FM Radio Channels

[HVACR]

I have my show up and running. I had a sign made to 88.0 Mhz. I am getting feedback that car radios can't tune to 88.0 Mhz. They can do odd channels. Has anyone else ran across this problem. Thanks HVACR.

[Santas Helper]

Do any of your vehicles have a problem? If not, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Mr. P]

That's because FM channels are spaced .2 mhz apart on the odd number, so the actual freq would be 87.9 or 88.1 My car won't do 88.0 either.

[dgrant]

You can have a small stick-on sign created that will go over the frequency for changing it. I had to do this, this year already.

[Orville]

Most American vehicles WILL NOT go there, the spacing for American FM freq's is .1, .3, .5, .7 or .9, you will not see any other number, there are no .0, .2, .4, .6,  or .8 that I have ever come across.

 

Every radio I own starts at 87.7 and ends at 107.7, 87.7, 87.9, 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, 88.7, 88.9, 89.1, etc., etc up to 107.7

 

But this is ONLY for the US, European countries have a different setting than we do, although they use many of the same ones we do, they actually have more freq's availble..

 

However, since the FM Transmitters are sold everywhere across the country many of them will start at 87.5 and end at 108.0, they will use .0, .1, .2....all the way to .9., if they were built in the US for the US, chances are they won't use the "even numbers", only the "odd numbers", .1, .3, .5, .7 and .9.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Orville

[George Simmons]

Every radio I own starts at 87.7 and ends at 107.7 ...

I'm sure glad we have different radios here in MN than you do in FL. One of the best radio stations in the country is located in the Twin Cities metro area at 107.9. I can receive that station on EVERY radio I own - vehicles, high-end receivers, low end MP3 players, even 40-year old 'portable" transistor radios. Every single one! Maybe I'm just special ...

[Orville]

I'm sure glad we have different radios here in MN than you do in FL. One of the best radio stations in the country is located in the Twin Cities metro area at 107.9. I can receive that station on EVERY radio I own - vehicles, high-end receivers, low end MP3 players, even 40-year old 'portable" transistor radios. Every single one! Maybe I'm just special ...

George, we have two different BOSE radios and they both stop at 107.7, even if I do a "manual" channel run through, it stops at 107.7, and when I had a vehicle, I had put in a new radio and it would only go to 107.7, the next frequency when I'd click the manual channel button to scroll through the channels went from 107.7 right back to 87.7.    Never could get it to go past 107.7.

 

Just been my experiences with some high end radios and even one I had bought just a tad over a year ago.   So I have no idea why they don't pick up or show 107.9 if that is a freq they *should* be displaying, but they don't.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Orville

[George Simmons]

I don't know what to tell you Orv. Your experience sure sounds out of the ordinary. I just went out in our front room and cranked up the old Zenith floor model radio, made well before either of us were. And guess what? It's weak, because its antenna sucks, but even that old tube monster gets 107.9. We've also got a Bose radio and it gets 107.9 just fine.

Maybe it's something in the atmosphere at your latitude that precludes receiving that frequency or something ... too much humidity ... a higher corolis effect closer to the equator ... Might be interesting for you to order a radio from a seller here in the upper midwest and have it sent to me. I could confirm it reaches 107.9 (and even video the whole thing if you want) and then I'd send it to you. (I'll even spring for the extra shipping.) We could see it works in Orlando the same as it does in MN.

But you got me to thinking, it's sure a good thing the people who put up that radio station (KOOL 108 it's called) up here didn't try it down by you. They'd have lost their ass. It's a 100,000 watt station and I know they sunk a wad into that. Maybe if the radio I send you doesn't work you could receive their frequency over the internet and give them a listen that way.

Edited November 29, 2015 by George Simmons

[shfr26]

I ran my show on 107.9 for three years.  I wonder what those people watching were listening to if it does not exist?????

[Orville]

George, don't know if this could have anything to do with it or not, but I'm in very close proximity to two very busy airports and directly in the flight path of both, one being a major airport, the other a smaller one, but seems to be just as busy.  

 

It's only the "digital readout" radios that won't get it too!  

 

Found a couple of old analog dial radios and cranked them up, set my FM transmitter to 107.9 and they picked up the music playing from the computer, but it was horrible sounding, extremely staticy, crackling and such.    So maybe the digital versions can pick it up, I don't know.  Just know on them I can't get the display to stop on anything past `107.7, even if the transmitter is set to 107.9 or 108.0 it acts like they don't exist. 

 

Anyway 107.7, that station is usually crystal clear, but even it has issues in the area where we purchased  our home about 4 years{going on 5}, this clear station has issues getting through in our area. {which really bugs my wife because that's her favorite station in our area}.     I even tried turning off the transmitter to be sure it wasn't my transmitter possibly causing the issue, tried and automatic and manual scan and still could not get the newer radios with the digital displays to stop on those.    So that is weird.  Again, only thing I can think of that could possibly be creating it are the airports, but not anything I can do about that.   Either that or my digital radios just don't like those freq's for some reason....definitely a puzzler.