I would like to play mp3 player and make it come out the am radio speaker and be able to control the volume and tone with the am radio controls. Is this possible? It would be cool to keep it in the closed ashtray and it plays through the radio. I have an ipod shuffle.
You can get an RF transmitter that will send signals into an FM radio, but I don't know about AM. I doubt that, but I haven't searched the internet. The MP3 player sends the signals into the transmitter. I had one when I was working in Florida, which worked pretty well. But in California, the RF spectrum is so saturated that I couldn't find a decent frequency to set it to. I gave up on that and bought an AM/FM CD player that has USB and an aux jack. I plug my iPod into the USB port; it plays no commercials, just my music. That's in my econobox commuter car. In the Buick, I have an adapter that goes into the cassette player port and plays music from my iPod.
thanks Steve. If am transmitter is not available I wonder if there is a way to just splice in to the radio before it gets to the amp and controls. Have you ever had an am radio open?
Many of the radio restoration companies will do this. I used Joe's Classic Car Radio; they restored my radio and added a 3.5mm jack to which I could plug in my iPod. It works great. If you radio doesn't need a restoration, you could probably just have them add the 3.5mm jack. Or, if you search online, you might find how to do this yourself. Here's a link to Joe's: http://www.joesclassiccarradio.com/services.html.
One way to do it is with an AM converter. They made these I guess around the 80s. They had an FM tuner which converted to an AM frequency. You could run MP3 to FM converter, then FM to AM, then to radio. It does sound convoluted. If you are electrical in nature you may be able to open the AM converter, and remove the tuner part, adding an aux jack feeding its internal amplifier. Only place I've seen these AM converters in eBay.
I wonder how hard it would be to open the radio and splice in a 1/8" jack ? Anyone here ever had one open? If I had an extra I would experiment. I do like listening to my am talk shows though so I wouldnt want to lose that. Ya Joe's said they would do it for 85 plus shipping. Its fair enough I guess but 100 here 100 there 100 over here... man this adds up to thousands. I got to figure out how to do this myself, nickel and diming myself to death. I remember my first car 73 nova, I took it to the mechanic and he told me it needs lifters adjusted, springs, shocks, maybe a cam, brakes. He told me that if I want to like these kinds of cars i have to learn to do it myself or I will just be 'nickel and diming' myself out of existence. Thats when I knew I found an honest mechanic. I was 18. I never took my car to anyone else after that. And only then if I couldnt figure it out myself or find another car guy to teach me. I learned a lot that summer, of course that was just the beginning and we had all the time in the world then but I digress sharply. Carry on and thanks all for input.
Could you not just look for a factory am/fm radio to replace the stock am one and then us one of the fm to mp3 converters?
My son has a wireless bluetooth speaker box in his pick up truck - amazing sound, no wires and portable. He turns on his cell phone and the next thing you know there is music coming out of the speakers. I believe he got it at best buy.
I've been meaning to start a similar thread as I want to do the same thing, except my radio isn't currently working very well. The solution I was looking as was RediRad, which splices into the antenna and works with AM only radios. I like the looks of Joe's services (especially the Bluetooth) but that is pretty pricy. For now I'm going to stick with my portable Bluetooth speaker on the back seat. jeremy
connecting to the antenna on the radio. Thats interesting. I wonder if there could be an adapter that has male antena on one end and male 1/8" plug on the other. Could it be that simple? then you could have a splitter so you could have the antena connected at the same time as the mp3 player. update: oh I see. Thats what redirad is. Its $99. It would be great if I could just throw 100 dollar bills at everything that begins with the question "Hey wouldnt it be cool if....."
Bluetooth module available (Re: MP3 to AM radio.) Dear Gary and V-8 Buick audiophiles, One option that hasn't been mentioned is having your AM radio modified to include a electronic module that supports Bluetooth audio and even telephone. Such a module is manufactured by Aurora Design: http://www.tech-retro.com/Aurora_Design/BTU.html There are a number of companies that will install this module into your existing radio. Here is one: http://randbvintageautoradio.com/radio-conversion.html With this setup, you can using a smart phone as your music source and beam that music wireless to your converted radio. That avoids additional wiring and if you already have a smart phone, you are familiar with how the music player works. Even if you don't it is easy to learn. I went with a Custom Autosound 630 stereo in my trusty wagon. It isn't stock, but I made it look reasonably close: I found that playing music from my iPhone to the Custom Autosound stereo was very pleasant and hassle free. My wagon was the first to get a Bluetooth stereo. I liked it so much that I ended up converting all the other cars in the house - every one much younger than my wagon! So some more food for thought! Cheers, Edouard
Joe, of Joe's Classic Car Radio, shared the following link with me from the HAMB (aka jalopyjournal.com). It's a comprehensive DIY guide to adding an MP3 connection directly to your radio. Joe is the author. Here's the link: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tech-how-to-add-an-aux-input-to-your-stock-radio.300222/. If you don't mind opening up your radio and if you have some soldering skills, you should be set. Whether you do it yourself or not, a direct connection to the radio will result in dramatically higher quality sound than using an AM or FM converter (one that picks up an AM or FM frequency "broadcast" from your MP3 player). Thanks to Joe for sharing the link ... and once again, a shout out to Joe's Classic Car Radio. Joe does great work. Greg
tech-retro.com just came out with a AUX-1 board that does just what you are looking for. Check out billtheradioguy.com or any of the other dealers close to you. Bill is is Washington State (360) 427 0513
