How to avoid repeated reset of audio system

[ghanesdvm]

My 2014 FC has the Sony sound system which I don't particularly like because the nobs and controls are difficult to use and often unresponsive. I've tried to master it so I can program various things like Don't Display Demo, memorized stations, etc. But every time I disconnect the AS batteries for service (trickle charge, clean posts, etc), the SONY seems to "forget" these settings and I have to program again. Am I missing something? Yes, I do need to be smarter than a radio. Just wish there was a way to retain the settings or keep power going to the SONY. Please help this old guy. If there's a better unit, please give specifics.

Thanks.

[waninae39]

the same issue with our JVC player
maybe none of them have a super CAPs to store stations and setting (;

[KK4YZ]

Originally Posted by waninae39

the same issue with our JVC player
maybe none of them have a super CAPs to store stations and setting (;

I think most of the automotive type stereos will lose setup/stations when you disconnect from 12VDC. There might be exceptions. After all, computers use a
Small battery to maintain setup info.

Check around and see if anyone makes a model like that. In my opinion any replacement for the sound system in the AS is an upgrade.

[Mollysdad]

Originally Posted by ghanesdvm

Am I missing something?

No.
Remember all those "parasitic" draws we all devise battery disconnects to stop? This is one of them. So in your case, the small draw on the battery is keeping the radio memory.
Now, is there a better radio that doesn't require a battery connection for memory. I'll say a qualified "yes". I'm sure there's one with a battery in the circuit board (like your computer uses), or some method of storing the presets in memory not requiring power.
But, someone will have to jump in. It's not something that the manufacturer will brag about in their ads.

However, I did a bit of Googling and found this:
It's a cigarette lighter plug with a 9v. battery on the other end. Something to keep power on the circuit.
https://www.amazon.com/APSG-OBD11-Ba...WFA5Q5RVT6FE3C

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by ghanesdvm

My 2014 FC has the Sony sound system . . .
. . .
. . . Just wish there was a way to retain the settings or keep power going to the SONY. Please help this old guy. If there's a better unit, please give specifics.

Thanks.

Same 2014 FC20 here, but with a Pioneer unit . . . same problem. Bob [CruzinDux] has your radio as I recall. [see his posts in threads linked below]

The late idroba posted on these lamentable parasitic electrical draws, and coined the phrase "disco light show" for the Pioneer face plate, which not only draws a lot of juice, but is also very annoying at night [even if the upper cabinet door is closed!] He installed a manual on/off switch in the upper cabinet as I recall.

[click on orange arrows to go to these other posts/threads]

Originally Posted by idroba

I have the same damn radio.
. . .

Originally Posted by idroba

Yes, every time power is totally removed from the radio, it reverts to it's disco ball flashing lights demonstration mode and there seems to be no way to change that. So, each time you use the Use/Store switch with no 120 volt power you have to re set the radio to stop it's flashing lights. And of course remember how to do that.

I am not near my FC 20 now, so I can't tell you how to stop it, each time I have to look and fiddle to make it shut down the lights. It is a truly stupid design. BTW, mine is behind a cabinet door and you can't see the lights, so it is very very easy to cycle the use/store switch for some reason (or just brush against it) and not realize the lights are on, taking almost a full amp to run them (and run the battery down). To prevent that from happening by accident, I would up putting a second positive off switch on the radio 12 volt input line. I only turn it on with that switch so it can't go into an unseen disco dance mode very easily now.

In our FC20 we manually remove the radio's face plate, and then have to re-program the pre-sets. If we used the trailer more, a new radio would be much easier. The on/off manual switch is still a good idea IMO. We also bring a small portable radio for local AM/FM reception, so we avoid using the AS battery power entirely.

Good luck,

Peter

PS -- Rest in Peace, idroba. Thank you for years of gentle expert advice.

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f161...ba-150067.html

[Mollysdad]

Originally Posted by OTRA15

We also bring a small portable radio for local AM/FM reception, so we avoid using the AS battery power entirely.

Really? Tell me more.
I like a radio on in the bedroom at night. So I bought a nice AM/FM portable Sangean. However, reception is terrible, and I chalked it up to being in a Faraday cage, surrounded by metal.
Short of an external antenna, have you found a solution?
My radio has a single screw marked "Antenna". But it's never mentioned in the manual. I assume I'd attach a long wire and throw it out the window.

