AM Radio in Mach-E

[Maquis]

For those of our members testing AM reception, I remind us all about the receptivity shift in AM bands between daytime and nighttime. From the little I remember of my long-ago LRS Army comms training, the ionosphere becomes a reliable AM multi-bounce layer once the sun goes down.

To wit, I remember driving once in eastern Bavaria in my BMW 318i in the middle of the night and being able to pick up French AM broadcasts from some Paris station, as well as another cool AM station from Vienna Austria, very clearly. Those were both several hundred miles away from my location.

So my recommendation: try to test the AM in your area at night as well as when the sun is up.

The flip side is that most AM stations are required to drastically cut their power at sunset in order to prevent interfering with other stations on the same frequency. There used to be about 60 “clear channel” stations that had an exclusive frequency that weren’t required to cut back. They are now known as class A stations. Some used to be as high as 100KW transmitter power and could be heard all across North America at night. When I was in high school, we listened to underground rock on KAAY in Little Rock. Most are now limited to 50KW.

Sorry for rambling…..but to do a valid test as you mention, you need to use a class A station.

Here’s a link

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[ArthurDOB]

The flip side is that most AM stations are required to drastically cut their power at sunset in order to prevent interfering with other stations on the same frequency. There used to be about 60 “clear channel” stations that had an exclusive frequency that weren’t required to cut back. They are now known as class A stations. Some used to be as high as 100KW transmitter power and could be heard all across North America at night. When I was in high school, we listened to underground rock on KAAY in Little Rock. Most are now limited to 50KW.

Sorry for rambling…..but to do a valid test as you mention, you need to use a class A station.

Here’s a link

Interesting. I did not know that. There are a lot of cool stories about classic rockers listening to far-off radio stations and being exposed to and influenced by stations from very far away they could only hear at night. I'm guessing that doesn't happen anymore.

 

[dcortez]

Toyota announced that they proudly offer high quality AM radio in their EV's .. Bz4 Toyota and Solterra Subaru. I have driven both and it works great. The answer? Just spend a little more and shield the radio from the frequencies from the motors. Tesla, Ford, VW, others should do the same thing. I need to have AM in my new EV. Some EV uses say "forget AM'" But millions listen and I want to have it.

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