Car Inconveniences Remedied

Since last summer, I’ve had a few problems with my car.  The steering column cable went bad and my horn and cruise control died with it.  Got that fixed last fall (wow, cruise is really nice to have when your commute is mostly on the highway). I had bad wiper blades most of the winter – finally replaced them – simple to do, although I still need to unclog the passenger side sprayer.  And in the middle of the summer last year, my car stereo died and I spent nearly a year driving around with a battery-powered analog radio in the passenger seat.

That was fine, except it was too difficult to change the station while driving, so I kept it on 1 station most of the time.  Sometimes I forgot to turn the radio off and the batteries would be dead the next morning.  All in all, it was annoying, but manageable.  Now after a couple of freelance projects, I justified buying a new one.

I was very particular about the one I wanted.  It needed to play MP3s off a USB stick.  iPod support would be nice, but at least an Aux input so I could plug my phone and play the audio player from it.  CD player.  Easy to use radio-station preset buttons (believe it or not, that’s not as easy as you think).  And HD radio built in.  I didn’t want to pay an extra $100 just for HD.

I found this:

Dual isn’t a high end brand, but this thing had everything I wanted and more.  When I first looked at it, it was more than I wanted to spend, but by the time I was ready to buy, it was going for $20 less than the original price.  Then I found a coupon referrer code for an additional $20 off.  Plus with all the extras that Crutchfield threw in (wiring harness and dash-adapter kit) it was a great deal.  By the way, if you’re shopping anywhere online, it’s always a good idea to do a quick search of that site for an online coupon or referrer code.  There usually are always discounts to be found.

So now I can change stations again in my car.  And this thing has surpassed my expectations.  The HD is amazing.  It makes AM stations sound like FM ones.  And all my favorite FM stations have 2 HD channels.  For example, 93.1 XRT has an HD1 and HD2.  HD1 is the regular station in HD, but HD2 is alternate content from the same station.  So this essentially doubled the number of stations to listen to.  This radio gives me 18 FM presets and I was excited about that many, but now ran out quicker than expected.

Other cool features: playing music from a USB stick is great.  I have an 8GB stick and can fit almost my entire library on there and play it in the car.  With HD radio, you can “tag” music that comes in over the air, download it to an iPod and get an option to buy that song in iTunes later when you sync it to your PC.  This radio also has Bluetooth so I can do handsfree calling over the stereo system.  An incoming call will mute the radio and I can talk handsfree.  The Bluetooth also enables me to stream the music from my phone audio player to the radio without attaching any cords.

I wasn’t searching for one with Bluetooth features, but this worked out as a nice bonus.  All in all, I’m thrilled to have a real car stereo again.  It sure helps during the commute every day.