[Android Head-Units] kaween:
Hmm. Out on a limb here, but still :

1) the Station name thing is RDS related. Is it possible your Radio preferences (I think it's in the extra menu .... not sure) is set to the wrong geographic region ?

2) Mine doens't do that. When it does that, does the radio loose the presets too ? If so, it's possible you have to switch the Bat+ and the ACC cables.

3) ... oh, there are many possible reasons for that behavior (providing above isn't the problem), and about as many different solutions.

A) some cars will mechanically cut power to "everything not needed during crank" as a result of the design of the contact switch. I have such a car : when you turn the ignition key, it really disables power to all non-essential electric devices. Radio is one of them. So of course, the radio reboots as the power is lost not due to the cranking itself, but due to the design of the electric system.

B) your car may drop the voltage during crank to such a low level that the radio has to reboot as the system watch dog detects a lower-than-critical voltage level at that point. I've seen new batteries drop-spike during crank from 12.6V to as low as 7.5V (for a very short time, you can only measure that with a digital memory scope). No matter how good your radio is designed, it can't cope with that without help.

So, what to do to avoid this ?

- use a "Power Tamer" (Copper Creek Inc I believe). Essentially, it lets you hook your radio to the 12V Battery and it features a time-programmable shutdown counter to avoid draining your car battery dry. Can be found on ebay, isn't very expensive, very sturdy design, works pretty welll and it may solve your issues. (depending on cause, of course)

- use a temporary battery buffer using NiCds. I'v seen and experimented with these kind of "12V Nicd based buffer" thingies. Advantages : simple and effective electronics, cheap, will provide enough buffer to "get you through the crank without reboot" no matter what. Disadvantages : I'm not a fan of using NiCd's in a car for several reasons. NiCd's are vulnerable to temperature fluctuations, the number of guaranteed charging cycles will be exceeded pretty fast when you use your car daily, and such a circuit does only that what I wrote : it will cope with your crank issues, nothing more.

Also (and this mya sound farfetched, but still) : NiCd's have a pretty low internal resistance. The self-discharging effect that comes with this isn't my main reason to try and avoid NiCd's in automotive design, the main reason is that in worst case, this low internal resistance MAY cause thermal overload in a cell and even fire when one of these cells "goes belly up". The chances of something like this happening are very small, but it can NOT be excluded. This is the main reason why toy-maker will advise against using NiCd's in toys when they are stored over a longer period of time. (Fire Hazard). It will not "go as spectacular as a Li-Ion" when it goes wrong, but I've seen plenty of melted plastic parts in my days as a field-engineer for NiCd-powered handheld devices. :eek:

- For myself, I've chosen for a 2nd, separate Sealed Lead Accu (SLA) circuit instead. The radio is hooked up over a pico-ups (it's acutally a very small PCB, 5x3 cm big) which hooks up to a "support battery" and the main car battery on one side, and the radio on the other side. The beauty of this thing is the "support battery" can't drain the main battery as the mini-ups prevents the "support battery" to be charged unless the car's charging circuit is running (charging will kick in exceeding 13.5V to make sure it's your charging system, not your main battery charging the auxiliairy battery) , and the mini-ups logic switches to the highest voltage supplier of the 2 batteries automatically and within 100ns to avoid reboots. Also, it permits me to run a radio without ignition key, yet I do not have to fear a drained main battery as the secondary battery can't directly drain the main battery and will only charge when the car's charging circuit is active (IE : the car's engine must be running).

The unit itself inclusive tech sheet can be found here : http://www.mini-box.com/picoUPS-120-12V-DC-micro-UPS-battery-backup?sc=8&category=981 and it feeds a 20Ah SLA battery tucked away in my trunk.

No matter what happens, using this, my radio NEVER reboots during crank.