So I wanted a blinging new headunit that had blue tooth and hd radio built it - bluetooth so I could drive and use my droid inc for music and navi + a usb in to charge and maybe use a newer phone that plays audio out of usb which the droid can do they just refuse to enable it at this point because 2006 ipod technology is still too advanced for everyone else.

After selecting hd radio built in and bluetooth I decided it would be time to pick up a hidden antenna as well to take advantage of the better hd radio signal. the Calrion fz709 looked cool enough.

I had read up on them and found a nice amplified one by dakota digital one - then found out metra makes them and you can buy them direct for 1/4 win

Ordered it all from amazon with the harness for 215 shipped an got it 3 days later.

Right away I could sense fail - nowhere on the box said HD radio equipped or even capable, it's not apparently.

Then when trying to remove the trim ring to take the cage off the new head unit that broke - wtf the flimsiest trim rim I've ever seen.

The stock honda mount ears had to be drilled slightly to remove the buttons that extend down and with some drastic shortening of the radio harness and some soldering was good to go.

I tried the hidden antenna but it doesnt seem to be working for me and there's no instructions and the wire that was supposed to be ground is labeled DC so who knows wtf is going on, makes sense that it's powered like that but a brief tested netted zilch.

finally I got the head unit in and the touch screen will drive you nuts it's not touch sensitive on the panel but on the lights on the side - press press press mutha ****er lol

A minor annoyance is when I plug my Droid into the USB port that comes out of the back with a nice cable it automatically switches the source to USB no matter what, and it doesnt seem to be reading my sd card only the main memory so I moved my mp3 files over to the phones storage.

About the same time as I figured out the short manual that doesnt actually tell you how to pair bluetooth I got it running and it does take blue tooth audio well, the only annoyance is that apparently the rom I'm using kills the music for directions and doesnt re enable it.

Overall it's good minus the hd radio bit, charges and does bluetooth audio and nav or usb audio.

The sound is good so far and If I figure out how to hook up the hidden antenna I'll edit this post.

 

no doubt, that is a clean head unit.

 

You do realize that USB charging while using the GPS receiver will still drain your battery, right? USB is only 500mA. I'd suggest finding a charger that supplies closer to 1A.

 

I'm using set cpu so my normal power draw is very low also a evo based rom that has very low battery usage.

I have a separate car charger that I can use instead though and still stream BT.

The range I found out on the blue tooth audio link is 20 feet or more which was cool listening to you tube music ect from a distance.

It also works flawlessly with a normal mp3 player especially the apple products ipod ect