Becker head unit Installation

[Jas11n]

It would seem that Becker are going through some legal problems at the moment preventing them from being able to distribute items in the UK this will not be resolved until some time in February. So for this reason we will refund your order and keep you posted as to when things change.

Regards Kev

Another w**k internet seller who flog stuff they don't have.
A week and half they've had my money, a week and a half I've wasted.

[Fat Audi 80]

****** take isn't it Jas....

Good luck sourcing it again.

Cheers,

Steve

P.S. Let me know if there is anything else in the thread that requires edtiting...

[Jas11n]

Crap like this really gets me riled Steve. Ive got £400 of my hard earned in others peoples hands with nothing to show for it, what with the headlamps from germany and now this.
How hard can it be to preview, choose, pay for and then take delivery of an item without hassle.
"Kev" doesn't seem happy to my reply of "IF YOU DON'T HAVE IT, DON'T ADVERTISE AND TAKE PAYMENT FOR IT"

The search continues............

Jas..

[Jas11n]

Whoops, forgot to update.
Got it from here >>> here.
They have a phone number, and a lovely young lady confirmed they have them in stock, ordered yesterday and they send 24hr special delivery, so should be here later today sometime.
Bit more pricey, but prepared to pay that for a bit of nice customer satisfaction without any lies.

Also, a rant can do some good sometimes, sextonsdirect seem to have taken onboard my rant about taking folks money when they don't actually have the item.
All Becker gear is now listed as "out of stock" and as such you can't procede any further on their site.
Linky


Jas..

[UrS4boy]

Oh, sorry, you said Becker Head. I read it as something else.

Carry on.

[Jas11n]

Go and play with your coils or something and stop hijacking my thread

[UrS4boy]

Go and play with your coils or something and stop hijacking my thread

Whatchu doin' up so late/early? It's only 9:30 PM in Vancouver BC Canada. Good luck with that Pecker, er, Bezerker, er, oh, well, forget it, radio, install.

[maddagent]

Sorry to hear about all the trouble you've had getting your hand on one of these fine headunits!

I still think its worth it at that price, such a good radio!

[Jas11n]

@ Dave, I work shifts, and as a consequence view the site at unearthly hours.

@ maddagent, problem sorted. The unit arrived today from Beckerstore as promised .

Now to fit it on Saturday..

[Jas11n]

It's in
And it is goooood, I like it lots.

Cheers to Paulgo for the assitance


GAL function was hooked up and works great (spliced a feed from the brown/red wire that goes to pin 20 of the blue 26 pin connector on the rear of the clocks), volume increases with speed and can be finely tuned in one of the menu's. Blue tooth connection to my mobile works with no hassle at all. Either make or receive a call and the sound mutes and the call is channeled through the car speakers, Seems the microphone is in a good position, both my other half Allie and then my mum could hear me fine. The headunit and the phone automatically connect when the headunit is switched on.
I needed a switched +12v feed, so that was taken from the red wire from the igntion switch which goes to the warning buzzer (relay with 292 on top) located under the drivers parcel shelf. Now the radio will turn on and off with the ignition, but I can also have the unit on without the key in the ignition, left on unactive the unit will auto switch off after 1 hour exactly as maddagent says above.
I bought an Autoleads PC2-18-4 iso converter from Halfords so I could switch the permanent +12v and the switched +12v around (pin 4 to pin 7, pin 7 to pin 4), as the becker unit has them another way. I already had one of these iso converter leads on the back of the Alpine, and I used it so I could butcher a spade terminal out of it for the GALA feed needed to go into position one on the iso plug.
The supplied microphone for the bluetooth part of the headunit was routed behind the door trim between the door seal and the side of the dash, then behind the felt door trim and finally placed just next to my grab handle.
MP3 and CD play is very good with easy to use menu's. The unit has two RDS tuners, why? **** knows, but the radio sound quality is spot on.

I didn't manage to get a run of pics of the whole process, as we were working against a threatening sky, but here's a couple of grainy pictures.
Clicking on each pic will make it bigger, not that that matters as I can't seem to be able to get my digi camera to take a clear enough picture with the flash turned off Probably user error rather than camera error.

[Cullam3n]

Guess you 1up-ed simon then?

Have to say that it does look good and fits in perfect, top choice

[Nuvo]

Very nice install Jas. The dual RDS tuners allow to listen to radio stations that don’t transmit TMC (traffic message channel) signals without having to miss out on the benefits of dynamic navigation.
(You can recieve both signals simultaneously).

[Fat Audi 80]

Lovely Jas! Looks very OEM and sounds like it has ALL the toys

Incidentally, on the camera as the flash is off it greatly increases the exposure time, the only way to take a good pic it to hold the camera against something solid and still of use a tripod.

Cheers,

Steve

[andrewd]

Looks great! I've had my eye on one of these since the cheap Sony in mine decided to stop providing any radio reception.

Is it in Audi thing to not provide a switched 12v to the radio? As I thought it was just cr*p installation that meant mine's permanently on. Have to take the faceplate off to get it to stop it doing its 'demo' display when it's off.

[Jas11n]

Cheers guys. It was worth the hassle. Well chuffed with it.
Will get some better pictures of it using your advice Steve, cheers. I'm crap with cameras.

@ Andrewd, this car now and my previous two Coupes have never had the switched +12v at the iso plug.
All of my previous headunits (two alpines and a kenwood) have needed one, but all thats been done is the same as what the autoleads iso connector had today. pin 4 and pin 7 joined together, In effect permanent +12v and switched +12v joined tricking the headunit into thinking it's got the switched feed. The permanent +12v acting as a fake switched feed.
This doesn't work with the Becker as it'll drain the battery (so I've read).

Anyway, I'm happy with it, nice OEM looks with some subtle toys. Yes they are expensive at £300 and you can get similar spec units at a lot less. But none that fit in with the overall look of the interior. For me anyway.

Jas..