New innards in old radio

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Vincent Gillespie
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Posts: 439
Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 8:33 am
Location: United Kingdom

New innards in old radio

#1 Post by Vincent Gillespie »

Hello, the contact is really for UK members but I have no doubt similar adaptations are available all over.

We've had the original dealer fitted Radiomobile in the car since we got it but the power pack was long gone so it never worked. I finally got around to getting it to a radio engineer in Reading I have known about for ages, http://vintagecarradio.co.uk/index.html and strangely enough there were no NOS Radiomobile power packs available so we had new innards fitted.

It needs to be powered by 12 Volts so I fitted it with one of these, (DC 5V/11V To 12V4A 48W Step Up Power Supply Converter Regulator Module Fine UK), easily available on the internet and hey presto after 30+ years of silence we have noise.

It comes ready to fit with connections to power 4 speakers, a power lead should you have a power aerial or wish to add an amp to power that big bass woofer, or you could attach a USB socket to this for modern gizmos and also an Aux headphone plug to pick up from a phone or IPod.

The radio works fine but once I have the engine running the static takes over and, to be frank, I couldn't be bothered doing all the supression/earthing etc as I can simply plug in a very small portable DAB/FM radio, (Portable Pocket Personal DAB/DAB+/FM Digital Radio Rechargeable Battery Black UK), or even my phone with the radio app, and get all that I need, that'll be a nice job for the next custodian to deal with!

The Aux plug comes into play when the tuning is right down one end so I have one of the pre set tuning buttons set for this and the little indicator light changes colour to indicate the switch from radio to Aux it's great.

Hope this helps someone

V
V. Gillespie

Vincent Gillespie
356 Fan
Posts: 439
Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 8:33 am
Location: United Kingdom

Re: New innards in old radio

#2 Post by Vincent Gillespie »

An engineering friend of mine calls this a total cop out and I should sort out the suppression but here's a quick update for those not worried about such dogma!

I tried a couple of small portable radios and found this model works superbly, 'Majority Portable Pocket Personal Handheld DAB+ DAB Digital FM Radio Rechargeable Battery'. It comes with a clip which allows it to be clipped to the sunvisor, where I get the best signal reception. The number of stations on DAB mode is amazing and I can charge it from my recently rediscovered auxiliary socket, easy peasy.
V
V. Gillespie

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