The Golden Age of Wireless : How You can Get It into Your Car

• Beaming into satellite radio
• The second coming of terrestrial radio
• Getting HD Radio in your ride
• Getting to know Bluetooth technology

The very first entertainment technology to hit the road was radio — and for years it was the only one. AM and later FM provided music, news, weather, and other info to enhance cruising around town and to break the boredom of a long road trip. After other formats began to allow drivers to listen to what they wanted instead of what the DJ wanted to play, radio lost some of its supremacy as king of the road.

But in the last few years, modern technology has breathed new life into this age-old format. Satellite radio offers quality sound and hundreds of commercial-free channels of music, news, sports, weather, traffic, and more. HD Radio also has CD-quality sound and hidden sub-frequencies that offer alternative, largely commercial-free programming. Plus, unlike satellite radio, HD radio is free.

And there’s a new wireless technology increasingly creeping into cars: Bluetooth. Originally designed for hands-free mobile phone use behind the wheel, Bluetooth’s Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) promises to issue in a new era in wireless entertainment.

In this chapter, I delve into the latest in radio, including satellite and HD Radio, and how you can get it into your car. I also take a look at how Bluetooth is expanding from mobile phone to mobile music applications and what it means to the car audio enthusiast. 

Music of the Spheres: Satellite Radio

The introduction of satellite radio in the early part of the twenty-first century was the most significant change to the medium since FM became popular in the 1970s. It was also the first time people were asked to pay for radio, which up until that time been free.

Analogies were made to the launch of cable TV in the 1970s, which has since proved to be wildly popular. Although satellite radio hasn’t experienced the pervasive popularity of cable TV, it has changed the way people think about radio and what the medium can offer — and racked up millions of subscribers in the process. And satellite radio makes a lot of sense for the car: Besides entertainment programming and news, the service can also provide up-to-the-minute and accurate traffic information.

XM Satellite Radio (see Figure 8-1) launched in late 2001, offering 100 channels of basic programming for $9.99 per month. Sirius Satellite Radio (see Figure 8-2) entered service about six months later, with a basic subscription charge of $12.95 per month and the same number of channels. (XM now charges $12.95/month for 175 channels and Sirius the same for more than 130 channels.)

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Courtesy of XM Satellite Radio

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SATELLITE RADIO

THE BEST RADIO ON RADIO

Courtesy of Sirius Satellite Radio

Soon after these companies were born, aftermarket car audio companies began siding with one satellite radio provider or the other to offer tuners that could receive the service. XM and Sirius also aligned with car companies as part of their marketing plans to take the service mainstream.

XM has since partnered with Acura, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Ferrari, GMC, Honda, Hummer, Hyundai, Infiniti, Isuzu, Lexus, Lotus, Nissan, Pontiac, Porsche, Saab, Saturn, Scion, Subaru, Suzuki, and Toyota. Sirius has linked 

with Audi, Bentley, BMW, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford, Infiniti, Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover, Lexus, Lincoln BMW, Maybach, Mazda, Mercedes, MINI, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Scion, Subaru, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Volvo.

Both companies offer a free trial period for buyers of new cars equipped with their respective services, hoping that after these drivers have a taste of satellite radio, they’ll continue with their subscriptions. According to industry sources, the take rate on continued subscriptions has been a little more than 50 percent.

But the car audio aftermarket is the source for adding satellite radio to an existing car or system, and there have never been more options for getting the service. Plus, more car audio companies have become non-partisan towards satellite radio and now offer ways to get either or both services using their equipment. For example, some of Alpine and Pioneer CD head units can now tune in one or both services.

Plus, when satellite radio was first introduced, a bulky tuner box and a large, unsightly antenna was needed to access the service. But today, the tuners are often built into a head unit with the addition of a tiny chip, and antennas have shrunk significantly as well. Plus, there are numerous portable options that can be easily added to a vehicle’s sound system. For example, both XM and Sirius offer portable radios that you can use anywhere, just like an MP3 player (in fact, some have built-in MP3 players) in a home while docked into an entertainment system, or anywhere else while docked in boom box These portables can be integrated into a vehicle as well.

In the latest development, the two satellite radio companies, XM and Sirius, are seeking to merge to form one company, pending government approval. Regardless of the outcome, satellite radio is yet another way that the modern car audio enthusiast can enjoy hours and hours of great music, entertainment, news, weather, sports, and traffic info behind the wheel.

What's the Frequency, Kenneth HD Radio for All Boils Down to Better Sound

HD Radio (see Figure 8-3) probably would have come to pass even if satellite radio didn’t begin to pose a threat to traditional terrestrial or land-based broadcasters. But from the beginning, HD Radio was heavily promoted as a “free” alternative to satellite radio. The mobile-music listener is the real winner in the radio wars because it all boils down to better sound and more choices for in-car listening.' 

Figure 8-3: The HD Radio logo. 

Courtesy of HD Radio 

What HD Radio is

With HD Radio, a digital signal piggybacks onto regular analog radio broadcasts. Because the HD Radio signal is digital, FM can potentially sound as good as a CD and AM as good as FM. Plus, there’s virtually no static, drop-offs, hiss, or the other noises or reception problems associated with analog radio broadcast.

