Insignia HD Car Radio

[Kelly]

One of my Euro-toys, a 1971 Triumph TR6 roadster was in need of a new radio. It had some old Royal Sound POS that was about to give up the ghost completely. So I visited my local Best Buy and purchased one of the Insignia AM/FM/HD/CD and MP3 jack in the front for $119. Since it is a convertable, and the possibility of theft looms in the shadows, I didn't want to spend a lot on a car radio.

It was another beautiful Saturday, and I needed to do some work at one of the FM stations I own about 90 miles away, so it was time for a drive with the top down and the Insignia to see how it performs. I have to say I was pretty impressed! The HD performance was frankly better than I thought it would be. Even with areas usually plagued with multipath from being behind hills, the digital reception was solid. The digital signal seemed to be everywhere the analog signal was. In fact, the noise floor on analog was coming up in the fringe, but the digital reception was still solid. I don't know how to explain it really, as everything I had heard was the digital signal for FM was "city grade" only. That certainly wasn't my experience.

There is only one AM-HD signal in the market, that is the lone Radio Disney. That RD station is a pile of junk anyway with no ground system, sitting atop a hill with a .5-1 ground conductivity and diplexed with another station 200kHz away. The AM-HD reception was okay, considering even then analog portion WAY underperforms what it should do for a 5kW ND. Having worked with that station a few years ago, I recall what the audio coming off the satellite sounded like, (over-processed for one), and the HD portion seemed to equal the sound of what arrives from the house of mouse.

AM analog sensitivity was so-so, but the FM sensitivity of the Insignia was exceptional! I was receiving several FM stations from British Columbia that neither my nice Mark Levinson true diversity system in my Lexus could receive, nor my home receiver with a 22dB gain VHF-UHF antenna on the roof could.

I was also surprised to see that the Insignia has full RDS capabilities, both station identifier and Radio Text. The only down-side I could find was the Insignia car radio did not have the capabilities of tuning to the HD-2 or HD-3 channels of the local NPR station. When it sees an IBOC carrier, it automatically switches to the HD1 feed, which can be turned off, but why bother?

So if you're in the market for an inexpensive and feature-loaded car radio/CD for not much money, and it just happens to have the HD chip, check out the Insignia line.

 

[littlejohn]

If the electrics in the Trumpet are stock, your new radio is the only reliable thing in it with wires

"John Lucas, the Prince of Darkness"

 

[KB1OKL]

If the electrics in the Trumpet are stock, your new radio is the only reliable thing in it with wires

"John Lucas, the Prince of Darkness"

You did notice that he said it was an "HD" radio?

 

[Kelly]

If the electrics in the Trumpet are stock, your new radio is the only reliable thing in it with wires

"John Lucas, the Prince of Darkness"

Yes in fact, I have a T shirt that has a picture of a three way toggle switch and the Lucas logo. It says: "The Lucas Switch; Dim Flicker, and Off.

Normally I would agree with your comment, but my particular 71 TR6 has a few electrical updates that seem to have fixed much of the Lucas curse. The modifications include: Replacing the Lucas alternator with a Bosch 60A, (now I can sit with the headlights on, and foot on the brakes and the wipers don't stop). Replaced the points and condenser with a Pertronix hall effect trigger, triggering a MSD multi-spark ignition controller with RPM limiter, and triple trumpet air horn new relays. Next on the list is fabricate an aluminum bracket to allow the use of a microswitch to fire the brake lights rather than the exiting Lucas brake switch.

It did pain me a little to cut the center console to fit the new Insignia radio, (which KB is correct is the AM/FM/HD/CD version). Up until recently, I've held off cutting the console, but nobody makes a decent "knob" style radio anymore that would fit in the old holes. Oh well I've modified the heck out of the electrics and mechanicals in the car so much anyway,(Eaton belt driven supercharger with intercooler for one), I thought what the Hell, may as well update the auto sound to modern standards too!

 

[Tom Wells]

Before John Lucas, British automobile ignition was accomplished by an elaborate system of tallow candles.

Why do the the Brits like warm beer? They have Lucas refrigeration.

Kelly, do you shoe that car with the correct redlines?

I had a custom-wound stator made for one of my old cars, with more loops in each wound pole. It made quite a difference from
normal modern rebuilts supposedly called hi-current....should be called low voltage. Easier to wind by machine with bigger wiring,
but very annoying when the result is no charging at idle. Any motor shop sould be able to rewind your Lucas alternator in this way,
it would be cheaper than diassembling and rewinding the rotor. But you'd have to be keen on keeping things original.
I've made very few changes to my old cars' tech, added a relay to shut of fans and AC in accessory position, but not much else.
I've cursed at too many Hall-effect sensors on presses to give up mechanical contacts for my ignition.
I've also seen some retrofit jobs that let the timing "wheel" with ribs wobble/shift, giving erratic tining.