AM Radio Reception

[woof]

If we can put a man on the moon, there must be a way to fix this?

This is a valid point that has bugged me for a long time. The art of designing radio receivers has come a very long way since the crystal set days. A cell tower can pick out the 0.1 Watt signal of a single handset over the din of thousands of others on the same frequencies at over a mile a way...yet a 50,000 Watt AM station being the sole transmitter on that frequency in a 100 mile radius still cannot be picked up on "modern" automobile radio sets worth a damn.

[Doug_G]

This is a valid point that has bugged me for a long time. The art of designing radio receivers has come a very long way since the crystal set days. A cell tower can pick out the 0.1 Watt signal of a single handset over the din of thousands of others on the same frequencies at over a mile a way...yet a 50,000 Watt AM station being the sole transmitter on that frequency in a 100 mile radius still cannot be picked up on "modern" automobile radio sets worth a damn.

Probably has a lot to do with the fact that cell phones don't use the primitive AM modulation format...

[vfx]

Art it's pretty much the way it is. When I got the car I wondered why they bothered even putting in a radio if it was so useless.
There is a antenna booster TSB at the service center. I got it done recently but AM went from worthless to terrible. I can listen if the car is stopped or at a fixed speed. Makes for some weird driving decisions.

[wiztecy]

It looks like they rerouted the radio antenna as well. I didn't notice it before but now I have this wide rubber strip running up the passenger side front window column, I didn't notice it before. Very odd and unclean way of running it for a top dollar car but I guess they're trying their best to get an extra station or two.

Does anyone know where the original antenna was routed? I many take my dash off and just stick that ugly looking strip in there. Was really looking for the booster upgrade but would have liked to skip on the antenna mod.

Art it's pretty much the way it is. When I got the car I wondered why they bothered even putting in a radio if it was so useless.
There is a antenna booster TSB at the service center. I got it done recently but AM went from worthless to terrible. I can listen if the car is stopped or at a fixed speed. Makes for some weird driving decisions.

[user497]

I had a problem with the AM radio when I first got the car. I complained several times about it and Tesla did service it somehow to make it better a couple years ago. Now the AM is only garbled when I accelerate. Once I get to a constant speed it is ok. It seems like there was a lot of interference from the engine and now with the change the interference is only there when you accelerate. They may simply have changed where the cables were running. I also do have Sirius radio which works like a charm. There are no interference issues with that at all. However, I still listen to AM a few times a week for sports broadcasts or sports radio.

[hcsharp]

I complained when I first got my car and they re-routed the antenna which improved it some. This was before they had the official TSB so they didn't install a booster. I quit using it and subscribed to Serius XM which works pretty well but I've had slightly better reception in other vehicles.

[Pantera Dude]

Do any of you guys know where the aentenna is located and the route the cable runs as delivered from the factory?

[augkuo]

Art it's pretty much the way it is. When I got the car I wondered why they bothered even putting in a radio if it was so useless.
There is a antenna booster TSB at the service center. I got it done recently but AM went from worthless to terrible. I can listen if the car is stopped or at a fixed speed. Makes for some weird driving decisions.

I got the TSB fix and AM reception is so much better! Now I just get some static when I go under bridges or something, otherwise it sounds like normal AM radio (which is mostly crap anyways). FM reception is great and fortunately most major AM stations have a channel on FM now.

[Pantera Dude]

Thank you all. It looks like our best news radio station in LA had an FM channel they used to broadcast on, unfortunately it is now music. My car is out of warranty and I am the second owner. Does anyone know if they would install the aentenna booster or take care of any TSB items at no charge?

[Andrew Wolfe]

This is a valid point that has bugged me for a long time. The art of designing radio receivers has come a very long way since the crystal set days. A cell tower can pick out the 0.1 Watt signal of a single handset over the din of thousands of others on the same frequencies at over a mile a way...yet a 50,000 Watt AM station being the sole transmitter on that frequency in a 100 mile radius still cannot be picked up on "modern" automobile radio sets worth a damn.

That's because you need to design a new protocol for both the transmitter and receiver to get big improvements.