Car Stereos: Installing new cd player, power antenna, alpine cd

Question
Hello Justin. I'm sure you're a busy guy, so I'll try not to take up too much of your time. Basically, I just purchased an Alpine cd/mp3/ipod player and I'm having a problem getting it to power on. I think my problem is in the wiring harness. I am uncertain of where to connect the following:

Illumination Lead (Orange)

Power Antenna Lead (Blue)

I had an after market radio already, so I'm not replacing the factory radio. I removed the old radio, and disconnected the wiring from crimp caps. I then replaced the old wiring with the new radios wiring and replaced all crimp caps. The new radio came with a black cable for the ground, but I cut the end off and connected it to the black cable from the wiring harness via crimp cap. I'm not sure if that's where my problem is, but I would think that since my old radio was connected the same way that I connected the new radio it wouldn't make a difference.

Lastly, the two color wires I mentioned above...I have no idea how or where to connect them. I thought maybe I just needed to follow through with my manuals start-up directions and I did depress the reset button (as it instructs to do when powering on for the first time) but that didn't make a difference. Any ideas?

thanks,
Jason

Answer
Hi Jason,

The illumunation and power antenna lead are unnecessary if your car doesn't have a matching connection for them, and the deck should work without them connected.  Just make sure they're capped off in some way so as not to short out with another part of the car.

You should get *some* response from the deck when you turn the car on or to accessory even if you don't hit any buttons.

Crimp caps are not the best option for making these connections, as solder & heat shrink would generally make a better connection.  Also, I assume you replaced the crimp caps with new ones, since crimp caps are only meant to be used once.

First thing I would try is get a multimeter.  You can get a cheap one if you don't have one already for ~$10 at a local hardware store.  Set it to test DC and test the constant and accessory wires.  The yellow (constant) should have 12V to ground all the time, while the red (accessory) should only have 12V to ground when the car is on and in accessory.  If both read 0 all the time, you probably have a bad ground.  Try regrounding the wire somewhere on the car's chassis that is metal (preferably unpainted, too) instead of through the harness.  If one is working and one isn't, then you can work from there.

Also, it might sound silly, but check your radio fuse.  Make sure you didn't accidentally touch two wires together that you shouldn't have, and popped the fuse.

Good luck,
Justin