Dash Radio

[Guest Ray Davis]

On 6/16/2020 at 8:40 AM, pduggs87@gmail.com said:

Off tropic, but has anyone had any luck improving the reception of the OEM Magnadyne radio?  The reception is awful even in the city.

 I suspect it is moisture in the cable , moisture has plagued auto antennas for yrs .

Motorhome reception seems to always be weak though .  I have considered taping a long wire to the roof as an antenna to see if that helped .

[Pduggs]

15 hours ago, Roger S said:

I’m not so sure that the problem is the radio. I experienced poor reception with the Magnadyne. However, we replaced the Magnadyne with the same SoundStream radio as shown in Rob & Amy’s post and had the same poor reception. I think the problem is the rubber ducky antenna on the roof. I need to do some testing and wire chasing to see if I can find the problem or just replace it. I think that will be a good winter project.

Roger
2006 Endeavor PDQ

The poor reception could be the fault of the rubber antenna. I intend to replace it with a metal antenna, to see if that helps. They are relatively cheap. If that doesn’t help, I’ll replace the Magnadyne. 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B007HRVK94/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_6?smid=A35NDGS1SZBSYR&psc=1

14 minutes ago, Ray Davis said:

 I suspect it is moisture in the cable , moisture has plagued auto antennas for yrs .

Motorhome reception seems to always be weak though .  I have considered taping a long wire to the roof as an antenna to see if that helped .

Thanks.  I’ll check that out.
 

My coach is all steel framing. One would think if the antenna is attached to the framing, my whole coach becomes an antenna. 

[eddie4ne]

On 12/10/2019 at 2:04 PM, BennieH said:

I have used Crutchfield.com to replace radios in cars and our C Class when we had it. If my dash radio (Sony) were to need replacement that is who I would go to.

We replaced our Sony with a Sony with BT from crutchfield. They were great with tech support and the cool thing was that the remote in BR plugged into the back of the dash stereo.  The BT is awesome bc we use our cell phones for GPS and to play stored music. GPS turn alerts come through speakers so we have no problem hearing directions!

[David Pratt]

Any of you folks that are Ham Radio or CB enthusiasts I have an AMCOM Penetrator HB150 HF bi-linear amplifier that needs a home.  Has full 80-10 meter amateur band coverage. Modular design with remote plug in control head.

130watts output on am/fm for five watts input. 150 watts output on S.S.B. for 12 watts input. 20db gain,16 amps,efficiency 65%.

Picture attached.

[Moonwink]

My Magnadyne radio with 10 CD changer was great but 10 CDs weren't enough for the average day of driving and even then, changing CDs everyday was a pain.  Who want's to carry their CD library with them?  My solution was to replace the 1.5 DIN Magnadyne with 1 DIN "Dual XDVD156BT" radio.

I had to use this Magnadyne kit to reduce the size of the opening ($25)
https://magnadyne.com/magnadyne-m99xxsdkit-class-a-rv-radio-mounting-adapter-kit/

Dual Electronics XDVD156BT Multimedia Retractable & Detachable 7-inch LED Backlit LCD Touchscreen Single DIN Car Stereo Receiver with Built-in Bluetooth, CD/DVD, USB, microSD Card & MP3 Player
https://www.amazon.com/XDVD256BT-Multimedia-Retroiluminado-Bluetooth-integrado/dp/B0723CL3ZJ/

It only requires the space of 1 DIN and plays fine that way but with the push of a button, you've got a 7" screen.  It took me awhile to rip all my CDs and other music to MP3 format, figure out which ones were my favorites and put them on a micro SD chip.  The radio is capable of reading up to 2000 files (songs) from the chip and I'm pretty close to that.  If figure there's over 20 hours of music there.  I inserted the chip in radio and I now I can listen to the music I love (Golden Oldies and Doo Wop) mostly from the 50s and 60s as I drive.  I never need to search for a station that I can stand (not many oldies on the radio these days), it never fades out or becomes full of static.  The day goes by much faster now and I'm less fatigued at the end of the day.  With the display open, I can see the titles of the songs and their artists while they play. 

I'm a happy camper!

Edited June 18, 2020 by Moonwink

[Rob and Amy Harper]

One thing I forgot to mention - if your dash is like mine, you are going to struggle to find a way to properly support the back of the radio, and the weight of the unit could possibly bounce around and potentially cause damage to the dash material. Mine is thin ABS plastic. This is another reason I went with the SoundStream, it does not have a CD player, and is very shallow and light. I used to install car stereos for a living and you can usually find a way to bend or contort some strap material and attach it to the back of the unit to hold it up once installed, but in my case there was simply no way to do this.

I solved my need for CDs to going SiriusXM. :)  If you install a portable like I did (Mine is the Onyx) you can move it from RV to house to car or whatever, so that it's not a wasted expense when you are not in the RV.

I also have it set up so that I can easily move the output from the head unit to the overhead receiver when we are stationary.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Rob and Amy Harper