[OTRA15]

If the radio can "see" the radio station's broadcast antenna through a window, it works better. We have the same single place to attach an antenna, and Radio Shack used to sell them. [I remember having some as a kid.] For now, local stations come in fine. There are probably some posts here about external antennas like this for radios . . . I will look later.

Peter

PS -- edit -- some of these search results look promising.

https://www.google.com/search?q=radi...=airforums.com

[Voltair]

Most cars since 2000 are equipped with ECU computers to make our maintance free lives well " simple" your radio is expecting to be part off that grand plan. On the other side my 1987 AS 345 has a Sony Radio that when I turn it off it does just that till I decide otherwise then everything is as befor.
My X car went into Super Lock Down because it could and just felt like it, doors, windows, engine, steering exept the side lights flashed just too finish off the battery for good measure. Took some spotty faced kid to program that logic in the first place then it took us a week to satisfy The Great One "ECU" to get it too move again.
I'm sure there is a leason here but I fear its going to get much worse. I'm starting to get startled by reading some new model issues here on airforums!
So I dont think you kow how lucky you are to have such a puny problem to solve.
Regarding arials in our Mobile Faraday Cages I bought a Tiviola Model One Radio built in the US designed by a Dutchman in the old style n function off valve radios but all solid state 110v 12v. Drilled a 6mm hole in floor fed through a 50 ohm Coax cable attatched it to a 50ft long wire through a pulley n weight, a dog bone at each end to two trees (optional) can pull in BBC World Service Local small AM stations SW aswell, very clearly but dosnt seem to help FM thoe.
Rus

[CruizinDux]

Originally Posted by OTRA15

Same 2014 FC20 here, but with a Pioneer unit . . . same problem. Bob [CruzinDux] has your radio as I recall. [see his posts in threads linked below]

The late idroba posted on these lamentable parasitic electrical draws, and coined the phrase "disco light show" for the Pioneer face plate, which not only draws a lot of juice, but is also very annoying at night [even if the upper cabinet door is closed!] He installed a manual on/off switch in the upper cabinet as I recall.

[click on orange arrows to go to these other posts/threads]

In our FC20 we manually remove the radio's face plate, and then have to re-program the pre-sets. If we used the trailer more, a new radio would be much easier. The on/off manual switch is still a good idea IMO. We also bring a small portable radio for local AM/FM reception, so we avoid using the AS battery power entirely.

Good luck,

Peter

PS -- Rest in Peace, idroba. Thank you for years of gentle expert advice.

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f161...ba-150067.html

Peter thanks, I do not remember seeing his picture. I was thinking of him today as I'm starting the route planning on our ME trip. We will be going thru ID and could not remember where he lived and wanted to pay my respects and leave a prayer. RIP idroba. You will not be forgotten.


Thanks too for the middle link as I have been meaning to call Dave & Nancy. excerpted in idroba's post.



As for the light show, I used to turn the use off when the batts were topped off and on SP. but then I read doug's post #5 (Dkottum) http://www.airforums.com/forums/f449...on-148837.html


I have not been able to verify what he said but it makes sense to me. If true it makes no sense to use the store switch as long as you are on SP AND using 12V. The on/off approach makes sense if you're boondocking so you can at least control/turn off 1 of the three likley P-Draws. In our unit propane det and sub-woofer being the other two.


I thought about the switch when swapping the blue ray for the Walley, but saw the birds nest and said no way I'm touching that nest behind the radio. Not a big deal anymore, as 1) I keep it in use, presets are worthless as they and pretty location based 3) the override is simple and lasts until the batts get pulled.


Here is my Sony quick ref notes for often used...light show and USB for music


To program the stereo to “Demo ~ OFF”…meaning no light show or commercial.
1. Press and hold (for a few seconds) the MW (multi-way) encoder (big Button). Apparently no secret handshake required.
2. PUSH the MW Encoder UP/DOWN to select the desired menu item (of which Demo is one of many options), then push right to setting
3. Push the MW Encoder up/down to select the setting (off in the case of Demo), then press it (the MW Encoder) to switch to ON or OFF
4. Press the MODE (return icon) button twice to return to the normal reception/play mode.


