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Dear Sir,
I’m writing to you as a fellow engineer, as Mr. Dan Slentz suggested to do, [after] I wrote on Facebook about my experience with a new buy of a pickup truck!
As an engineer involved in the broadcasting industry here in Greece and the neighboring countries, I was doing a test drive of a Ford Ranger pickup truck — [which is] marketed here as limited edition, but it’s an XLT with many extra features.
What has amazed me is the lack of AM radio! The system offers both FM & the EU DAB reception … but has no AM capability.
OK, we all know that AM is not the No. 1 choice, as is also the case with DAB if you think about it, but somebody at Ford should be informed that AM radio broadcasting is still active not only in the U.S. but also in the European continent and almost all EU countries!
And to add to this, last year, more and more EU countries legalized the private AM BCB use, providing local radio station licenses all across Europe, i.e. Netherlands, Italy, Spain, etc. And guess what … there are many professionals out there that still work with and for AM radio stations [and] support going outside on the field to do so, and they are looking for a real good 4×4 pickup truck to buy. But they also need this new one 4X4 pickup to have AM radio at the dashboard!
So, in my opinion, if you are in the broadcast industry and you are looking for a new “workhorse” car, like the one in question here, then no AM radio capability means … no buy of Ford Ranger!
After all, if Ford doesn’t care about it, then I may use my wife’s 2022 Mercedes A200 class that offers both DAB+ and FM, plus the AM band as always! Although it will be somewhat difficult to do so.
Best regards,
— Sotiris Papadimitriou, ASPiSYS Ltd
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