\'t get your point

** Try reading it - shithead - and not snipping it down to YOUR puny> size.

> My S can go 265 miles minimum before needing refueling

** The Toyata Prius does 600 + on one tank.
But that is no range limit, actual driving range is UNLIMITED !!.

> A trip more than 265 miles is something more than just a \"trip into the countryside\"

** No, \" ....* long* trips into the countryside \" and of course the ability to return.
With an ICE car the distance is unlimited long as there are roads,

> I noticed that you conveniently left out your comment on the supercharging map

** No even faintly relevant.

but a typical standard range Tesla has a real world range of over 200 miles,
** So about 1/4 that of a real car which of course can be refueled in minutes with no special facility needed.

What? No special facility needed?

** FFS there is nothing *special* about seeing a petrol bowser ( pump in US lingo) by the roadside.

> Contrast that to EVs which are plugged in at home. Home is what I would call a \"no special facility\".

** Massive irrelevancy to *long* trips into the countryside.

No Phil, just because you can\'t understand the advantages that an EV
offers doesn\'t change these facts into lies. I was 100% factually correct.

** You are one MASSIVE, BULLSHITTING, FUCKING LIAR

IOW a typical nut case Tesla owner.



..... Phil

 

[Rob]

Phil Allison <pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:

Rob is Such a Tedious Wanker wrote:
================================

But AM is too unspecific as a bandname because there
indeed may be additional bands on short wave (SW) that also would
be AM when on a car radio.

** \" AM band \" is a perfectly accurate name.

The *only band* that is reserved for AM broadcasting.


Maybe in the USA? Here we have/had at least two bands with AM broadcasting:

LW 153-279 kHz
MW 531-1602 kHz

And then of course there are various SW bands, e.g. the 49M band.


** FFS asshole - learn to read.

What does \" reserved \" mean ????????

FYI

names mean what people mean when they use them.

Only dumb, ASD sufferers treat words as if they are math.


...... Phil

Hey dumbfuck!
Maybe you can consider that:

- English is not my native language
- The world is not limited to the USA, the USA is only a small part of
the world. AND it is becoming more insignificant by the day.
- The statements I made about AM broadcasting are true.

 

[Rob]

Michael Trew <mt999999@ymail.com> wrote:

On 7/29/2021 7:35 AM, Rob wrote:
Michael Trew<mt999999@ymail.com> wrote:
So is your MW band the same as our 540 to 1710 (1610 on older radios)
Kilocycles? Why did they drop those stations?

In the US, the \"AM\" dial is primarily talk radio, but there are still
music stations that I tune into.

Yes, MW is the 531-1602 kHz band (9 kHz raster) but we also had a LW
band 153-279 kHz, I think that is not used for broadcast in the US.

The stations were dropped because this is an inefficient way of transmitting
that has been replaced by FM, DAB+, mobile streaming via 4G/5G, etc.

Energy is expensive here and a typical radio station cannot pay the 100kW-1MW
power consumption of an AM transmitter.

I\'m sure the efficiency of those stations in that band would be the same
in the US as Europe; I find it interesting that they can still hang on
and be profitable (for the most part) over here.

How much more expensive is your electric? I pay $0.05/kWh -- although
electric is fairly cheap here. Parts of the US average roughly 3 times
that at about $0.15/kWh. Of course, that\'s just the \"supply\" portion;
there is a rate charged for \"delivery\" on our bills that changes with
the cost of supply. My current bill is $45.30 -- supply is 261 kWh @
$13.81 with \"delivery\" costing $31.49.

Well, of course it is difficult to know what kWh prices a broadcasting
station pays, because they would have a different contract than a
consumer. It would not be the lowest possible rate, because likely
they want 24h/day service (unless they have a local generator they
can use on a daily basis). Large users that can switch off during
peak hours pay less per kWh.

As a consumer, I pay a kWh rate for supply and for delivery (separate),
plus a fixed rate for connection, and energy taxes over the whole thing.
Because energy taxes have a fixed basic allowance deducted after
calculating the percentage, it is difficult to give a total kWh price
because what I pay for my energy is different from what I pay for an
extra kWh on top. It is set up this way to encourage people to save
energy. What I pay over an entire year is about 0.09 euro/kWh but
the price for an extra kWh is more like 0.20 euro/kWh. A euro is
about $1.20 so it is like $0.11 and $0.24

But again, that is not what a customer with 1MW load would pay.

 

[Phil Allison]

Rob= Cunthead wrote:
==================

** \" AM band \" is a perfectly accurate name.

The *only band* that is reserved for AM broadcasting.

