Car radios

Two unrelated events triggered some thoughts about car radios.

The two events are a recently renewed acquaintance that dates back 30-plus years (seems I've been doing a lot of that recently) and purchase of a new car.

The renewed acquaintance, and the associated correspondence, brings back many memories of the times, including a very long journey - nearly 7,000 miles - around the country.

Back in the day, I seemed to live in a car; on the road both day and night.

At one point, before the 7k-mile excursion, I had a Volvo 122S (back when Volvos were affordable) with a Blaupunkt AM/FM/SW radio.

As I traveled across country, I could tune in programs from islands in the Atlantic.

But most of the time, I had cars with standard AM radios.

Anyone who knows about "standard" radios - both the AM and FM varieties - know that they have a limited range.

As they say, range is limited by distance and terrain.

There's another factor - station output power.

I don't know if they're still around - I don't spend a lot of time traveling at night anymore (have I become "civilized" in my advanced years, or just in less of a hurry?) - but there were a number of "clear channel" stations that went from "normal output wattage" during daylight hours, "normal" probably being something between 5kW and 10kW, to 50,000 Watts after dark. Most other stations shut down at dark.

There was one super-powerful station that blanketed most of the continental US. It had, I think, 100,000 Watts of output power. The station was in Texas, but because the U.S. Federal Communications Commission limited output power to 50kW, the transmitter was in Tijuana, Mexico. The deejay was a fellow named Robert Weston Smith (b. 21 Jan 39-d. 1 Jul 95). You may have heard of Smith by another name: Wolfman Jack. A Web search for The Wolfman will turn up a number of hits. If we weren't in the mood for The Wolfman's chatter on XOXO, we could tune to WOWO (Fort Wayne IN), WGN (Chicago), WWL (New Orleans), WLW (Cincinnati) - to name four I listened to as I traveled night-time roads. Wikpedia lists all - or at least most - clear channel stations in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_channel.

Most of nearly 7,000-mile journey (ibid.) was in a Volkswagen 1600 Variant. It had a radio but no air conditioning which turned out to be a serious deficiency when we drove through Phoenix AZ at 2 a.m. on day in June. The Variant was towed back across the country behind a '67 Rambler Rebel station wagon. I never did get the hang of backing up a towed vehicle or trailer.

Jumping ahead those "30-some" years and into the new car, I have not only an AM/FM radio with digital readout !, but a CD player and, as a promotional gimmick, XM radio free for three months.

Only problem: I work about 10 minutes from where I live, and partially thanks to gas prices and partially thanks to having to do "other things," I spend very little time behind the wheel. There's a 1,000-mile trip planned, but other than that, it's roughly 30 minutes-a-day in the car.

Somehow it doesn't seem fair.

By the way, I once actually got to see The Wolfman close up. He was on a double bill at the Denver coliseum with Leonard (Mr. Spock) Nimoy, and I just happened to be in town. Quite a night in the Mile High city.

Yohanon
Yohanon.Glenn @ gmail.com