Car Radios

I’m not sure if this is worth buying then :confused:

You can buy a car radio antenna splitter, and yes it halves the signal going to your built in radio as well as potentially providing a place that noise can enter the system. You can, however, also get a splitter with a built in amplifier but you would have to find a way to power it.

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It’s currently $49 on Kogan’s website. Not sure for how long though.

If you want a cheap way of getting DAB in your car, it’s worth it at $49.

It comes and goes at $49.

Let you all know I am very much enjoying the Kia dab radio. Taking full advantage of Android auto too. Went for a drive for work along wallgrove road, the reception does drop very slightly at the southern end where the road dips almost under M7. Other than shopping car parks it has been flawless the reception. Now I know what the Ford Focus owners have enjoyed for the pass 2 years or so whilst I wrestled with the Mazda waiting for new firmware with the hope it may fix itself. :grinning:

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One thing I didn’t mention in my little review of the Kogan DAB converter.

If you press the menu/info button, you do get scrolling text with info like frequency, program type, multiplex, and the scrolling text with song being played, weather, etc.

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I think it would be good for radio nerds like me to see reception level, I wish the car had that. One advantage of the kogan.

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I daresay it’s designed as such so there is one less thing to distract you when driving.

It would also vary constantly because of the motion.

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Yes that is true. One more thing to distract the driver.

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This is a bit random, most modern car radios dont have a stereo indicator, I wonder why?

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I have wondered that too… I assume manufacturers think all FM stations are stereo now and thus there’s no need for one, but they obviously haven’t been to Australia and experienced the glory of News Radio and Radio National in wondrous and spectacular mono!

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Haha yes. Newsradio is mono on dab too. It help give a good indication of reception. I always remember in early 90s there was a pretty standard model (used in fords, Nissans cars)which would cut over to mono in bad reception areas. Good thing on the old radios they were more simple.

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Though today’s car radios are generally better for DXing on FM, they reject adjacent channel splatter much better than the old ones. And that they have larger displays with RDS is another good thing.

I’m glad it wasn’t just me who’d noticed that too. I guess the radios these days are much more sophisticated at switching from stereo to mono where signals are weaker, it doesn’t need the indicator. Some of those old radios could be quite jarring when the signal would flick in and out

You’re right too that the selectivity on the newer FM radios is so much better too, most stock models seem to be able to reject a local station 0.2MHz away for a weak distant signal. The one in my Mitsubishi isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good, and certainly doesn’t warrant a several hundred dollar investment just for marginally improved selectivity

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As are a lot of the ABC local radio stations.

Yet the pilot tone is on. Surely they realise that if they were not transmitting it, the mono only coverage would be much better.

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Or they don’t care? Agree, it would help with coverage where it is needed.

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Ok - my car has 3 sets of 6 preset FM stations and 1 set of 6 preset AM stations. I simply scroll up the list when I don’t like the song (or ads) - so not really constantly tuning, more I don’t have the endurance that radio programmers may seek. For the record, FM1 has the the following presets:

  • Nova 100
  • Mix101.1 (yes it still displays Mix)
  • 101.9 The Fox
  • 102.7FM (aka 3RRR)
  • Gold1043
  • Triple M

Like half the people they are set in frequency order…(sorry too old fashioned).

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For me it’s:

*FM1
Nova 96.9
2Day 104.1
2WS 101.7
Triple J 105.7
The Edge 96.1
KIIS 106.5

This is so I can use the up< down> buttons and easily switch between Nova and the other most listened to stations: Edge< KIIS < Nova > 2Day > 2WS.

*FM2
Nova 96.9
Smooth 95.3
Triple M 104.9
Wave 96.5
Sea 101.3
2SSR 99.7

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Same except my presets are:

  • MMM95.3
  • Hit96.9
  • 97.70 (ABC Shepparton)
  • KIIS1011
  • The Fox
  • Triple M

I do a lot of travelling between Shepparton and Melbourne, so three of each usually is enough

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I think my AM presets will give away my travel…

  • 531 (3GG)
  • 693 (3AW)
  • 774 (3LO - ABC Melbourne)
  • 828 (3GI - ABC Gippsland)
  • 1116 (3AK - SEN)
  • 1242 (3GV - Gold1242)
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