Maybe in the USA? Here we have/had at least two bands with AM broadcasting:

LW 153-279 kHz
MW 531-1602 kHz

And then of course there are various SW bands, e.g. the 49M band.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
** FFS asshole - learn to read.

What does \" reserved \" mean ????????

FYI

names mean what people mean when they use them.

Only dumb, ASD sufferers treat words as if they are math.


Hey dumbfuck!

** Hey Shithead.

Maybe you can consider that:

- English is not my native language

** Wot - so you normally speak pigeon ???

\"Reserved\" is not in your dictionary ??


> - The world is not limited to the USA,

** FFS I\'m Australian.

> - The statements I made about AM broadcasting are true.

** Truely FUCKING AWFUL BULLSHIT

Fuck YOU

..... Phil

 

[Rob]

Phil Allison <pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:

Rob= Cunthead wrote:
==================

** \" AM band \" is a perfectly accurate name.

The *only band* that is reserved for AM broadcasting.

Maybe in the USA? Here we have/had at least two bands with AM broadcasting:

LW 153-279 kHz
MW 531-1602 kHz

And then of course there are various SW bands, e.g. the 49M band.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
** FFS asshole - learn to read.

What does \" reserved \" mean ????????

FYI

names mean what people mean when they use them.

Only dumb, ASD sufferers treat words as if they are math.


Hey dumbfuck!

** Hey Shithead.

Maybe you can consider that:

- English is not my native language

** Wot - so you normally speak pigeon ???

\"Reserved\" is not in your dictionary ??

I don\'t know the difference between \"reserved for\" and \"allocated to\"
in this context, which seems to upset you, but the bands I mentioned
are allocated to AM broadcast. So I presume they are reserved.
Apparently you see that differently, and express it loudly.

- The world is not limited to the USA,

** FFS I\'m Australian.

- The statements I made about AM broadcasting are true.

** Truely FUCKING AWFUL BULLSHIT

Fuck YOU

.... Phil

 

[ohg...@gmail.com]

** The Toyata Prius does 600 + on one tank.
But that is no range limit, actual driving range is UNLIMITED !!.

I have a Prius. I put a mowing deck on it and I do my yard with it... It\'s almost like a real car in many ways. Some people actually drive them on roads..
But what it *doesn\'t* have is unlimited range. It has to be refueled when it runs out of gas otherwise it just stops. My Tesla also has to refueled when it runs out of charge or it will stop. Both are easily refueled before that happens though. If your definition of \"unlimited\" range means it can be refueled, then both the Prius and Tesla have unlimited range as there are gas stations and EV chargers everywhere.

Or does your logic (?) suggest that a car that takes 5 minutes to refuel has unlimited range but a car that takes 15 minutes (to add 200 miles) doesn\'t?

A trip more than 265 miles is something more than just a \"trip into the countryside\"
** No, \" ....* long* trips into the countryside \" and of course the ability to return.

Again, you just can\'t seem to grasp the obvious: my Tesla can be refueled even on a \"trip to the countryside\" (whatever that means), even a *long* trip. I just have to stop after 4.5 hours, something I do anyway with my Mazda. Superchargers everywhere. Gas stations everywhere.


> With an ICE car the distance is unlimited long as there are roads,

Again, my Tesla range is also unlimited as long as I keep my Tesla on the road.

I noticed that you conveniently left out your comment on the supercharging map
** No even faintly relevant.

But it is relevant. Your whole argument is based on your impression my Tesla can only venture 135 miles away from my house with just enough energy to return. I can go 265 miles then refuel, the same as my Mazda which has the same range as my S. The map I cited shows there are superchargers everywhere in the U.S. for my Tesla in the same way there are gas stations available for my Mazda SUV. And you know what? More superchargers are added every day. Many businesses even add them to their employee parking lots.

Contrast that to EVs which are plugged in at home. Home is what I would call a \"no special facility\".
** Massive irrelevancy to *long* trips into the countryside.

Again, you seem to be unaware that there are EV charging stations everywhere that refuel EVs in the same manner that there are gas stations.
But in three years, I\'ve only visited a charging station twice: my wife and I went on vacation with the S and stopped after 4 hours to refuel - on the way out and on the way home. It took 20 minutes while we had a quick lunch and visited the restrooms. I put several hundred miles on the S during the two weeks and recharged for free at the hotel every 5 days and once before we left.

