The National Voltage Star

RUSH POWER SYSTEMS TECH ARTICLE

109

www.rushps.com                            www.rushpowersystems.net

Let’s talk about electronic gadgets this time, first up let’s go security and convenience. I am sure most people have heard of GM’s “On Star” but did you know you can get most of the features in any car. Today’s navigation systems are very advanced and feature “call for help” options. Now it does not have crash detection or on the fly vehicle diagnosis but give them time. Navigation systems are basically just a Global Positioning System (GPS) that pinpoints your location and the location you want to go, they can give you real time traffic and route around it. But the nice thing is this; you can add a GPS system to an alarm system. With this set up you could, in real time, locate your vehicle if it is stolen. Think about that, your vehicle is stolen; you go to your computer, look up its location, call the police and tell them the location of the vehicle. And if you have kids how about this, “seems she forgot about the library like she told her old man now, but he looked it up on the computer, called her on her cell phone and told her to go to the library now”. O.K. that is off memory so if the non embellished parts are wrong don’t shot me, if Bryan Wilson did it in 80’s hair metal I would have a better memory of the lyrics. But I digress, before you run out and buy that GPS system, check with your cell phone company, many newer cell phones have real time turn by turn navigation built in to the phone. If you are only interested in navigation that may be a better way to go.

Next up video, the possibilities here are almost endless, you can get them in the headrest, visor, rear view mirror, and even motorized monitor that is hidden in the stereo head unit when the system is off. Video incorporates navigation, back up camera, satellite TV, video games, and DVD movies. Your photo display of your project could be put on a DVD and show on a monitor as a slide show. When backing up you can look at a monitor built into your rear view mirror, the camera can be at ground level so you don’t scratch the paint on a curb, hey you could even put a camera up front for the same reason. Modern cameras are very small and easy to hide so you have many options there.  As for movies and games you will need an input device for them, this can be a car audio head unit that can play DVD or a 12 volt DVD player, another easy way to do it is a power inverter that will convert DC to AC for use with a game console or DVD player. This could also be done with the alternator if you were to contact someone like…..oh….I don’t know…..Rush Power Systems, they could tell you what is involved in that.   Just remember this is where it can get expensive, set a budget before you look at the options. If you go in with Champaign taste on a beer budget you will not be happy in the end.

Now we come to audio, the big news here is CD is dead. A few years ago a 12 disk CD changer would run you $300.00+, today they give them away with a new bank account. But seriously that is not quite true, the CD will never truly go away, but digital audio holds the market share and will continue to do so. There are several different digital audio formats but for sake of discussion we will refer to them as MP3. The fact is this digital mp3 audio will never have the same sound quality as a CD, however a CD will hold at best 20 songs. I have about 15,000 songs on my 80 gig iPod and I have room for many more, so it is easy to see why digital audio is so popular. Many newer head units can directly interface with a portable hard drive or an mp3 player, many mp3 players will handle video. So if you have audio and video capabilities in your vehicle you can have you entire volume of entertainment in something that will fit into your pocket. In my opinion the future of radio is dead, sorry but here are the facts. HD radio is better but it does not seem to gain major traction, talk radio is driving the industry and the local radio stations hosting the programs seem hell bent on offending the listeners of the programs they are hosting. This along with the thereat of the “fairness doctrine” and I predict overwhelming sales in satellite radio, if you are thinking of buying one I say now would be a great time. Of course your mileage may vary, I am just reporting on what I see. Providing HD radio does not take over the way HD TV is then I suppose there will be a place for over the air radio, just not sure what form it will need to evolve into to survive. But then again as long as we are printing money like it was news paper (and it will have the same value soon) perhaps big radio needs a bail out!

On a side note, December was very hard as my mother in law was battling cancer and she lost the battle in the days before the New Year. My wife and I would like to thank everyone who called and sent notes, they were greatly appreciated.