Chris Duke: I am Chris Duke and this is Truckblog.TV. These days, everyone has got a cell phone, an MP3 player, satellite radio and a portable GPS unit, but wouldn't it not be cool, if someone would combine all these great technologies into one. Well, Alpine Electronics has done exactly that. It's called the Alpine IVA-W505 multimedia station. It allows your Blackbird GPS unit to be docked inside, as well as to connect your cell phone via Bluetooth. It also allows you to use satellite radio, play your MP3 player, your DVD movies and everything else.
Today, on Truckblog.TV we are going to show how to install one of these bad boys and how it works with all of these great technologies. As with any large wiring project, make sure you take your time, read the manual and figure everything out before you get started, which I did a couple of days ago and I relate everything out here on this table so I can show you how everything gets hooked up. We've got our audio cables, it goes straight off to an amplifier, got some audio and video cables here if you want to hook some additional monitors.
Of course, our Sirius Satellite Radio equipment and antenna. Got a backup camera here, our iPod and this adapter that hook straight up to the wiring harness on the back of the stereo, which will show you how that works next. First, you need to remove the stock stereo. On this Ford, it is pretty easy. All you got to do is open the cup holder, put two fingers underneath this around and pull on up and it kind of pops up.
Now, we need to disconnect all these climate control cables back here. Disconnect any cables, it is pretty easy, just push in on the tab or pull up on the tab depending on which one and they easily pop out. Once all the cables were disconnected, I use the 7 mm socket to remove the four screws that hold the stock radio in place. And there are two more that hold the tray in place.
Now, once those screws have been removed, the stock radio slides right out, then you can disconnect the antenna and the wiring harness. Then moving back up to the top of the dash, top tray easily pops out by just lifting up in the front and sliding forward.
Now, after a couple of minutes and a few screws, your dash is completely open for a new head unit. Try doing that in a Honda. Next, I connect the open cables that I had ready to go for the new Alpine head unit, then mounted it back into the same location as the stock radio using the same four screws. On the side mirror, I picked up the wiring harness adapter and the dash kit from Crutchfield, which made the installation go a lot smoother.
Now, you probably noticed that I use a lot of these wire nuts initially in my installation, but now it's just to test to make sure that everything was connected properly, but once you have tested everything out, the best thing to do is to go back later and use the splice connectors or use the soldering gun, do it right because there is a lot of rattling underneath this dash and they will come loose eventually.
And then finally, I needed to find a place to mount the antenna for the Blackbird GPS navigation unit. I found a spot right in front of this tray right on top of the dash.
Now, the Sirius Satellite Radio Antenna is pretty easy to install. Once I figured out where to install it, on the roof of my truck here. I use the self adhesive backing to stick it on and routed the wire on the top of the window seal down the A-pillar behind the weather stripping and then down here behind the front fender and then back up on the back side of the A-pillar, on inside the truck, and back over to the stereo. Now Sirius has a whole bunch of great installation videos on their website for your particular truck or vehicle, so check out their website for more details.
One of the other really cool thing is about the Alpine IVA-W505, is that you can hook up a rear back up camera. We picked up this one off at eBay for about 80 bucks and since the truck is lifted, we do not have a spare tire anymore. Now as such, we don't need the spare tire lock anymore. So, it is a perfect place for this cam to go. So let's see if it's a good fit here. Looks like it is there are some metal on the top and the bottom here, that we're going to have to shave off, but before we do that let's hook it up and see what its viewpoint is to make sure that there aren't any obstructions in the way.
Alright! I am going to put this in place now and see if we've got an obstructive view and make sure that there is this bumper here, is not in the way.
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Now as difficult as it may seem to install a backup camera in the bumper of your truck. It's almost just as tricky to snake all these cables from the back of the truck, back up to the head unit inside the cab of your truck. I did this by snaking the wires along the frame of the truck and tying it down tight with zip ties. All the way up to just below the driver seat underneath the carpet, there is the grommet. Now as I able to snake the wires through that grommet then connect everything back up to the head unit.
Startup, Radio & iPod Features
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I am Chris Duke and this is Truckblog.TV.
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That guy previously created it using vector-based software.
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Balance/Fader Demo
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Setup Menus
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GPS Navigation Quick Drive
Alright! We got a best buy, now we want some ice cream. So let's go checkout, Coldstone. Here we go. Let's go.
Machine: Press E to the highlighted route. In a quarter of the mile, destination on the right.
Chris Duke: Alright! Here we are at Coldstone. Check it out. Jason, you want to get some ice cream, what you want man?
Jason: Birthday cake -- remix.
Making a Call:
Receiving a Call:
Chris Duke: Hey, man how is it going?
Jason: Hey, how are you doing?
Chris Duke: I just watched another awesome episode of Truckblog.TV and just wanted to see if the Bluetooth thing worked here, so it looks like it's worked pretty well.
Jason: I can hear you really clearly.
Chris Duke: Yeah.
Jason: Hey, have you subscribed to the new podcast?
Chris Duke: I have actually. I've got all of the episodes on my iPhone as well as the iPod. It's here in the truck. So I just watched it and this is pretty cool stuff.
Jason: Alright! Subscribe to Truckblog.TV --
Chris Duke: I am sure he did.
Jason: On Apple iTune.
Chris Duke: Yeah, on Apple iTune. It's alright man. It's good talking to you. I will talk you tomorrow.
Jason: Bye, later.
Chris Duke: Alright! Later.
As you can see the installation of a new head unit on a truck, it's pretty easy even with all the bells and whistles all the way did run into a couple of problems with sound from the cell phone not coming through the truck speakers as well as video not playing from the iPod, but after a quick call to Alpine Customer Support, they were able to quickly resolve my issues and get me back up and running.
That does it for this episode of Truckblog.TV. For more of our videos go to www.truckblog.tv and also be sure to subscribe to our podcast on Apple iTunes.
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Male Speaker: Truckblog.TV is now available through iTunes. Just go to the iTune Store and search for Truckblog. Click our podcast and the Subscribe button to download all of our videos to your computer or iPod.
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