The irony is that the Tesla and EV bashers will be dealing with dwindling gas refueling stations as more EVs are sold and gas cars get junked. The small stations will close leaving the big chain stations. Some car companies plan to stop all petroleum fueled vehicles in 10-20 years. There\'ll be far more EV chargers than gas stations before you know it.

> ** You are one MASSIVE, BULLSHITTING, FUCKING LIAR

The meds aren\'t working anymore Phil - your internet Tourettes is acting up again. Time to adjust your medication.

 

[Phil Allison]

Rob the ASD Lying Moron wrote:
=======================

Hey dumbfuck!

** Hey Shithead.

Maybe you can consider that:

- English is not my native language

** Wot - so you normally speak pigeon ???

\"Reserved\" is not in your dictionary ??

I don\'t know the difference between ...

** Shit and chocolate.

but the bands I mentioned
are allocated to AM broadcast.

** You mentioned LOTS of bands.

So now you are trying to obfuscate my obviously true points with damn LIES !!!


> The statements I made about AM broadcasting are true.

** Truely FUCKING AWFUL BULLSHIT

Simple question for you :

Was it you father or you mother who taught you to be a damn LIAR??
Maybe a colossal *prick* like you doesn\'t know who his father was ?

Does you mother even know ?
Does she care?



...... Phil

 

[Rob]

Phil Allison <pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:

Rob the ASD Lying Moron wrote:
=======================

Hey dumbfuck!

** Hey Shithead.

Maybe you can consider that:

- English is not my native language

** Wot - so you normally speak pigeon ???

\"Reserved\" is not in your dictionary ??

I don\'t know the difference between ...

** Shit and chocolate.

but the bands I mentioned
are allocated to AM broadcast.

** You mentioned LOTS of bands.

So now you are trying to obfuscate my obviously true points with damn LIES !!!


The statements I made about AM broadcasting are true.

** Truely FUCKING AWFUL BULLSHIT

Simple question for you :

Was it you father or you mother who taught you to be a damn LIAR??
Maybe a colossal *prick* like you doesn\'t know who his father was ?

Does you mother even know ?
Does she care?



..... Phil

I smile when I read this.
You were already in my killfile, I do not normally see your posts, but
when they are a reply to my posts they appear visible (pre-read) in my
thread display so I can still peek to see if something interesting is
there.

And I am amused by your drivel. It confirms my earlier decision to
killfile you, and that there is no need to worry that I would miss anything
of value written by you.

 

[Phil Allison]

Rob = some lying wog cunt :
======================

I smile when I read this.

** You will NOT be smiling for much longer - asshole.

> You were already in my killfile,

** ROTFL - wot a blatant LIE.


> And I am amused by your drivel.

** Like hell you are.




...... Phil

 

[Phil Allison]

ohg...@gmail.com wrote:
===================

** The Toyata Prius does 600 + on one tank.
But that is no range limit, actual driving range is UNLIMITED !!.

I have a Prius. I put a mowing deck on it and I do my yard with it... It\'s almost like a real car in many ways.
Some people actually drive them on roads..

** That\'s enough.
I\'m no longer prepared to deal with a RAVING NUT CASE.

The word \"liar\" does not come anywhere near describing frothing at the mouth fanatics like this.
FOAD


....... Phil

 

[Tim R]

On Thursday, July 29, 2021 at 1:52:50 PM UTC-4, Ralph Mowery wrote:

During the day the AM stations usually covered from 10 to maybe 100
miles. At night they covered several thousand miles if ran at full
power so that is why they switched to a north/south directonal patern.

One of the larger towns had a transmitte that was 50,000 watts . I
think that is the most they could use and were called clear chanel
stations. There were only a small number of themin the US. I think that
at night they had to beam north and south.

My memory is that they had to cut power to 10% at night.

 

[Michael Trew]

On 7/30/2021 3:52 AM, Rob wrote:

Michael Trew<mt999999@ymail.com> wrote:
On 7/29/2021 7:35 AM, Rob wrote:
Michael Trew<mt999999@ymail.com> wrote:
So is your MW band the same as our 540 to 1710 (1610 on older radios)
Kilocycles? Why did they drop those stations?

In the US, the \"AM\" dial is primarily talk radio, but there are still
music stations that I tune into.

Yes, MW is the 531-1602 kHz band (9 kHz raster) but we also had a LW
band 153-279 kHz, I think that is not used for broadcast in the US.

The stations were dropped because this is an inefficient way of transmitting
that has been replaced by FM, DAB+, mobile streaming via 4G/5G, etc.

