The story of the Airstream 310 Jacket

[Keyair]

Nice work Peter!

Brad, sometime you know, you are like that little Devil on the shoulder...

[PeterH-350LE]

Preview
1983 meets 2015 . George Orwell knew it all along
This is awesome stuff!!!
DEAN, look !
Still undecided if I should run it through that old Sony amp. It renders some of the function useless, like fade, since that is controlled by the amp. What do you guys think, could there be a compatibility problem using old and new technology?

[dadstoy]

Very cool Peter and very Star Trek like! I'm watching Star Trek Into Darkness right now.

Here is a possibility for you...see if your new unit will drive two or four speakers directly and if it has an additional output for an amp. My plain radio will do that. I have two 6 inch speakers just below the dash on each side of the console as well as the two 3" speakers in the top of the dash. Some day I'll get an amp and hook it up to the aux amp output to power speakers back in the bedroom.

[bkahler]

Originally Posted by Keyair

Nice work Peter!

Brad, sometime you know, you are like that little Devil on the shoulder...

Who? Me?

[bkahler]

Originally Posted by dadstoy

Very cool Peter and very Star Trek like! I'm watching Star Trek Into Darkness right now.

Here is a possibility for you...see if your new unit will drive two or four speakers directly and if it has an additional output for an amp. My plain radio will do that. I have two 6 inch speakers just below the dash on each side of the console as well as the two 3" speakers in the top of the dash. Some day I'll get an amp and hook it up to the aux amp output to power speakers back in the bedroom.

Dean, yes the radio can does have outputs for connection to an external amplifier. It actually has a lot of nice features.



Peter, are you going to install any kind of rear view camera to go with the radio?

[PeterH-350LE]

Originally Posted by bkahler

Dean, yes the radio can does have outputs for connection to an external amplifier. It actually has a lot of nice features.
Attachment 254401


Peter, are you going to install any kind of rear view camera to go with the radio?

Yes, Brad, I just could not get the camera and the unit together before Christmas. You know about my issue with patience .

[PeterH-350LE]

Originally Posted by dadstoy

Very cool Peter and very Star Trek like! I'm watching Star Trek Into Darkness right now.

Here is a possibility for you...see if your new unit will drive two or four speakers directly and if it has an additional output for an amp. My plain radio will do that. I have two 6 inch speakers just below the dash on each side of the console as well as the two 3" speakers in the top of the dash. Some day I'll get an amp and hook it up to the aux amp output to power speakers back in the bedroom.

Yes it will drive 4 speakers directly
Yes, it has additional output for amp.
I have a total of 6 speakers, 2 on the dash and 2 6x9 in the mid section and 2 6x9 in the rear bedroom.
currently the 4 rear speakers are connected, so the fade balances between the rear 4 and the 2 fronts.
Are you suggesting to connect the four in the front to the 4 direct wires of the unit and the very rear to the Sony amp?

[dadstoy]

Originally Posted by PeterH-Airstreamer

Are you suggesting to connect the four in the front to the 4 direct wires of the unit and the very rear to the Sony amp?

Yup, that is what I'm going to do someday with the cheapy radio that I have. I'm currently running the four front speakers directly and I get plenty of volume out of it and even with the cheap units today they all have a million adjustments for sound quality and balance, etc.

I'll connect an aux amp for the rear speakers or may even run the output of an aux amp to outdoor speaker connections. I'm always running a stereo at my outside bar in the summer time. It would be nice to not have to deal with that other stereo system and just use the stereo in the MH dash.

[dadstoy]

One thing to possibly watch for is on your rear speakers. Are they the original speakers installed by Airstream or have you installed them and have you run new speaker wires to them?

I do have two speakers in the bedroom which are original equipment from Airstream. However, back in '82, those two rear speakers are wired with a common ground back to the "old" stereo. This common ground will not work with the modern stereos which require a separate ground for each speaker.

