Radio aerial

[Simonpfhc]

Thanks Ralph, the seats will be in matching red piping.

As Rory quite rightly points out, the sound system in an Etype is an extremely minor use item and we shouldn't get too focussed on this subject. However, as an Etype-owning colleague of mine once highlighted, our cars are still affected by traffic jams, so a bit of background music can be useful :-)

Cheers.

[ralphr1780]

Thanks Simon.
Because it is a minor use means when you intend to it should work properly.
I have a radio set-up since several years in my S2 OTS with the speakers in their original location, and I do use it indeed only when in traffic jam, picnic, city rides. Now very incline to copy yours for the S1 OTS running project, for the same minor usage.

[Simon P]

However, as an Etype-owning colleague of mine once highlighted, our cars are still affected by traffic jams, so a bit of background music can be useful :-)

Ah, but such circumstances you've got the temperature gauge to keep you adequately entertained....

[mark10337]

[Nickleback]

Ah, but such circumstances you've got the temperature gauge to keep you adequately entertained....

Only if you have'nt changed out the heater bulkhead pipes & made sure the fans work all OK

[rfs1957]

I've heard several references to using 6.5" speakers and decided to go down that route.

For reasons of local availability I bought a pair of MTX TRS654, which also come with a pair of tweeters

In my case it wasn't that straightforward and I should have measured/thought more before I got stuck in, so a couple of words of warning that I would have done well to heed.

1. they can end up a pretty tight fit regarding the space between the magnets and the gearbox cover - mine is a steel cover and in the position I fitted them required a bit of 1/4" relief with a hammer. I should have fitted them 1/2 higher, but then they hit the brackets on the scuttle etc etc cont. p92, usual chasing your tail.

2. the cheeks of the radio-console end up pretty weak once the hole is taken to that larger diameter, and the speakers are surprisingly heavy ; without the original bulky radio and its linking brackets to each cheek, it's all a bit floppy so I ended up brazing a couple of small brackets inside the radio console so that I can add a cross-brace to impose a finished shape to it rather than suffer the vagiaries of the trim and carpets, as fitting the radio-console on my car always feels a bit like a breech-birth. So I'm told.

I'll post some pictures once I'm sure I've barked up the right alley ..........

Question ; what kind of speaker grills/trims have people with bigger speakers used ? If any ? I'm tempted to cheat and adapt the originals DB.19984 as this centre console is such a porous over-powered boogie-box that the noise should have no trouble getting out anyway.

[rfs1957]

Simon, Having trouble sending you PM's again - have you changed a setting ?
Much obliged. R

[Simonpfhc]

Hi Rory,

No problems apart from me not spotting the tiny flashing number in unread messages. I must admit that I miss the old system of when there is a new PM waiting, it would take you straight to the Messages page when you visited the site.

Anyways, I will double check what I ordered and get back to you asap.

Cheers

[Heuer]

You can receive email notifications of PM's if you want. Go to your User Control Panel (click on your username top right) > Board Preferences > Edit Notification Settings and check the relevant boxes:


Obviously you need to make sure your registered email is correct and valid. We used to rely on a PM pop-up notification but all browsers now automatically block them as they are usually adverts. I did add flashing red notifications but people seem to ignore them

I also wanted to make the above notification settings the default for all users but that would open us up to spammers registering and sending PM's to everyone - new users have to make at least 5 posts before they can send PM's.

[Simonpfhc]

Hi David,

I'll set up that email alert - that's perfect

Cheers.

[rfs1957]

Bit of a Misnomer this title now - anyone capable of changing it maybe ?!

Two subjects addressed here :

BIGGER SPEAKERS

To complete my conclusions about going that big on centre-console speakers on a Series 1 - DON'T DO IT.

It's such a cramped fit, requires clever solutions to collisions with the mounting-brackets, generally weakens the the metalwork to such an extent, and (probably) makes no difference to the sound, that I wouldn't do it again.

I would use the original-size speakers and add another pair in the A-post hollows as recommended elsewhere on the Forum.

(An alternative approach would be to no longer fasten the speakers to the cheeks of the console but make semi-circular seats to receive the speaker magnets and clamp these to the metal gearbox-cover - don't snort, please, it makes sense when you see where the speakers end up.)

