(meteorobs) Re: Radio accompaniment

[Richard Kramer]

At 12:50 AM 1/11/2006, you wrote:
>A car radio actually drains very little energy so unless your car 
>battery is well past its prime, starting your vehicle several times 
>during a watch would actually drain more energy than it replenishes.

This comment about the drain by a car radio is quite correct. 
However, it is an unfortunate fact that many, if not most, "modern" 
cars do not provide an accessory position for the ignition switch. 
This means that to operate the radio in such a car, one is forced to 
turn on the ignition system. The battery drain can be considerable 
when the ignition system is activated while the engine is not running 
which is why it can be easy to run down a battery while "only" 
listening to the radio. "Features" like this are brought to you by 
the same geniuses who decided that your air conditioner should come 
on automatically whenever you activate your defroster if the outside 
air temperature is above 45F. (I could go on and on about the suite 
of infuriating features which come standard in late model "smart" 
cars. I find it difficult to understand why people seem so willing to 
spend on the order of 10^5 US dollars to purchase machines which 
dispense tortures of this sort.)

Richard