Gardening on the Moon ( GOTM )

Step 5 – Where to buy

This is a decision that I don’t take lightly. I consider the reputation of the reseller, their financial health (will they be there tomorrow should a problem arise), customer ratings and past experience.

I considered purchasing my radio at a car audio specialist even if it cost a little more. I figured they do this and only this for a living so they should be good at it. On the other hand, I read a couple of positive reviews of the Circuit City installation. I understand completely that this strongly depends on the individual store and their employee and that a good job at one of the chain stores doesn’t necessarily mean a good install at another. At the Crutchfield site I read about users who, without much prior experience, installed the radio themselves and although I am not that adventurous, I figured if others can install it themselves, CC should be able to get this right if they install radios on a routine basis. CC has also been publicizing their Firedog installations and considering the positive reviews, I decided to take a chance on the CC install. After all, this wasn’t major surgery. ( Although I did worry whether my windshield wipers and lights would still work after all was said and done.)

CC did the installation and they indicated that I could return the radio within 30 days if I wasn’t satisfied. This gave me an additional level of comfort although I wasn’t sure if there would be a hassle attached to that option if invoked. When offered the extended warranty, I declined because I wasn’t sure CC would be around over that time period. Additionally, I paid for the car radio with my Platinum American Express Card which extends the original manufacturers warranty. This is a security blanket that I have used in the past and thankfully have never had to call upon; at least up to this point.

While the installation was to take about an hour, it took more than twice that amount of time because the bracket used to install the radio didn’t hold it as snuggly as it should have and I persisted in having CC remedy this. The young man who did the installation worked diligently on it and finally improved the fit. It wasn’t perfect, but it was at the point where I thought it would work for me.

Step 6 – Immediate Problems

On the way home, I listened to a commercial CD that I brought with me. It sounded as good as my other radio which wasn’t a surprise. As soon as I got home, I recharged my MP3 player, a real simple Sansa 1GB m240. Once the batteries were charged and inserted, I ran to the car to play the songs. The radio seemed to be trying to read it, but stalled. I then took an older USB drive and loaded songs onto that. The same thing happened with the added insult indicating that there were no compatible files found.

The JVC manual for the radio is a bit obtuse. In other words, it does cover the functions of the radio, but it doesn’t explain them well and the directions are not intuitive. I really had to study some sections and experiment to figure out how to do certain things.

So it was back to the manual and back to the car. After trying several permutations of the directions, the same results continued. I quickly logged on to the JVC site, but couldn’t find any additional helpful information in the FAQs. I immediately sent an email to JVC highlighting the problem and explaining what I had tried that didn’t work. I also called the JVC support center. I spoke to a representative who disappointedly was of little help. He was very quick to say “Then you may have a defective unit.”

NOTE - I generally call and send an email when I have a problem with a new product. If the email gets answered, then I have a written response with potential directions related to the issue. If the email is not answered, I hopefully have derived some helpful information from the person on the call support line. To date I have not received a response to my email.

I turned to the back of the manual and in one of the troubleshooting areas there was a line that suggested appending all the audio files with the extension of their format, i.e. – .wma, .mp3 or .wav. I took this to heart and loaded a few songs on the devices with this modification. I was able to get one USB drive to work with the modified file names. I also noted that this was my newest USB thumb drive so I concluded that the thumb drive had to support the USB 2.0 protocol and was not backward compatible. I also reinitialized the MP3 player and just dragged the revised songs on to it. Success! I then began to experiment and found I could also play songs on an old compact flash card I had for a camera that no longer functions. I just plugged the card reader into the USB slot. I was now in business.

I have had the radio for about twelve weeks now and while I haven’t had time to “play” with all the features, I do like what I have heard so far. I really need to sit in the car with the radio and the manual to tweak the system. Since it is still 110 degrees in Arizona garages, I think I will wait for cooler weather.

Car Stereo: How to Buy – Part I
Car Stereo: How to Buy – Part II

This post was originally published by Gardening on the Moon