What would you suggest that doesn’t involve cutting holes in the interior?
Just my opinion (I don’t listen to music played loudly), but given the ambient noise level in the car, be it FHC, OTS or 2+2, is it really worthwhile to add speakers, a high end stereo or amplifiers?
I really think my original Blaupunkt AM/FM and speakers sound great for a 52 year old car stereo especially when I have the antenna pulled all the way up. Never listen to it when driving but often turn it on when working in the garage. I would much rather use my phone tied to one of those speakers that looks like a soda can than alter an original working radio. My 2 cents.
David
68 E-type FHC
Well thank you all for your input. For my money, I’d prefer to have the radio function again. And actually it’ll be worth more than the $500 it’ll take to restore it. If it were a simple AM radio I wouldn’t do this, but it was a pricey radio back in the day and it’s original to this car. It has two speakers in it and both would need to be re-coned. But with today’s vast improvement in speakers - the magnet technology far exceeds that used in 1963 - finding a flat 4" speaker will not be so difficult I expect. Anyway, I’ll still use my phone for tunes and my JBL Charge 3; it can sit right behind the seats.
You know Joey, for about $100 more I can get the tiny thumb-sized tuner added inconspicuously into this radio and play straight through that. That would run through the car’s speakers though and I doubt I can get a sound to compare to the JBL Charge though.
Thanks James for the Cruz Classic contact. I shall call them too. At the moment, I have found my old friend and also a local fellow who restores old radios. My friend informs me after all these years all the electrolytics (the capacitors) will not be good and need to be replaced. I’ve eliminated the fellows in PA and have discussed the radio at length with VintageBlau.com. They’re located in the next harbor east of Cold Springs Harbor where I used to keep our boat - out on the Island. They only work on Blaupunkt and Becker. I am leaning towards them.
That’s the status for the moment.
David, you know you can add a tiny signal amplifier to your antenna to boost the signal and likely not have to raise it at all. Never know it’s there.
Hello Scot,
One more possible resource - Dick Roth at Phillips Radio and TV in OH . Tel 330-4545185. Repaired my non-functional original Philips AM/FM/SW earlier this year, and explained the differences between silicon and germanium transistors to me. Very reasonable and a great guy to speak with. He was fixing a Duesenberg radio when I checked on him last month.
Thanks John. I would have called him, but I’ve sent it off to VintageBlau on Long Island. One pays their money and they take their chances. Hope it turns out great. It’ll take 5 or 6 weeks, but I’ll know the prognosis next week.
Radio is up and working fine now. VintageBlau had it sorted, cleaned and tested in no time. Sent me a video of it working! The radio has its original Telefunken tubes in it and just needed a deep cleaning and tuneup. There was a problem with the 6-pin connector that has been resolved. I was able to download all the schematics from RadioMuseum thanks to a tip from Bob Hodgins…thanks Bob. I can get new speakers from Greg at turnswitch.com. And…the biggest worry was switching the polarity on the radio to negative ground. Apparently some of the discrete elements don’t react well to switching so it is a potential risk after 60 years. In my case, all went well. So, good news for the radio!
I also have discovered that my clock is old enough that is predates the diode addition that Jaguar put in to help with voltage fluctuations. That means I have no issue in switching the clock over to negative ground as well. Still, it will need to be fixed up I’m sure. I think I’ll go with Clocks4Classics and get the old tic toc back.
o I’ve received my Blaupunkt back from Vintage Blau (Ingo Prangenberg). And I plan to buy the speakers from Greg Thompson at Turnswitch, but I’m still looking. The radio rebuild cost me $500. I’m not sure that’s good value, but it is what I decided to do.
Then I tried the original speakers still installed in the center console but their paper cones are shot; they make sound but buzz awfully. So I looked those speakers over carefully and cannot find any reference to the impedance of the speaker. I noted they were hooked in parallel. So I measured them. 2.7 ohms! Not good!! The dealer who installed this radio 60 years ago did not know his stuff and installed two 4 ohm speakers wired in parallel. The radio seems to have survived so it must be pretty robust in its amplifier section. (It would have been all right had the dealer wired the speakers in series hence making 8 ohms as the radio calls for.)
I then wired to a pair of decent 4 ohm speakers in series (8.7 ohms measured) and that gave a better sound and volume, but they are way over rated for the amp at 160 watts. They also distort with any real volume. I’m not sure why that is except the tiny 4 watts cannot drive the high impedance speakers very well. Still, the volume where the distortion occurs is pretty high. So I then found a pair of 4 ohm speakers rated at 20 watts (I have junk around! 
) and I hooked them up in series and have a pretty decent sound and volume. Still distorts at about 3/4 volume though.
Does anyone know what the true power output of the Blaupunkt is? Radio Museum is stating 4 watts, but unknown distortion. A more correct question is, “what wattage rating for speakers should I use?”
Because there a lot more speaker choices for cars with 4 ohms vs. 8 ohms, and because I’d like a speaker on each side of the console I believe the best choice is to use 2 4-ohm speakers wired in series. Any comment on this idea?
