New Unit Makes Car Listening Easy
A major innovation in car radio technology, tuning by format rather than by station, soon will be available at a price within the reach of many consumers--$300.
Pierre Schwob, who developed the ID Logic technology and is president of PRS Corp., which licenses it to manufacturers, said that Panasonic will begin production next week of the CQ-ID60. It should be in stores by May, he said.
Panasonic was first on the market with a car radio, the CQ-ID90, that can be tuned by format. Introduced last year, the model initially sold for $700 but now goes for $500. The cheaper CQ-ID60 is an improvement, Schwob said, because, unlike last year’s model, it has built-in amplifiers and it’s a pull-out--meaning you can take it out of the front panel to avoid theft.
Here’s how format tuning works: You select one of six formats--country, rock, jazz, easy listening, talk or classical--and then you can tune in all the stations in the area that feature that format. The unit also functions like a traditional radio, in which you can tune in any station of your choice.
The format tuning works wherever you are in the country, which is especially convenient if you’re driving in an unfamiliar area and don’t know which stations are which.
This can be done because stored in ID Logic’s computer chips are the call letters and formats of about 10,000 FM and AM stations in 4,300 cities around the country--all that broadcast with more than one kilowatt of power. As you drive from one city to another, you program in your new location and the radio automatically finds the stations with the format you want.
“This sounds like just a radio for people who travel a lot, but even in your own city, it’s easier to find what you want if the stations are grouped by format,” Schwob said in a phone interview from his home in Hong Kong.
The technology is surprisingly inexpensive. Schwob said that it adds only about $8-$10 to the cost of manufacturing the radio, which translates to about $25-$30 at retail.
There are two potential drawbacks for consumers. One is that the owner may want to listen to a format other than the primary six. “The chips we developed originally don’t have the capability of allowing the user to chose (more) specific formats,” Schwob explained. “On future radios we’ll leave one key open to be programmed by the user according to a variety of formats--religious, Spanish, sports, news or whatever.”
The other problem is that stations do occasionally change formats, which will make the information in the radio outdated to some degree. But Schwob maintained that the turnover rate is small enough that, after three years, for instance, 88% of the information would still be accurate. Beyond that, he said, when such changes occur, the consumer can program in new format information by punching certain keys.
PRS Corp. updates data stored on the chips every six months, so that new radios will have the latest information.
Regarding future plans, Schwob said that he’s already licensed Mitsubishi to use the technology and hopes to close deals soon with JVC and Alpine.
Schwob hasn’t cornered the market on format-tuning technology in the car-radio market. Radio Data Service is now available in Europe and has plans to come to the United States. However, it offers only FM stations and requires radio stations to install special equipment--which isn’t necessary with ID Logic.
