Maybe a somewhat strange question, especially to the younger generation that have never used the AM band on their radio before. I listen to a lot of AM radio in my car (Hyundai 2017). Footnote: I do NOT listen to Allan Jones for those who are already making a mental picture of an old me and my liberal views. I'm a 702 guy. Back to the question. I find the reception pretty bad or close to 100% static white noise when going in around tunnels. Even the Eastern Distributor in Sydney, which has perfect FM reception is terrible for AM. Is this everyone else's experience or perhaps my receiver is just particularly crappy? I don't remember my previously old beat up Camry to be this bad, although tt had a 1.5m antennae though (not kidding). I know I can probably stream it via my phone by just gauging other peoples experiences. First world problem, I know…
What Is Your AM Reception Like in your car?
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find the reception pretty bad or close to 100% static white noise when going in around tunnels
I remember that from when I was a kid and my dad was driving me around. I think it's normal for AM radio.
AM radio (600kHz - 1500kHz) cannot propagate in any normal tunnel because the wavelength is too long (500m-200m) relative to the diameter, and thus gets reflected at the entrance.
There are AM repeaters in most long road tunnels in Sydney (Airport Tunnel excluded), so you should be getting fairly decent reception in the Eastern Distributor.
Doesn't work too well in Melbourne when a tram is nearby; probably something to do with the electrics but it provides plenty of static.
774 Melbourne is always a good choice in Melb for sports.
I feel your pain. I can't stand the crap quality and dropouts, so usually instead listen to ABC News Radio on FM - can't remember the frequency now off the top of my head, but I think it might be 90.9 Illawarra and usually sounds better to me than the local.
I have never once even tried AM on my vehicle and all things going well I hope to never have to.
Why'd you respond to the post then?
Give it a few more years. You’ll hit the age for AM radio soon enough.
The tunnels normally have repeaters in them, that’s how they interrupt the radio with warning messages, if your listening to a out of town station (Gosford) it won’t repeat. I’ve noticed in some of the smaller tunnels, eastern distributor- airport, that signal is not repeated and the AM signal is terrible.
My 2003 Hyundai had awful AM reception. I replaced the head unit for Kenwood DAB+ unit which was one of the best decisions I ever made with that car. Upgraded 3 years ago and a vehicle with DAB+ was a necessity. Settled on an Aurion ZR6.
AM radio design is extremely compromised these days anyway.
A properly designed AM radio receiver can sound almost as good as FM (it will be more prone to interference, however) AND will bring in stations from extremely far away.
With AM radio basically being restricted to talkback stations nowadays, the car manufacturers don't really care about it and go with the cheapest designs which will provide basic reception.
If you go back 30 years to the late 1980s, AM radio receivers were built extremely well and had very good audio quality because they would open up and use the whole 9KHz bandwidth available for each station. This is about the same as a HD Voice phone call made on a mobile.
Today, most car manufacturers reduce the audio bandwidth/frequency response to around 4KHz (approximately the same as a standard landline telephone call) so they didn't have to use noise suppression circuitry to suppress noise in the higher frequency ranges.
With DAB radio, many car manufacturers are dropping AM radio support entirely. In Europe and Asia, AM is pretty much on life support. AM car radios are only made for the American and Australian markets, and even in America they use HD Radio to supplement the AM band.
It's only because Australia hasn't gotten off its arse and expanded DAB outside of the cities (and hasn't even properly filled in blackspots in metro areas in cities!) that we still need AM to fill in the country areas.
Brilliant. Thanks for sharing this.
What is the broadcast range of DAB like compared to AM? Often in country areas AM are the only stations you can pick up.
DAB only exists in cities at the moment. They broadcast using multiple transmitter sites across the city to fill in the broadcast area.
It should have roughly the same coverage area as an FM broadcast, but it's usually assisted by infill transmitters in certain areas. It is usually transmitted at around a third of the power of an FM broadcast, but that's only the case because it travels further at the same effective power level. Digital TV is usually transmitted at a quarter the power of the equivalent analogue TV signal.
The ACMA haven't rolled DAB out to country areas just yet because the government's position seems to be that radio is dying anyway, the way of the future is streaming via telcos.
Thanks for that. I haven’t really looking into DAB. Maybe I’m old school, but I find the radio great in the car, would be a shame to not be able to get it while out of the cities.
If you want to try digital radio, don't want to replace the head unit, various adapters around.
Here are some -https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01IOE8P6O
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07BK58XTV
https://www.mymemory.com.au/universal-in-car-wireless-blueto…
https://cushieaudio.com.au/product/dabm/Anticipating a question; for in and around the city, supplied, accessory, various jerry-rigging will gain sufficient signal via aerial, if deciding not to do a proper install of that.
Cars still come with AM?
No 702, but maybe a little 1269 with Lawsie in the mornings? ;)