An HD Radio station can also offer multicasting meaning it can broadcast separate programming on a sub-frequency of its allotted spot on the dial, which can only be picked up by an HD tuner. Most stations use the sub-frequencies to broadcast largely commercial-free programming that’s much like satellite radio. For example, a country station in Portland, Oregon provides a subfrequency that broadcasts blues programming, whereas a smooth jazz station in Miami offers classical music as its multicasting option.

Another advantage of HD Radio is that information such as artist name and song title as well as weather and traffic alerts and even stock quotes can be sent with a signal and shown on the radio’s display. And HD Radio promises to provide many other features in the future, including

Real-time traffic reports Surround sound

Store-and-replay functions that allow rewinding a song or even recording an entire program to play back later

On-demand news and information

Buy buttons that allow purchasing everything from music to products advertised on a station

Where you can yet it

HD Radio is available in the top 100 media markets in the U.S. and in 188 markets altogether. For a listing of the stations that carry HD programming, go to www. hdradio. com on the Web. 

How you can get it

Alpine, Eclipse, JVC, Kenwood, Panasonic, and Sony offer aftermarket HD Radio products. Some have HD Radio built into their head units, whereas others allow you to add it to a head unit with the addition of an extra-cost tuner box. Directed Electronics’ Car Connect HD Radio (see Figure 8-4) is a tuner and display/controller with an FM modulator that can be added to any vehicle. Automotive electronics supplier Visteon also offers two add-on options. So far, only BMW offers HD Radio as a factory-installed option on the OEM side, but Jaguar, Mini, and Hyundai will offer it on 2008 models.

Figure 8-4:

Directed Electronics' Car Connect HD Radio tuner can be connected to any existing car radio.

Courtesy of Directed Electronics

Linking in With Bluetooth for Safe Mobile-phone Use Behind The Wheel

You’ve probably heard the term Bluetooth and may even know what it means. But you probably didn’t know that it was named after a medieval Scandinavian king who reportedly had a penchant for eating blueberries.

Bluetooth is the strange name (coined by the Swedish mobile phone company, Erricson, which developed he technology) for technology that uses a short-range network to wirelessly connect electronic components. It’s been a huge hit in the mobile-phone market because it allows hands-free operation. You probably best know it from people you see walking around with those futuristic-looking headsets, seemingly talking to themselves. But it has expanded into everything from computer printers to photo frames that display digital pictures. 

But it’s in the car for hands-free mobile phone use that Bluetooth has really caught on with consumers because it’s a natural for safe mobile-phone use behind the wheel. But in some states it’s more of a requirement than a convenience if you want to talk while driving. At the time of this writing, Connecticut, New Jersey, Utah, Washington, and California (starting in July 2008) have all banned handheld phone use by a driver. Washington, D.C. has also outlawed drivers yakking on handheld cell phones, as have many municipalities. More are sure to follow, which bodes well for Bluetooth.

Bluetooth head units

With more mobile phones including Bluetooth these days, it’s become standard equipment or an option on many new cars. It’s also a popular add-on car accessory. Aftermarket Bluetooth kits that add hands-free mobile phone capability to a car range from simple plug-and-play kits that can move from vehicle to vehicle, to fully wired applications that automatically mute a car’s audio system when a call comes in and plays the call over the car’s speakers (see Figure 8-5).

Figure 8-5:

Parrot's MK6100 Bluetooth kit will automati-cally answer a call and has A2DP capability.

Courtesy of Parrot

Bluetooth is also increasingly available as a feature on many car audio head units. It can either be added on via a separate adaptor or built-in. Bluetooth is now available in high- to middle-end car audio head units, but the feature will eventually trickle down to lower-priced head units (see Figure 8-6).

But Bluetooth isn’t just for phones anymore. Several accessories manufacturers offer products that allow adding Bluetooth wireless capability to iPods and other MP3 players so that they can play over aftermarket and even stock car audio systems.

Bluetooth A2DP

As more Bluetooth mobile phones, PDAs, and smart phones double as music players (such as Motorola ROKR with iTunes built in), and more MP3 players begin to incorporate Bluetooth, the technology is poised to break into the music business. That’s if A2DP catches on with consumers, which allows music from a compatible device to be sent wirelessly to an A2DP-compatible stereo receiver.

Wireless Bluetooth speakers for home stereos with A2DP technology have started to appear, and now car stereos are starting to cut the cord as well. The latest Bluetooth head units from Pioneer (Figure 8-7) have built-in A2DP capability, which allows for hands-free phone use as well as wireless stream¬ing of music from an A2DP device. This could be just the beginning of a larger trend because more people are bringing phones and portable media players (PMPs) — or a combination of the two — into their vehicles, and Bluetooth is catching on like wildfire. If these trends continue, and they should, expect to see A2DP become more widespread, offering the ability to cut the cord between a car stereo and a PMP or a mobile phone/MP3 player with A2DP onboard. 

Figure 8-7:

Pioneer's Premier DEH- P790BT offers built in Bluetooth capability with A20P music streaming.