USB flash drive or MP3
1) Insert external USB flash drive or MP3
2) Press SOURCE/OFF repeatedly until USB appears and then press MODE (return icon) to switch to the USB device (External or Internal)
3) Press Q (blue button) to switch to ALBUMS OR FOLDERS
4) PUSH MW (Multi-Way) Encoder UP/Down to scroll thru and select the category) ALBUMS OR FOLDERS etc.
5) Press MW Encoder to “save” ALBUMS OR FOLDERS. It should start to play

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by Voltair

. . .
. . . Drilled a 6mm hole in floor fed through a 50 ohm Coax cable attatched it to a 50ft long wire through a pulley n weight, a dog bone at each end to two trees (optional) can pull in BBC World Service Local small AM stations SW aswell, very clearly but dosnt seem to help FM thoe.
Rus

Thanks, Rus, good to know about this option. We have been considering getting a good international-band radio.

Peter

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by CruizinDux

. . .
. . . the override is simple and lasts until the batts get pulled . . .
. . .

Wish our Pioneer were just as easy, to defeat the "disco light show" after each battery "Store" excursion.



As mentioned, we are looking at getting a really good [$$$] portable international-band radio, and moving into more of a KISS zone for entertainment. Maybe downgrading the cell phones into the same zone?

Happy trails . . . hope your trip south was great!

Peter

[CruizinDux]

Originally Posted by OTRA15

Wish our Pioneer were just as easy, to defeat the "disco light show" after each battery "Store" excursion.

Peter

That's just it. Based on Doug 's post, while otr, we stay in use.
Bob

PS, trip s...Paso is always a good trip. Thx. Hope you enjoyed HH. It looks like a great beach!

[Voltair]

Hopefully Ghansddve radio has been remedied by some helpfull inf above eg CD.
Peter , regarding International Recievers I have only just started but I sat down and asked myself what was or wasn't wanted. I don't want to listen to a couple ol roosters crowing across the distant airways, or manually swing on a knob hour after hour, so something that can scan, something you can programe a time table off transmission scheduals that come on automaticly, something that dosn't require tracking down rare replacment valve's or dried up capacitors. So old is out! I did test a SDR Software Defined Radio USB device that uses your Laptop to behave like a full Ham radio. They have the luxury of the screen to give you a waterfall display off all the signals out there. Nice but my Quad core 64 bit machine ended generating a lot off heat, so maybe not such a practical solution. Although there are hardware SDR's that do the heavy lifting but tend to be $300 - $2000.
So here is the thing that worked for me DRM Digital Radio Monodiale a European thing I have heard samples Luxomberg/ Austria/ DW you hear shortwave but not as you know it, but as HiFi mono clean and clear.its bounced around the word in the usual maner , in a packeted form, gets picked up by your DRM complient radio and decodes the signal! So to date on the lookout for a simple solid state DRM/SW RADIO.
The arial and arial tuner is more than half off it I have started with that sofar.
You mayhave known most off the above but I' m learning, hopefully not the hard way can an is expensive...
Rus

[OTRA15]

Thanks Rus for the details . . . which are unfortunately beyond my knowledge base.

Will probably will go with an off-the-shelf unit like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Sangean-ATS-9...gateway&sr=8-6

. . . with an external antenna as discussed before.

Any insights on Sangean vs. Crane radios like this?
________________________________________________

Bob, are you going to start a new thread for the trip planning? Had a couple of ideas.

Originally Posted by CruizinDux

Peter thanks, I do not remember seeing his picture. I was thinking of him today as I'm starting the route planning on our ME trip.
. . .

________________________________________________

Thanks guys,

Peter

[Voltair]

Peter, couple things or more. I needed a small wooden cabnet table top radio for tone and quality off sound with a big simple fine tuning knob. We go back to the original OP these new fangelled things are made for 20/20 and not a generous sound on the ear and complicated to boot.Finicky buttons n menue, aughhh
Thats just me, I just retired my Sony sw100 very similar. These type radios don't respond well to simple Long Wire arials .