I’d also like to know about the second speaker pin-outs. On the radio there is a second speaker output on the amp (much wider pin spacing that the one I’m using). A Blaupunkt brochure says it is for a “remote” speaker and suggests it is good for picnics or to mount additional speakers in the rear of the vehicle. I cannot tell however if the second speaker output is to be used with the first output. Can you advise me as to how Blaupunkt says it should be used? Or how I should test it to safely ascertain its output while the first pins remain connected? Can I use both outputs simultaneously?
Thanks John. Your pic is a different version of the Frankfurt than mine which is the #32471. The knob functions from your pic are similar but different than mine and I have no tape player input. The pic I posted is from an unknown Blaupunkt. That said, they both provide some information. Let me see if I can’t post the specs for mine:
Scott I know little about radios but am impressed with how well mine sounds even at fairly high volume for 52 years old. It is very picky about tuning exactly into the right spot or will sound scratchy and weak. I think my speakers are original or at least decades old. If you think mine is close to what you have I can pull the radio console to see if any speaker markings etc that might help. I do know that it is a Blaupunkt AM/FM stereo.
David
68 E-type
Well maybe mine is mono and not stereo too. It does change the tone from each speaker when I move that lever under the volume knob side to side. Even as a teenager in the '70’s I could not have cared less about the radio in my car but this one does have that deep base note that was prized so much by all my buddies back then. Does that K on your radio mean it is a short wave ?
David
68 E-type FHC
Hi,
I never use the buttons “L”, “M” or “K”. Only the two “U” buttons, as I have my two fav channels stored in those. They are FM. I don’t think we have any other kind of broadcasts over here but FM (radio) and DVB (TV).
DAB never got popular over here, but RDS is being used.
Cheers!
PS. The letters come from German:
L = Lang (long wave)
M = Medium (medium length wave)
K = Kurz (short wave)
U = Ultrakurzwelle (UHF Ultra High Frequency = FM)
So yes, that “K” is for short wave frequencies, which are not used over here.
And I have plugged in a DIN-adapter to the back of the unit and hidden the cable so I can play back anything I want through a 3.5mm mini-jack.
I do have an additional external Blaupunkt C-cassette Stereo-player, which I could hook up in the passenger footwell, but it would of course only playback in mono through a mono radio. I was thinking of buying a period Stereo version of the Blaupunkt Frankfurt radio, but then thought that as this is the unit that was in this car in the 1970’s I’ll just keep on using it. The only car where I have used a poratble radio and portable speaker is the MKV DHC which aparently has never had a radio of any sort fitted and thus has it’s original “map drawer” left with it’s original burr walnut veneer from 1950.
Hi David, thanks for the offer, but I think that’s a bit much to ask for you to remove your console. Thx for your pic too Pekka. I note that on my last post, the “auto edit” function of J-L correction my attempt at drawing my speaker jacks. Here’s a pic:
So going back to what John Carey posted, I have two jacks into which one plugs speaker connections. The one on the right has its plug in it; the one on the left is for “any other extra speaker.” I’d like to know how those two plugs interact. Perhaps Michael
Pekka, I also want to do this, the way I understand this there is a bridge in place from the factory and when I pull this jumper I can install the DIN plug.
I want it to switch to the aux source (a Bluetooth dongle so I don’t have any wires, and it has to be reversible) so it only runs when it plays music. I want to retain the radio. Did you disable the radio part, tune to an empty station (since there is no Langwelle stations anymore the button could be „disabled“? But I don’t want to mess up the radio), or do you use an external switch? Or is that not needed…
A little automatic changeover switch might be a way to do it, but I need a way to make it switch when there is signal only. The way I understand the TA devices back in the day the radio signal was passed through the cable and the switch was built into the external device. Then, back into the amplifier if the device was off. Now, I don’t want to put some „Snob 100“ (blaupunkt‘s name for their tape deck!) anywhere, so the switch has to work on its own. Is there any way to do that?
David
Pekka
You should be able to get this station in Europe on short wave, especially if you like 1960’s music: http://www.radiomiamigo.international/english/news.html
Very impressive setup with a powerful transmiter although I listen in stereo via the web.
David, this little device:
Thank you Scot. We used to have one of these and had to change frequency quite often, I remember it being a little tedious and I want a nicely integrated version just like in my other XJ, where my phone hooks up to the Bluetooth automatically and I just switch to tape, no visible parts and always perfect transmission. Just like a more modern car, but absolutely integrated. And I have to remove the radio next year because one heating linkage is broken.
And for charging I‘ll think of something. Ideally wireless since that’s here to stay, or worst case a black wire or pad under the shelf at the steering wheel. If the car had missing parts it would be so much easier!
But you’re right, they’re cheap and I‘ll get one for the time being. Can’t be wrong.
Thanks!
David
Hi,
Sure, that’s the way it works. I got mine from Germany, I think they were €19,90 EUR each at Youngtimerradio.de. When you plug the 3.5mm miniplug in, it silences the radio and amplifies the signal coming in from the plug.
The Blaupunkts and many other radios had these already in the 50’s.
IIRC the mono is DIN-6 and stereo is DIN-7 but they would know which fits which radio in the Youngtimerradio shop.
Cheers!
Thank you Pekka, that sounds very promising!
