[FWDLK] Fwd: Radio incognito

["Steven M. Charette" <SC68Cuda@xxxxxxx>]

Hi All,
        Got this in the '62-65 list this morning and thought you might enjoy it...
FYI
Steve

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• From: 62-65mopar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1999 09:53:00 +0000

1962 - 1965 Mopar Mail List Clubhouse -
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/3306/

Hi all,

Daniel Stern, a good Mopar guy & slant 6 fan, asked me to forward
this note to the group.

Some of you want your '62 to '65 Mopar to look like when Mopar
shipped it new.  That pretty much means AM radio.  Dan points out a
way to have that authentic look with much more fidelity and expanded
capabilitiies.

Also, I think this conversion  is a good idea since there is not much
of a market for AM radio & it's unlikely someone will bother to
steal that AM from your '62 - '65 Mopar.

Gary H.


==paste==
Gary--
I suspect list members will be very interested in this!

Many, many thanks to David Wright.

I was asking about options for radios to fit my father's
nearly-perfect '62 Lancer, and he pointed me towards Gary Tayman, of
Tayman Electrical in Sarasota, FL. Gary does all kinds of interesting
things with old car radios, including FM conversions.  "Conversion"
isn't actually the right word, though, because the radio retains all
of its original AM functionality, and the vacuum tubes and transistors
are NOT replaced by microchips, nor are the mechanical pushbuttons and
rotary tuning replaced by "soft-touch" electronic buttons or
spring-loaded "digital step" tuning. The original speaker is used. The
dial appearance doesn't change, either.  All of this seemed like a big
benefit, because the original AM radio from the Lancer was on the
basement shelf, and the car had an FM/AM unit from a later Dart which
didn't work well and certainly didn't look right.

The "conversion" involves implanting a tiny FM receiver inside the
radio, which uses the AM carrier as a reference.  You turn on the
radio, and it's in regular AM mode.  Turn it off and then back on, and
it's in FM mode.  Turn it off, wait six seconds, turn it on, and it's
back to AM.  This car is a driver, not a show car, but this original
appearance and function would be beneficial where originality counts
for points, because a judge turning on the radio to ensure it hadn't
been modernized would hear, after the vacuum tubes warmed up, only AM
stations.  After collecting your trophy, you'd simply click the radio
on-off-on and drive home listening to whatever you choose.

There are no FM numbers on the dial, but it's easy enough to find what
you want without looking at the dial. I brought a portable radio out
to the garage, dialled-in stations on the FM dial of the portable, and
then matched them on the car radio, just to see if there were any
stations I could get on the portable that I couldn't get on the car
radio--there were none.

Pushbuttons can be set to one AM or one FM station per button (not one
AM and one FM as in later factory FM/AM radios, but who cares?)  I
haven't put the underdash A/C back in, and I need to duct-tape a holed
defroster hose and reinstall the fuse box, but I tried it out and it
works *fantastically well*.  FM stations are pulled in clearly and
strongly, with no background noise.  Sound quality is as rich as I
remember it (those vacuum tubes...).  And AM reception, which was
outstandingly long-reaching with this radio before the FM addition, is
still outstandingly long-reaching.  (Could have something to do with
the 90" antenna...?)

But that's not all.  I persuaded Gary to try an experiment with this
radio.  I asked him to add a 1/8" stereo input (like the headphone
plug on a Walkman or Discman) so that I could use a 1/8" stereo male
to 1/8" stereo male patch cord to play tapes or CDs.  He kept telling
me it'd be less-than-ideal, because the impedance wouldn't match, but
he tried it anyhow.  There's a 3.5mm mono input below the 1/8" stereo
input on the side of the radio.  Into the 2.5mm input plugs a cable
with a SPST (pushbutton, in this case) switch on the end.  The patch
cord plugs into the 1/8" input.  WOW!!!  It works GREAT!  Yes, I have
to turn up the volume a bit to hear CDs at the proper level (impedance
mismatch), but the sound quality is excellent and as long as I
remember to turn down the volume before clicking over to Radio mode
again, there's no problem.  I ran the switch and patch cords across
the back of the dash and into the glovebox, where they remain stashed.
 To use an auxiliary unit (tape player, CD player, MIDI keyboard,
whatever...don't use that last one while driving!), you simply open
the glovebox, click the red switch, plug in your auxiliary unit, and
off you go!  This could get very interesting on cars with Hiway
Hi-fi...turntable, CD player, cassette, FM, AM...it'd amount to a rack
system, all in your dashboard...

As far as customer service, this guy is top-drawer.  Turnaround time
was a week, and the unit arrived carefully packed.  The whole
shemozzle cost $179, which is about what you might spend at Radio
Shack to get a decidedly UNoriginal Chiwanese digital FM/AM/Tape
shaft-style radio with only a fast-forward/eject button and no station
presets.  I cannot highly enough recommend Mr. Tayman's services!

Tayman also does repair work of all descriptions, and other types of
conversions (FM stereo, CD changer capability, etc.).  He can be
reached at gtayman@xxxxxxxx

--Daniel

'62 Lancer 770, aluminum 225, 904, A/C, 80k miles (father's)
'65 Canadian Valiant Custom 200, aluminum 225, 904 (mine, needs resto)
'91 Spirit R/T (mine, for sale) '92 LeBaron (mother's grocery getter,
the unkillable K-car) '71 164, B30A, 33k miles (mine, replacement for
R/T0


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