Avoid a slip up when fitting ICE equipment
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Providing in-cab entertainment is no mere cosmetic operation, says Tim Blakemore. The right apparatus, properly installed, can actually reduce fleet running costs
;E is one of those acronyms rat abound in the world of mareting meetings and sales rives. Glibly dropped into pnversation by people "in the low", it can infuriate those rho have no idea what the letms stand for.
It can mean In-Cab, In-Coach r In-Car Entertainment — in ther words radios and cassette r cartridge players. Presumably ortable television sets could !so be included in the same ategory and record players deigned for fitting in cars certainly ould.
For commercial vehicle driv rs the use of the word "enter3inment" is misleading, imply19 that a radio fitted to a ompany car is a perk or special onus.
An in-cab radio is a useful ource of traffic information — n almost essential driver aid. If le letters ICI weren't so well nown as the abbreviation of the amous company name, lerhaps they would be more apiropriate as a generic term for adios in lorries, standing for In;ab Information.
While it is true that a cassette 'layer does not provide traffic iformation and equally the case hat a lorry's radio mainly re:elves music if continual pop, lot to say pap, can keep his drivffs alert then why should any Terator begrudge fitting the 'quipment?
"The cost!" many hauliers nay reply. However, a decision rot to fit radios could cost an Terator money in the long erm. Consider how wasted fuel, vested driver's time and pos;ibly lost customer goodwill be;ause of a late delivery can cost, when a vehicle is held up in a am on a motorway.
An early traffic warning on the .adio can allow a driver to avoid ;uch a hold-up. A radio's purthase price is then soon re3overed. A good quality radio rvith commercial vehicle kit can ;till be bought for less than E100
and should last around eight years.
Assuming the radio has no residual value that means a yearly depreciation of only around £12.50. A radio can be transferred from an old to a new vehicle, with little effect on selling price.
However, nothing is more frustrating than to hear a chirpy Radio One disc jockey inform you of a traffic jam on the M1 when you have been part of that jam for 20 minutes, For listeners in the South East at least that situation should soon be improved. The field trial of the BBC's "Carfax" system has been successful and regular transmissions will begin around June or July.
Carfax, developed by the BBC in conjuction with the Radiomobile Technical Centre, is a broadcast service dedicated to the transmission of traffic information.
Eventually the service will cover the whole of the UK on a local basis from a network of low-power transmitters at 80 existing BBC sites.
A special Carfax receiver is needed to receive the transmissions but existing radios can easily and cheaply be adapted. This small component is already being fitted to new radios.
Once the Carfax receiver is switched on no further tuning is needed to receive the local transmissions. Technically, what happens is this: when a message is transmitted the station concerned radiates an inaudible "start" signal, while surrounding Carfax stations also transmit a jamming signal. The ratio of these signals at any point determines whether or not the Carfax receivers in the area are switched on to receive the message which follows.
At the end of the announcement a further code signal is radiated which switches off those Carfax receivers which have been activated.
Let's get back to the question of the cost of fitting audio equipment. It isn't the first cost that deters operators but the thought of additional expense in service.
If it is installed properly there is no reason why a radio or cassette player should give trouble in service. But it's not good policy to allow the keen amateur to install a radio or cassette player because it's not quite so straight-forward a job as it seems. Vibration will damage audio equipment so it is important that it is mounted correctly. Location, too, is important, particularly for cassette players. Most models should not be mounted at an angle of more than a few degrees from horizontal. Cigarette ash and the playinc head and delicate internal com ponents of a cassette player dc not mix well, but some manufac. turers still fit ash trays abovE dash-board radio slots.
Correct aerial mounting is vita for good signal reception and so is adequate suppressior of interference from, say, wiper motor or alternator.
While diesel-engined cam mercial vehicles do not have th( problem of suppression of in terference from high-tension ig ntion leads and circuits, the nevertheless present certain dif ficulties. Insulated return wirinc systems, for example, requin twice as many suppressors fo such components as alternators It is particularly difficult to ob tam n a good aerial earth on small grp cabbed vehicle. Ar earth strap has to be run frorr the aerial mounting point usually the cab root to the chas sis, and the longer any eartl bond is the worse reception wil be.
Fluorescent light tubes fitter to illuminated headboards pla havoc with signal receptior Henry McCarthy, Radiomobile' service wizard, told me that h "had a degree of success fittini a shielding mesh to one fluores. cent tube" but generally "gool radio reception and fluorescer tubes just do not go together."
Aerial trimming is the last jo to be done when -a radio i installed, but it is an importer one. When the aerial trimme screw is turned, the capacitanc of a capacitor is varied; the ok ject of the exercise is to obtai optimum reception. The radi, should be tuned to a weak stz tion on the medium band hE tween 230m and 250m. If rE ception does not "peak" as th screw is turned back and forth probably means that there is leak on the aerial.
There are so many pitfalls t be avoided when installing a dio equipment that it's not wort the risk of regarding it as a d-ijob. A mistake can lead to poc reception, a damaged radii even an electrical fire. You al much more likely to have peac of mind and good listening if th job is left to an expert.