In that way you separate the console from the speaker-carrying function and everything would be a lot easier to work on, neater etc









I kept the original chrome trims and did some nadgery with the metalwork to cope with retaining them within the bigger-speaker cut-outs ; a lot of work for nothing, really.



The flash shows what's going on, you can't see it with the naked eye.

BLUETOOTH CHEAPO AMP

Thanks to Simon, I wasted even more time and effort by going off on a tangent with a NOBSOUND (really !) Bluetooth amp that I hid behind the Motorola façade, once I'd lobotomised it.

First admission - Total Cock-Up - as I only realised at the very end that my friends at NOBSOUND (love it) had grounded the aluminium chassis of their little amp to -VE, and so me - still on positive earth - had many sparks and dark moments until I discovered that a Raaco A6-1 plastic tray is a perfect NOBSOUND fit.

But it's a botch, I confess.

A pity, as the idea has potential. I set the volume on the amp at about 70% and didn't bother to try and re-use a potentiometer on the Motorola volume control, reckoning that the iPhone volume control would do the job ; however, like Simon, I fitted a few LEDs behind the tuning area and wired the Motorola on-off into the NOBSOUND feed.





This is where I used the test-lamp to prove to my satisfaction that, yes, the earthed-case was indeed completely incompatible with all the work I'd done up until that point.



As an aside, plastic rectangles cut from a 5L can were indispensable for sliding the cheeks of the radio console over the centre console if the vinyl was to survive.





Saved by a plastic box.



Through some cock-up at the car-radio suppliers I ended up with 4 tweeters ; I had always intended to fit one pair in the B-post cut-outs as my leaning-back seats mean I'll get some treble in deaf ears from there, but with the extra pair I decided to "joigne l'utile à l'agréable - that's join the useful to the agreable for the non-polyglots amongst us -and hereby lay my claim to a Jaguar World First, which bonfire I defy even David to piss-on.

Can't be bothered to connect de-mister hoses 1 and 5 under your dashboard, driven mad by the bleeding hoses ?

Then broadcast your tweeters out through de-mister outlets 1 and 5 instead.

[url=https://postimg.org/image/4b2i1nkmf/][/url

A couple of bits of heat-shrink sleeving and your spare tweeters will henceforth blare out vertically up into the windscreen area - and, unbelievably, it actually works.

[malcolm]

So, I have the original radio (MW/LW only) with the original speakers. Manual telescopic aerial on the front wing. All I can get is a few continental stations, five live (remarkably!) and weather forecasts for Viking and Cromarty. I put the radio on when my Son i Law was in the car, and his re-action (with radio 4 weather forecast being read) was "wow! even the voices on the radio are old fashioned!"

[Heuer]

Rory

You might want to consider stuffing the whole console (once the radio is in) with acoustic wadding to radically improve the sound quality. The problem you have is that the speaker cones will be moving in and out in sync so air waves will be bouncing around against the metal radio case, housing and the other speaker and cancelling each other out. This stuff would be ideal but keep it fairly loose:



https://www.audiomate.co.uk/proddetail. ... GwodrG8H3Q

Love what you have done with the tweeters. Brilliant!

[Heuer]

Malcolm

If you are in Suffolk or Essex you will shortly be able to listen to Radio Caroline on AM. Yes, the most famous pirate radio ship has, after 50 years, been awarded an official full-time Ofcom broadcast licence and intends to transmit its shows from the MV Ross Revenge (one of the original Caroline ships) anchored in the River Blackwater. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-39976829

You can currently hear their shows on the internet: http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html


Driving an E-Type and listening to Radio Caroline on AM, how cool is that! Time warp or what.

[Heuer]

Rory

Seeing you wrestle with the plastic box for the radio I wondered why you have not converted the car to -ve earth? Only takes a few minutes and you can put it back to stock in the same amount of time: http://www.jcna.com/library/tech/tech0023.html

[rfs1957]

Yes, I was worried someone was going to propose that !

Will read the thread, I'd always assumed that being a freak with a dynamo precluded me from doing that - probably wrong there too ?

[Herzeg]

Rory

When I bought mine it had a flashy JVC stereo with pulsing lights and AM/FM. I replaced with a Pure FM/DAB unit by Angus refused to refit my stereo and gaudy speakers !

I have bought a £20 bluetooth speaker off of ebuyer.com and now listen to a range of stations through the BBC app and internet on my iPhone. Early days yet but seems good and all wireless.

John