I hooked mine up to test and with the common ground, I only get one channel out of those rear speakers (no left and right). I don't know if this would eventually harm the modern stereo. Someday, I'll run new speaker wire to the bedroom.

[PeterH-350LE]

Originally Posted by dadstoy

One thing to possibly watch for is on your rear speakers. Are they the original speakers installed by Airstream or have you installed them and have you run new speaker wires to them?

I do have two speakers in the bedroom which are original equipment from Airstream. However, back in '82, those two rear speakers are wired with a common ground back to the "old" stereo. This common ground will not work with the modern stereos which require a separate ground for each speaker.

I hooked mine up to test and with the common ground, I only get one channel out of those rear speakers (no left and right). I don't know if this would eventually harm the modern stereo. Someday, I'll run new speaker wire to the bedroom.

the common rear ground is news to me, I did not pay attention to it, when I replaced those speakers with 6x9. Currently the mid and rear 4 are connected with a left and a right channel, that does work as intended. I think i will separate them to investigate further.
Thanks for your input, Dean

[bkahler]

Originally Posted by peterh-airstreamer

yes, brad, i just could not get the camera and the unit together before christmas. You know about my issue with patience .

[PeterH-350LE]

update:
Unit is a 4 ohm ONLY!! system, so the mid and rear speakers had to be separated. They were reading 2 Ohm.
Now that I have separated them I will run the 4 front on the new unit and the rear bedroom on the amp, as Dean suggested.
Just takes me a while to to waddle through this stuff to understand it

[PeterH-350LE]

Dean, you are Da Man. Substantial sound coming from the 6x9 in the bedroom, powered by the old Sony amp, with the volume controllable by the fader button and the main volume button of the Jensen unit
Front 4 are now completely controlled by the jensen.

[dadstoy]

Sweet! Now come on out to wet and cold California and help me install an aux amp and speakers in the rear!

[Isuzusweet]

Originally Posted by dadstoy

Sweet! Now come on out to wet and cold California and help me install an aux amp and speakers in the rear!

Is it just me, or wasn't it just last week Dean was complaining about the heat and the fires, "whilst" standing guard in his fire tower watching lightening strikes.

Do I get extra points for using Steve's BL terminology?

Cheers
Tony

[dadstoy]

Well, a little more then a week ago, but yup 110 degrees and fires in the summer and now it is 38 with rain and a bit of snow predicted! All whilst I'm at home in the Bay Area where it is 58 degrees and some blue sky. However, we might see snow on the hills around the Bay Area by Christmas!

[PeterH-350LE]

Had to add a switch to kill power to the unit, since I am not wiring it through the ignition. Just pushing the off button turns the unit off but it stays warm and causes the fan to run.
Still cleaning up wires and messes. I found these 4 wires connected to the rear 4 speakers, which I separated. Any clue what they could have been for ?
its the red,white,light blue and light green ones

[bkahler]

Originally Posted by PeterH-Airstreamer

Had to add a switch to kill power to the unit, since I am not wiring it through the ignition. Just pushing the off button turns the unit off but it stays warm and causes the fan to run.
Still cleaning up wires and messes. I found these 4 wires connected to the rear 4 speakers, which I separated. Any clue what they could have been for ?
its the red,white,light blue and light green ones

Peter, I'm a little confused now. I thought you had the rear speakers working. If so how could these 4 wires also becoming from the speakers?

[PeterH-350LE]

Originally Posted by bkahler

Peter, I'm a little confused now. I thought you had the rear speakers working. If so how could these 4 wires also becoming from the speakers?

I separated the rear 4 speakers and at the same time found these 4 additional wires to be connected to that circuit
These additional wires do not power any of the rear speakers.
I could imagine that they were at some time external speaker connections ??

[bkahler]

Have you looked in your owners manual. I seem to remember the manual had extensive wiring diagrams for the sound system which surprised me since they seemed to leave out all sorts of other more important information!

I'll browse through the 84 310 manual that I have and see if it has what I remember.

Brad