At times I work alone, at the moment plowing one off the back feilds Large Agricultural tractor with impliments or for that matter working under my AS 345 can get stuck or worse, my other radio I drag around with me is these US Red Cross emergency radios , hand crank, silren, took me a bit to figure out why you'd need the latter.
But saying all that, they do the job, problem only occure when you put things in comparison then buyer remorse can kick in.
I buy older generation quality stuff off EBAY and US made if at all posible Robust Simple Reliable Fixable Reselable.....
Rus

[upnorththree]

Sorry friend to hear of your issue.
I know it's of no value today but, maybe tomorrow.

I have stopped buying anything with SONY stamped on it. Just sick and tired of issues.

I own armband radios, marine radio, boom box, to a 4k ultra 65 inch TV and it is just issue after issue with any SONY product.

Just last week I tried to pair the 4k TV with brand new bluetooth headphones. The headphones pair great with my Samsung smartphone, my Lenovo laptop but not with the 65 inch TV. SONY's answer was . . . . get ready, the TV was not designed to pair with any headphones. A $2500 late model TV won't pair to headphones or speakers.

NO MORE SONY.

[OrangeCrush]

ghanesdvm,
We have a 2017 25FB Flying Cloud which I recently did a complete stereo upgrade on. I too was frustrated with the stereo head unit loosing it's brains when in store mode (ours was Clarion M303), so I decided to design a circuit for it (I am a retired EE) which you or other might like to try.

After lots of investigating my conclusion was all car stereo head units work pretty much the same and are designed for a continuous power source by keeping program settings in volatile RAM rather than a flash memory. There is a power line (usually yellow) and an accessory line from ignition (usually red). Power line needs to be constantly sourced in order to maintain memory. Airstream (at least in mine) connects the red and yellow line together to the +12v after a 15A fuse from the fuse box which is turned off when in store mode. In addition to losing memory when in store mode, you also can have excessive current draw in non-store mode due to the fact most head units are not actually off but are in standby when the red accessory line is active.

I solved this problem with the circuit below which I am including part numbers used should you decide you would like to build it yourself. When in non-store mode, this circuit provides power to the head through D1 which has a low voltage drop and the red accessory line is energized to allow the stereo to turn on. When in store mode, the red accessory line is off so the stereo can't be turned on and a memory maintenance current is supplied to the yellow power line from BT1 through D2-D4. D1 is chosen for low drop and sized for the maximum possible. D2-D4 are chose to make sure they can handle enough current and guarantee the voltage of BT1 always looks lower that than the main battery voltage when not in store mode. F1 and F2 are important to guarantee no problems should a component fail (i.e. diode short) so make sure you include them. You can add a switch to the red accessory line if you need to reduce current draw when not using stereo in non-store mode which I did not need to do. In store mode my head unit is drawing 2.5ma so the backup battery should last months.

FYI - The head unit I installed was (sorry to use the S word) a Sony WX-GS920BH which I chose due to it having large double DIN button rich non touch screen high power amp which is what we wanted. The other thing I liked about it for my install was it was only single DIN inside which allowed me to go with some larger magnet speakers due to the fact the head unit was just above one speaker in our 25FB. This unit also has 2 power off modes so you can actually turn it off rather than have it in standby. I measured 2.5ma vs 0.8A between the two modes which is a big deal. The speaker I installed are Focal 165AC which give you the ability to rotate the tweeter which helps a bit with the pointing down speaker location. Overall, we are very pleased with the upgrade.

[rmkrum]

Ok, how do you plan to recharge the 12 v lithium battery when it gets low?

[OrangeCrush]

Sorry for leaving out that detail. I used this battery pack from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Talentcell-Re...ct_top?ie=UTF8

It is actually 6 lithium ion cells in a series/parallel configuration to provide 12ish Volts. It has a DC power jack, charge adapter, and y cable so you can charge while using if you want. I wired in a DC power jack cable which come out to where I wanted the power pack to reside which I apologize for not showing on the schematic. Below is a pick where I have it velcroed to our Apple TV (we removed the blue ray and cabinet as we only use Apple TV mirror to watch stuff). Since this setup is new I wanted to keep the battery pack where I could monitor it and see how it actually performs. For now to charge I just take it out of store mode, unplug pack from stereo and take it inside to charge. Long term I might bury it in the cabinet and use the y adapter to top it off while on shore power but I am still pondering that. For the most part I rarely plan to use the battery backup as we have solar and I can keep it out of store mode indefinately except for doing maintenance.

[rmkrum]

Ah, makes total sense now. Thanks for the data!