HD Radio Stations

[bob_p]

While it's great to have HD radio, providing digital versions of local AM stations, it's very difficult to use. To find the HD version of an AM station requires stepping through all of the FM stations, and then looking at the HD channels, until you find the station you are looking for.

At least in our area, the AM station number is shown in the label for the HD/FM stations.

It would be very useful if the AM tuner would have access to this information, and when there was an HD version of a station, it would use that when tuning on the AM radio, instead of using the actual AM station.

And, for cars that don't have AM radios (like the Model S), because many of the AM stations (at least in our area) have HD versions, Tesla could still provide an "AM tuner" - except that the only stations it would be able to access were the available HD radio versions of the AM stations.

Similarly, Tesla ought to be able to make a deal with Sirius XM to provide the XM media player, even when there isn't an XM antenna - by allowing the XM media player to use the SiriusXM internet feed. Which would even be useful for the cars with XM antennas - since the SiriusXM internet feed actually has more stations than the satellite (such as both home and local broadcasts for live sports).

 

[CRASHER]

My 2017 model S do have AM tuner. I didn't try HD station yet.

 

[bob_p]

S has AM; X/3 do not have AM - all have HD radio

We try to listen to the HD radio version of AM stations whenever possible - but finding them is very difficult, because you have to hunt through the FM stations one at a time, check the subchannels, and then find the one that is simulcasting the AM station over HD

For all Tesla cars, it would be very helpful if Tesla could list the HD stations - and do the mapping back to the AM station number. On cars with AM radios, when selecting an AM station with an HD version, the media player should automatically use the HD station instead. On cars without AM radios, the media player could show an AM/HD radio option, and display only those stations with HD in the area

This is all software - and something Tesla should be able to do - to improve the user experience in all of their cars.

Similarly, they could also do something with XM radio. For cars without XM antennas, they could display the SiriusXM internet streaming stations - and for cars with XM antennas, they could add those stations to the list of stations available over satellite. That way, everyone gets access to XM - either with a satellite subscription (with an antenna) or an internet subscription.

Especially for live sports, XM is the only source for many of the professional and college sports events.