I think it's the battery
Posted by Doug Sat, 03 Jan 2004 04:59:00 GMT
It took me most of this morning to get my battery charged up on Carla’s Durango. This weekend I had the guys at Autozone test it with their electronic gizmo. The results were that the battery wasn’t charged enough to fully run the test. So, I thought that I’d go get it tested again while I thought it was pretty well charged. Since it was during the week, Carla reminded me that one of our Church members worked at a Carx just down the street. So, I took it there rather than drive a ways over to Autozone. Even after I had left the jumper-cables on the truck for nearly an hour and then left it running for nearly an hour after that (so the alternator could charge it), the battery still only had about 60% of the charge it should have. Darrell told me he thought it was just an unfortunate coincidence that the battery decided to die at bout the same time I installed a new car radio. I don’t know how much I believe in coincidences; but, the battery is having trouble and it’s almost five years old. I’ll replace it this weekend and we’ll see how things go next week. I’m hoping that the eratic battery performance is what’s been screwing up the Sirius satellite radio. We’ll see about that too. After I thought the Sirius satellite radio wasn’t working earlier today, it turns out that it sort of was working. The radio head unit thought the Sirius tuner was a CD changer (the Sirius tuner connects to the head unit through the CD Changer connecter). I could listen to the Sirius radio with each station being a different CD. But when I actually selected the Sirius radio, it said it wasn’t there. Next time I started the car, the CD changer was gone and the Sirius radio worked fine. It’s all awfully hokey. Why can’t technology just work? I know the whole process of satellite radio is complicated. There are lots and lots of things involved in making it work right. I like what one of my readers said about “this is all supposed to make our lives better.” The good news is that I was able to listen to Sirius’ classic rock station while getting my battery checked. For the few miles I listened, it seems like a really nice station. The mix was good… and no commercials. Most of the classic rock stations are just cocked full of lousy commercials. It seems like all they want to play is “Free Bird” and car commercials. I know it wasn’t that long to listen, but it sounded good. Made me wish I could tune in from my computer.