Energy is expensive here and a typical radio station cannot pay the 100kW-1MW
power consumption of an AM transmitter.

I\'m sure the efficiency of those stations in that band would be the same
in the US as Europe; I find it interesting that they can still hang on
and be profitable (for the most part) over here.

How much more expensive is your electric? I pay $0.05/kWh -- although
electric is fairly cheap here. Parts of the US average roughly 3 times
that at about $0.15/kWh. Of course, that\'s just the \"supply\" portion;
there is a rate charged for \"delivery\" on our bills that changes with
the cost of supply. My current bill is $45.30 -- supply is 261 kWh @
$13.81 with \"delivery\" costing $31.49.

Well, of course it is difficult to know what kWh prices a broadcasting
station pays, because they would have a different contract than a
consumer. It would not be the lowest possible rate, because likely
they want 24h/day service (unless they have a local generator they
can use on a daily basis). Large users that can switch off during
peak hours pay less per kWh.

As a consumer, I pay a kWh rate for supply and for delivery (separate),
plus a fixed rate for connection, and energy taxes over the whole thing.
Because energy taxes have a fixed basic allowance deducted after
calculating the percentage, it is difficult to give a total kWh price
because what I pay for my energy is different from what I pay for an
extra kWh on top. It is set up this way to encourage people to save
energy. What I pay over an entire year is about 0.09 euro/kWh but
the price for an extra kWh is more like 0.20 euro/kWh. A euro is
about $1.20 so it is like $0.11 and $0.24

But again, that is not what a customer with 1MW load would pay.

Fair enough, thanks!

 

[legg]

On Wed, 28 Jul 2021 19:15:04 -0700 (PDT), Phil Allison
<pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:

legg wrote:
--------------

Guess having no ugly antenna sells cars to those who value cosmetics above results.
No wonder the are many \"after market\" alternatives available.


..... Phil

I believe it was an anti-vandalism thing.


** Automatic, powered antennas did that perfectly.
For a fraction of the cost.

Hokey.

Imbeded antennas introduced minimal added cost and had zero
moving parts.

RL

 

[Peter W.]

Imbeded antennas introduced minimal added cost and had zero
moving parts.

And here, in the \'Great, Salty, Frozen North\', power antennas had a typical service life of about 3 years, at best. No big deal for the car flippers, but for those of us who keep cars well into their second centennial (in thousands), or longer, an issue.

Keep in mind that (at least) here in the US, all windshields are laminated, some even have three (3) layers. Many have embedded sensor shields and sun shields , as well as various degrees of tinting. Adding an antenna or even antennas has a tiny incremental cost to all that. Our Volvo XC70 had an antenna on the perimeter of the windshield - in the glue-zone, one on the driver (left) side rear window, and one on the rear window (tailgate). No shark-fin, but as a 2005, Navigation was not as prevalent then as now. The system consists of a radio with integrated CD changer and Dolby Pro Logic1 processor that runs a powerful, 300 Watt amplifier, which in turn runs 11 (V70, V70 R, XC70), 13 (S60 S60 R) or 9 (S80) speakers (from the brochure).

The antenna on the rear passenger window, I am told, was a passive radiator for cell phones. Never took the time to check that.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

 

[Peter W.]

We have Silly.
We have Stupid.
Now we must add Pathetic.

Quick question, Phil: If you are so smart, why aren\'t you rich?

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

 

[Phil Allison]

legg wrote:

=============

I believe it was an anti-vandalism thing.


** Automatic, powered antennas did that perfectly.
For a fraction of the cost.

Hokey.

Imbeded antennas introduced minimal added cost and had zero
moving parts.

** Not even faintly plausible.


...... Phil

 

[Jeroni Paul]

Rob wrote:

But I have a French car and in France there are
several LW transmitters (or at least, there were). They tend to have
a longer range and are less affected by propagation changes. And of
course they often use ridiculous amounts of power and large antennas.

But it has long been discontinued. Too costly, and replaced by Internet.

The France LW station at 162kHz did broadcast the programs of France Inter radio AND the current time encoded in its carrier for radio controlled clocks. I always tought that was an efficient use of resources. That was until 2016 when they stopped transmitting the radio but kept transmitting the time and still do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3D8XBOXjts

Since they keep the transmitter operating I think they could broadcast a radio, now is just a wasted resource. I guess it probably comes down to the radio not willing to pay for that transmission, still they could offer some public service.

I have a car radio with LW and autotunning and it stops at 162, but only background noise comes out. It does a good job of autotunning LW and MW, hardly ever stops on useless noises.