Radio Modification

[Boxerdad]

I haven't had the heart to give my 96'RT a radioectomy yet. I'm just certain it's functional...really!

 

I'd like to feed the audio signal to a 1/8 stereo female jack. My intent is to either, from that jack, feed it into a multiplexer, or plug my trusty molded earplugs into it.

 

Will I need some sort of a transformer or merely resistors to step the signal down? Am I missing something here?

 

Has anyone tried this?

[blitzkreig]

I would pitch the old radio and get Satellite if I were you.

 

Here is a mixer that I bought (very high quality at a very reasonable price) for the job.

 

http://www.electric-avenues.com/amplirider.html

 

If I recall it was about $70 shipped.

 

I plug my iPod, GPS and Sirius radio in at the same time ... and pull it all together into my earphones.

 

I went for a home made "tank bag mount" so I can take the whole thing off in a few seconds when I get off the bike.

[Boxerdad]

I wouldn't mind a satellite radio but I keep in touch with local goings on through local terrestrial radio. Thus my desire to keep it.

[Davis]

You can get an isolated lead to go from the speaker leads to a 3.5mm plug from Autocom, Starcom, RS, etc. I used a Starcom lead to plug the radio into a Mix-It which worked fine until I got sick of the radio and removed it to have a glovebox.

[Vrex]

You need resistors and one additional component. An excellent description is on this site, titled: "Install headphone jack (or Autocom tap) on an R1150RT - with photos

#554582 - Sun Aug 28 2005 02:20 AM Attachment (538 downloads)"

 

I followed this procedure and got good results.

[Rottweiler]

I pulled the following from a few of my older posts, I don't know if it will apply to a '96 but the info on the isolation transformers does apply.

 

Ok guys and gals, here's the best way to hook up a 3 wire device to a 4 wire radio. Since the ground wires on our radio's can't be hooked together, you must use a ground loop eliminator such as this one I found at Wal-Mart in their auto department http://www.scosche.com/scosche.aspx?CategoryID=33&ItemID=ES034 for $14. It is a simple set of 1:1 transformers (all in one) that will prevent your radio outputs from shorting. I hooked it up to the rear speaker outputs on the BMW/Clarion radio to give me better control of the volume but find that leaving the fade control in the middle works fine. In the picture earlier in this thread you can see some of the pinout numbers. This is how they run on my '03RT...

11 6 2

14 8 3 1

12 17

15 9 4

19 7

16 13 5

 

5 +12v switched purple w/black stripe

15 12 ground brown

9 +12v continuous red w/white stripe

1 left + front yellow w/red stripe

2 right + front blue w/red stripe

11 right - front blue

8 left - front yellow w/brown stripe

6 right + rear

14 right - rear

3 left + rear

12 left - rear

 

To hook up the wires to the radio pins I used the female pins from a PC power connector. You will have a hard time removing the pins from the connector without the right size pin-pushing tool but you can alternately carefully cut the connector open with a moto tool. I left a few inches of wire on the pins and soldered on a mating RCA plug, that plugs right into the ground loop eliminator. The PC pins can be pushed onto the radio pins right through the connector on the back of the radio. If you can’t get the pins to push on you will have to remove the main connector from the back of the radio. To remove the connector you will have to remove the radio from it’s mounting case, as the case prevents the connector from unlatching. Just slide the connector sideways (left or right away from the radio) and it will pry itself off the back. You can then feed the new pins through the connector and push them onto the correct pins on the radio. Then plug the main connector back onto the radio over the newly installed pins. They are tight, which is a good thing. I then mounted the eliminator in the bottom of the radio box and had the output connectors feed though the rubber gasket in the radio box. I then made a headphone jack with mating RCA plugs to connect to the output of the ground loop eliminator. I made a small aluminum bracket for the headphone jack that mounts with 2-sided tape just below the idiot lights on the dash, easy to get to and protected from weather. So far, it works great with perfect sound and no engine noise unlike the above mentioned circuit with the resistors and capacitor which was terribly noisy and distorted.

 

Of course all the usual disclaimers apply here YMMV.

 

Good luck!

 

 

One more point about ground loop eliminators. I have noticed that several people have suggested going to Radio Shack for their 1:1 audio transformers. Be aware that the lower frequency response of these inexpensive transformers is ~300HZ which will give you poor base in you earphones . I don't know what the response of the Wal-Mart eliminator is but I could take it apart and see that the transformers are larger than the Radio Shack variety which means they probably use more or larger wire windings hopefully equating to a better frequency response. I can only attest that the frequency response sounds good to my ears. If you shop the web you can find ground loop eliminators or hum filters that run from $15 to hundreds of dollars, your choice.