You turn me on, I'm a radio

The test cars we evaluate rotate through various members of the press.

So when I get one it has usually been driven by various other people. And it always surprises me - I am easily surprised – that the radio station pre-sets are almost always in ascending order of frequency.

On the AM band, 590, 640, 680, 740, 1010, 1050, etc. On FM, 91.1, 92.5, 96.3, 98.1, 99,9, 107.1. Depending on your taste in radio, of course.

Now this made sense in the old days when station tuning was actually controlled by a string which you dialed up using the right knob on the radio.

The pre-sets were established by manually dialing up the station, pulling out the button, then pressing it all the way back in. How this worked I have no idea.

Today of course it’s all electronic.

So my question is - why don’t people set the pre-sets in order of preference? Your favourite radio station first, so it’s closest to your hand, second-favourite next, etc.

So for me on AM, it’s 1050, 1150 (love those oldies - it’s the music my band plays, except they weren’t oldies when we started playing them), 680 (traffic), 640 (Leafs) then 590 (other sports).

On FM, it’s 107.1 (Kim Mitchell is the best DJ in town), 92.5 (a bit weird sometimes, but OK), 96.3 (I drive slower when classical music is on) and - well, that’s about it, actually.

But when I have a car with satellite radio - well, that’s another story.

Comments

[Catelli]

I do the in order thing. Mainly because I don't have a single defined favorite. I have moods. Those moods define what I want to listen too, leaving the stations in order makes it quicker to find them

When I did have one favorite it was the ONLY radio station I listened to. It was number one on the presets and all the others were left to the factory defaults.

[John Betmanis]

Jim, it's easy to explain why your test cars' radio presets are in ascending order. That's how one would find stations one likes with the scan button. Of course, if you own the car and will be living with it for the next 10 or more years, you can arrange them in order of preference, but I'm sure you busy testers have better things to do while you have the cars.