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Radio Station Seeker

for road trips
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If you drive a hundred miles along a major freeway, you'll notice that your preset radio station buttons don't work anymore. The reason: people who live 100 miles away from you weren't smart enough to maintain the same radio stations at the same frequencies you have around your place.

The Radio Station Seeker would have two receivers -- one for the station you currently listen to and the other one would constantly scan the radio spectrum. This second receiver would be equipped with a pattern-recognition computer, so it would be able to detect the type of radio station you like: metal, classic, jazz, rock... even hip-hop!

Then, once the reception of your current station gets crappy, the radio will automatically switch to one of the stations it discovered in your new location, so you won't have to scan stations while driving, thus pleasing not only your musical taste, but the accident statistics as well.

It could also have a "no repetition" mode, intended for daily commute use, that would prevent any song from playing more than once each day, automatically switching to another station... Which would also skip ads that you've already heard, by the way.

xipetotec, Apr 09 2007

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       One of the (only) nice things about driving distances is observing radio broadcasts as representative of local culture.   

       What do you get when you *stop* listening to country and western music? You get your dog back, your truck back, your house back, your wife back ...
nuclear hobo, Apr 10 2007
  

       You _will_ random DJ chit-chat about the cute local events as well as local ads. Just one ad of a kind per day, so you'll get even a greater sample than when listening to just one station.
xipetotec, Apr 10 2007
  

       My first pickup truck had a twelve foot ariel - I mean airiel - er, aerial that the seller boasted would let me "pick up Radio Moscow".   

       Maybe, but only if they played country music. The truck had belonged to an old farmer for thirty years, and the only stations it WOULD pick up were country, even if you were across the street from another kind of station.
normzone, Apr 12 2007
  
      
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