Why does radio suck so badly in Japan

[canman]

I know I know you are thinking to yourself, "for God's sake Canman you've been here 13 years, what took you so long to figure this out". Well you see the reason is my MP3 player has broken and I'm waiting for a new one to ship, so I was forced to listen to the radio in my car. What a bunch of crap. The Dj's never stop talking, they only play about 30 seconds of a song, they have the worst commercials in the world. The only show I'll listen to is J-waves Chris Peplar Sapporo beer Tokyo top 100. Does anybody have any insight into this situation. Of course as soon as the new Video Ipod arrives, I will never have to listen to the radio again, so it may be a moot point. The other thing you have to remember is that I'm in the sticks where we only have three FM stations to choose from, AM 4 and one of those is AFN, from Misawa base, buy they play so damn much country these days it also makes me sick. Rant over.

[FG Lurker]

Radio in Osaka isn't all that much better... We have more stations, but the DJs still talk too much and the commercials are just as shitty.

I listen at times when driving to work, but only to hear the traffic report if the roads seem particularly bad (like in the rain this morning). Otherwise I never do.

I used to use my iPod in the car as well, but the new navi/stereo combo thing I got earlier this year has a built-in juke box. 30GB HDD, 20GB for the navi, 10GB for music. I put in a CD and it rips it automagicly, applying album and track names from a database. Really new CDs aren't in the database but I think it is updateable (just haven't bothered yet.) Now I have 60 or so CDs in the car without having to dig through a stack of them!

[Taro Toporific]

I...in the sticks where we only have three FM stations to choose from, AM 4 and one of those is AFN, from Misawa base, buy they play so damn much country these days it also makes me sick.

Hey, at least AFN Misawa is broadcasting. The wacko/criminals at AFN Tokyo have been going off the air from 10am to 3pm everyday for "repairs" since last year.

[Greji]

Hey, at least AFN Misawa is broadcasting. The wacko/criminals at AFN Tokyo have been going off the air from 10am to 3pm everyday for "repairs" since last year.

That again is for the repair of the antenna which ain't been right since they moved it from South Camp Drake (Asaka) to Yokota Air Plane Patch. They have to override the former Soviet Station which was placed right on top of their 810 wave length to be able to jam them, if necessary during the cold war. I assume this is to ensure their output is consistant with the 60,000 (?) watts that it is suppose to be, cause at night all you hear is Russian or North Korean.