I listen to the radio in my car when my husband isn't with me. He doesn't like noise in the car. My car came with Sirius which I never activated since my local stations play music I like, so why pay for it? My old car had a CD player which I used a lot, but my new car doesn't come with one. It seems they are phasing them out and trying to get everyone to pay for music with Sirius. I can see the car manufacturers not installing a radio at all anymore...just push a button for Sirius and that's it. (Shhh, don't repeat that! It might give them ideas.)
A 30 day free trial of Sirius came with this Ranger. I was considering getting it, but wasn't impressed at all with their selections. I'm sure they could have chosen better. The music station my dentist gets on his TV is much better.
I'm retired and hardly ever in my car. It came with a trial subscription to Sirius. I've had XM radio ever since it first came out (I still use one of the original XM radios), and have one in my vehicle since the late 80s. The second subscription is at a discount, and I like listening to their talk radio programs when I am out & about, so I've transferred the vehicle subscription from that first truck to my second truck and now to my Mazda. I don't have pay TV so I kind of rationalize the cost that way. And you're right...the vast majority of what's offered is garbage. I'm embarrassed to admit that the car subscription has XM Traffic Alerts with it, and I have no idea how it works. I guess I should be glad I'm in an area where such a thing is not important to me.
I think a lot of the new cars have a digital input to the audio system using a USB or similar apparatus.
Mine does. There are also built-in apps for both the Droid and the Apple technologies that let you play from your phone, use Pandora, etc. I've never used any of those.
I have a radio on my phone, it's pretty good when I plug my earphones in, I don't like all the adverts though so I don't use it much.
Radio? I remember getting my own portable transistor radio for Christmas in 1960 (?). It was turquoise. Maybe once a month I will try to listen to the radio in the car, and after about 5 minutes I turn it off.
Anyone remember “crystal radios:? @Hoot Crawford reminded me of when I was sporting my new transistor radio and when I showed it to my grandfather. He thought it was pretty nice but his crystal radio didn’t need a battery and only cost him about 10 cents to make. I said my new radio had an earpiece and he said, so does mine. I said my transistor radio played a lot of music and news and stuff. He told me that no matter how much music, news and stuff it played that I could only listen to one station at a time which was all he listened to also. Dern, I gotta quick thinking about those things! Realizing that I’m about 30 years older now than my grandfather was when we were debating about radios…..
I had this exact one: You insert the earpiece, clip the alligator clip to an antenna source (I'd attach mine to a fin on the hot water baseboard heater that ran through the entire house), then pull the metal rod in and out (it slides the entire length) to tune it. I also had one similar to this: It was magic to lay in bed late at night and tune this stuff in.
Someone brought up the issue of Emergency Alerts. Most of them are issued over broadcast radio and TV. If you don't listen or watch local stations, you would miss them. Opinions?