And there was no on line manual

Also I used to be able to do this but I'm so old I wouldn't remember how either.

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be possible in my country as all the radio stations switched to digital and phased out analog.

This thing would be great at picking up cosmic microwave background by that's about it.
- BBC World service is still broadcasting on AM :)
- I've got all my presets set to Azathoth.
Pull out the button set a channel and push it in, it's possible that they need to be lowest to highest frequency, but that could just be the only way we ever did it lol
- I vaguely recall pushing in two buttons at once to get them both to pop out, but maybe that was something else.
I used to have to replace a rubber belt in my cassette player every 6 to 8 months towards the end of my first car. Now I could probably figure it out but there's a good chance I'd fuck it up a few times first. Time can be a harsh mistress.

Trick question: none of the stations are worth listening to.

Kids don't even use radio. They don't know what stations even are. Mine don't even know what live TV is.

Tell them it's like a livestream but all the time

Of course I can program it. I have no idea how to do so right now, but if you gave it to me I could fiddle with it for a few minutes and figure it out.

Websites used to be like this. I hate modernity.

Pull the button you want to "program" out, then push it all the way back in.

Yeah and the preset mechanism was mechanical, which is pretty wild.
- That was the fascinating part. Only by actually using one you could feel it pull to the station via a literal string inside. Apparently (some/most) auto sunroofs work in a similar way, and you do not want to break that cord.

Hey old farts, no hate, but the reason kids these days don't know how to use old technology is because it's not practical anymore. We've simple moved on to better things as a society and no longer need to bang rocks together to make fire. Now this progressions may not be in all cases good, since it has, in part, atomized our society and divided us against ourselves, but don't pretend like spin dials were the peak of ergonomic design. Sometimes you gotta admit that just because you grew up with it, doesn't mean it was better than what we have today.

Have you used a volume knob, an ipod, bmw idrive or its clones? Spin dials still are the peak of ergonomic design...

Removal of physical dials in cars is one really good example of progress in tech causing worse design for the sake of cost savings and aesthetics.
- Yeah cars have been victim to a bunch of over modernizations, I'll say that, otherwise though I'm generally just trying to say the mentality of "these kids can't use a ____" is kind of nonsensical.
- This is the example I use to remind myself that not all progress is forward, but it's still progress.

Spin one of the doodads until the station you wish for is properly locked

Yeah but how to you lock the station into a specific button
- You don't... Even when it's "programmed" it'll still slide a bit short or long & you have to find tune it.
  
  Source: I'm an old fart
- It’s been decades, but… you press the button, spin to the station, then release the button?
  
  Am I remembering correctly or should I check into the home now?

Doesn't matter what you do or don't program.
When you push a button, you'll hear right-wing propaganda

Back in the day our AM stations had local programming. Mostly call in talk shows that covered issues both local and far. The hosts would describe themselves as conservative but they were way more tame than the shit today. Then Rush Limbaugh went national.
- There is only two flavors of AM radio I've ever heard (having been born in 1985):
  
  Christian talk
  
  24/7 Traffic reporting
  
  I would have liked to have been around when AM radio was exactly as described by the song AM Radio by Everclear.
NPR is pretty great for left leaning media.

no online manual

I'll bet you there's a manual for this exact radio available.

Also, there is the car manual which pretty much covers everything.

... which was easy, because each button had exactly one function, and there where only 6 buttons on the dashboard.
- I count 7 here: frequency, stations (x5) and volume.

You don't need an online manual when there's an in glovebox manual.

You don't need a manual at all - you just push the buttons in farther than usual, or pull them out instead of in depending upon the model.
- How did you know without the manual? I used to read the manual cover to cover many times because what else are you going to do on a car ride?
- I had to download a PDF manual of my most recent car because I actually like knowing how to use it correctly.

When I was a kid, I got pissed at my dad for something and reset all the stations, thinking it would throw him for a loop. He noticed what I had done almost immediately, fixed them all in about 5-10 seconds and looked at me like I was stupid.

Now reset his router and see if he can get reconnected in < 30 seconds LOL
- Some of us "old timers" have a foot in both worlds. I grew up with some cars like this, but also with the birth of computers, so I can appreciate the old and new. I will admit keeping up these days is hard and I don't know much of what's out there, but I feel I can understand the basics and not be totally lost.
  
  My dad on the other hand was genius with mechanical stuff. Could rebuild an engine, weld, draw up plans and construct things, including a house. He was totally lost in the computer world though, including the idea of the internet, no matter how much I dumbed it down or used analogies.
  
  I've also seen younger people at work who can work a smart phone like magic, yet also would not know how to restart a router or recover from/avoid a computer virus.

I had assumed that you hold the button in, like a digital radio from the 90s.

https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/how-did-the-old-push-button-radios-work.64445/

I was assuming one of the end ones is the memory button that stays pushed and then you depress the one you want set to the current station which resets both buttons to neutral position. Then one press on the button you programmed moves the needle to the spot from wherever it is

And by assuming I mean trying to remember the earliest car I can remember my parents having.
- It was either push or pull. I've seen both. Some had you push it in really far, but made that last bit that set it really difficult to push (to avoid doing it by accident, I guess), or more commonly you'd pull the button outwards to set it (the button was basically hollow at the end so your finger could go in to hold on and pull).

Bro you can just Google it, it's alright to ask for help

This is the dumbest thing I've seen...well I was gonna say all day, but I just read about florida sex ed not teaching sex ed and there are levels.

my library had manuals for most common car makes and models. couldn't check em out, but could photocopy the pages you need.

Manual? Kids today would probably need a YouTube tutorial.

"Hey scuzbits! It's me, Scuz! Today on 'old ass cars' we are looking at how to program this OLD ASS car radio. But first SMASH that subscribe button and ring the bell!"

"And now to our sponsor NordVPN. You want to listen to a station but the signal is too weak?"
I mean back when youtube loaded quickly and wasn't chock full of spammy ads and self promotion, this was a lot more convenient for a lot of things than trying to find a text tutorial (with good pictures if you were lucky). Some things id definitely rather have the instructions there on the page where i can refer back and check them, but for a lot of quick tasks it was way simpler to just search on youtube and watch a 30 second video of someone doing it. These days that 30 second video would be 10+ minutes with multiple ads and sponsor call outs though.

MILLENNIALS BAD

Millennials probably the last generation that will remember (vaguely at least) things like vcr's, cassette/cd-dvd and floppy disks. Millennials were positioned in an in-between time of rapid tech advancement.
- Millennials doesn't mean kids alove during the turn of the millennium to old fucks. It just means "kids these days"

It literally works the same as it does now. At least, to the user. The differences are entirely behind the scenes and wouldn't matter. 🤦‍♂️

A was never able to do it correctly :(

I had to do that yesterday cause the power went out and my dad wanted to use the radio, but couldn't find the station. Got it the first try 😚

Boomers being boomers