Solve my Radio problem - earn double bonus points
Thursday, September 6th, 2007 - 1:03pm
So like many of you, I have a job and I play games. Its like if there were only a website for people like me...
I go to work during the week, and shockingly I have to drive my car to "Said Workplace". The drive is around 42 miles, before you gasp, it used to be 65 miles. Which in kilometers is like 1381 or something.
On my way to work I listen to the Radio (KROQ). Not the best station ever, but in my opinion, the best I can get.
Well the problem is sometime around June of this year the station started receiving a lot of static. So much so the actual reception is gone most of the time. I checked a few other stations, same thing, really bad static.
I'm driving the same car. The Nuclear Power Plant I drive by hasn't blown up and I think is still working properly.
The only thing I can figure is that something odd occurs during summer. Maybe its a tachyon pulse on the flux capacitor that holds the stratsosphere or something.
So what happened ?
Always vigilient, and dies in the end
Does your car have an antenna built in to the rear window? Did you have to get that replaced? I've seen the connection between the antenna in the glass and your stereo not get re-connected after replacement. I've seen collisions break the connection without the glass breaking too.
Xbox Live | Steam | Last.fm
You didn't get the letter from the US Government about the radio bandwidth shift? That all changed in June and if you don't have one of the new HD Radios you can get a free adaptor from the government.
It's happening on all channels, so:
- your antenna wire has become disconnected, bad, broken. No real way to test that other than to try tuning to a strong FM station and see if you can get that clearly.
- your radio's tuner has gone bad (some have an "auto lock" to slightly adjust the tuning to get the best signal strength and yours might have gone out of adjustment)
- something in your car might be putting out the interference. Not likely with FM, but my car's fan would sometimes put out enough RF noise that it would screw up my AM stations (you can figure that out by adjusting the fan speed and/or running the radio with the car off and on)
- bad speakers/output connections (if you've got a CD player in it, try that and see if it plays clearly)
The car is a 2003 Nissan Maxima. It has some form of intrenal antenna. There are a few stations that come in clear, clean and with extra annoying ad-vo-tisements. I am guessing these are the 50,000 watt stations (or what ever the maximum is).
The CD player still works and the speakers are in great shape.
KROQ Stats
Radio Station Power Stats
I am guessing its some form of seasonal something, that or Al Gore predicted this and I missed the slide on this part.
Always vigilient, and dies in the end
Zeroth-step debugging: I'd try bringing a radio-equipped walkman along for the ride, to see if the interference happens on both devices, or only one of them; the results should inform the next step...
I know they have something on the AM band. I think it's around 6:00 pm eastern during the fall and winter, they turn down the broadcast power so (apparently) the powerful 50,000 watters don't go cross-country and disrupt broadcasts in other cities.
The best solution to bad FM music station reception is Sirius or XM *(as long as you have a view of whatever part of the sky needed, and don't live in a tunnel, restrictions may apply, etc, etc..)
MaxShrek .. The reason you keep falling, is there is no bottom.
Horror Vacui