For Sale (NOS) Shitter Cassette Radios (More than one of each available)

[aldo135]

Modern head unit removed and left with this! Is there a how to guide online or am I best getting an auto electrician? I'm afraid my experience of these things only goes as far as swapping the plugs over!

[BavarianRetro]

That looks like a pair of standard ISO plugs in the dash one plug will run all the speakers and one will have:-

Permanent live

Switched live

Earth

Illumination

Telephone mute

Antenna feed.

 

Google "ISO connection" for the pinout diagram. I have it but can't upload from my phone.

[aldo135]

Thanks mate!

[aldo135]

Is that a Kenwood, I have one in my MR2, id buy it off you if you're selling.

 

How much is the Alpine?

It is a kenwood but I'm afraid it's already in the mother in laws car! Too good for her listening to Heart FM but keeps me in the good books for now.

Incidentally is there an obvious reason her Pioneer radio cassette would just lose power? No fuses blown or anything, just stopped working! It was in a Honda HRV

[BorniteIdentity]

Too good for her listening to Heart FM...

 

Now Now...

 

(!)

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Is everything in this thread sold now??

[Richard]

That looks like a pair of standard ISO plugs in the dash one plug will run all the speakers and one will have:-

Permanent live

Switched live

Earth

Illumination

Telephone mute

Antenna feed.

 

Google "ISO connection" for the pinout diagram. I have it but can't upload from my phone.

 

I would buy an eBay ISO connector to avoid butchering the car's wiring. Something like this (cut off the plugs) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171607475193

or this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271041071486

 

[aldo135]

Good advice thanks chaps

[Aston Martin]

Is everything in this thread sold now??

 

I still have the Unisefs 

[blguy1975]

How Much are the Unisefs  Please

 

Thank You

 

Matt

[Aston Martin]

I have 8 Unisefs left, the last few were sold to idiots on eBay... Mind numbing PayPal-refunding scumbag idiots.

 

So £20 shipped.

[Brodders]

Bumping this back up to the top, do you still have any early 90s ICE shite available? I am looking for something from the right period to put into the Safrane and wondered if you had anything suitable in stock.

[Zelandeth]

If any of those Unicef units are still available I'll have one...Lada lacks anything so far and I was refusing to fit anything that didn't look right...this would look bloody perfect.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Did anyone ever successfully install one of the little TVs?

[Aston Martin]

I think I only have Unicefs left. Theres a guy trying to sell one on ebay for £80. 

 

 

I think I was selling for £20 delivered on here? Someone correct me if i'm wrong.

 

 

 

Did anyone ever successfully install one of the little TVs?

 

I hope so, they're amazing. (I kept one for myself)

[Zelandeth]

Excellent. I'll drop you a PM with my details and to arrange payment tomorrow when I'm at an actual computer.

 

Thanks!

[SiC]

How many unisefs do you have left? I.e. can I buy one too?

[anonymous user]

Did anyone ever successfully install one of the little TVs?

I'm afraid I only got as far as taking mine out of the box and looking at it. I reckon Hirst will have got his to work if anyone did

[Zelandeth]

Gutted I missed out on the TV unit as that's right up my street in electronic terms!  Almost looks like they've used a camcorder viewfinder CRT as the display...

 

Payment sent for the radio/cassette.

 

Just realised that it appears to have a clock function...If so that will be a major bonus as that's the one instrument that the car lacks that really bugs me.

[Aston Martin]

How many unisefs do you have left? I.e. can I buy one too?

Sorry, I missed this post. PM sent.

[strangeangel]

I'm afraid I only got as far as taking mine out of the box and looking at it. I reckon Hirst will have got his to work if anyone did

 

They won't work (in any meaningful way, anyway) because there's no analogue signals for them to receive any more.

 

What you need is a VCR in the boot, powered off an inverter, a long piece of coax, and a 4hr tape with a testcard and some lift musak on.

[Zelandeth]

Or something like a Raspberry Pi hooked into a HDMI to composite adapter, then you've got a really easy way to provide media for it.

[Eddie Honda]

Monkey box and lots of cables...

 

[anonymous user]

I do have a digi-box that works on co-axial rather than Scart (I use it with my old black and white sets), but I'd need an inverter to work it in a car and it's all a bit too much like hard work. It was a nice idea though

[Zelandeth]

Turned up today, and seems to work just fine.  Just had it on the bench for testing.

 

 

I wasn't sure from the original posts whether this was a new old stock item of a modern one just somehow still being made as though it was something from the 1980s. 

 

Definitely looks to be something made in the last couple of years...though I've not the foggiest idea who the intended market is...

 

The illumination gives a good idea of the general feeling of fit and finish though...

 

 

Seriously does look exactly like the sort of thing that would have come as OE fitment in something like my Lada if you'd ticked the "radio cassette" box on the options list...so absolutely exactly what I was after!  Seem to recall back in the early 90s that Proton were quite proud as I recall that they provided a Blaupunkt head unit rather than some brand you've never heard of like this as you'd expect in most of the budget motors of the time.

 

Also, yes, it does have a "power off but ignition on" clock mode...so I'm very pleased for that...also means that it will be getting fitted to the car long before I get any speakers installed just so I have a clock!

 

Well happy with it.  Even if slightly baffled as to *how* it actually exists in 2017...To be honest if I was planning on keeping the Skoda I'd probably pick up a second one just so I had a clock in there too!

[Aston Martin]

I assumed 80’s, I cant find anything Unisef made past 1985.

But I dunno, it’s weird that the box or paperwork doesn’t have a year anywhere.

[Zelandeth]

Give me ten minutes.

Will whip the cover off. There'll be a date code on something.

It's the behaviour of the tuner that strikes me as too modern to be 80s. You'd either have full push button control or an old varicap tuner with a knob then...they wouldn't make a "digital" radio then not push the fact that it was modern! Especially a no-name brand that would be trying to get every penny out of the product...

 

For reference, the right hand (tuning) knob is actually just a rotary up/down control, not a continuous rotary tuning control as you'd expect on an older unit.

 

Edit:

 

Okay, this gets more and more puzzling.

 

It appears that the innards of these things is actually a repackaged JVC unit - but repackaged to the extent that it is actually silkscreened on the PCB - "JVCD76HB

this p.c.b CZ-300 only"

 

Everything inside is decent brands...All Panasonic caps, Canon tape transport motor and NEC amplifiers/radio chips.  Even the interlink ribbon cables are Hitachi branded.  Totally at odds with the uber-budget basement look of the outside.  Even the front panel/display PCB (which also has unpopulated button positions for a Dolby B NR and Metal tape functions) is labelled JVC, again D76HB.

 

The only decypherable date codes I've managed to find so far point to either a 1997 or 2007 production date for the caps...or mid 1984 for the main processor IC...I tend to think that someone's got a load of old stock and has put these things together relatively recently.  The condition of the drive belt and the plastics just says 2007 more than 1980s...Likewise the grease in the tape mechanism looks like it was applied (carefully) yesterday, not 30 years ago.  That would have turned to glue by now if it had been there since the 80s.

 

This coming from someone who regularly deals with kit from the 70s/80s/90s.

 

8 times out of 10 if you pull a tape deck - even a new old stock in its original box one - from 1984 out of its box, you'll need to change the belts before it will work properly.  Likewise neither the box nor the instructions show *any* signs of yellowing.  Even 90s stuff by now will usually be starting to turn a little bit magnolia...especially the really cheap paper used for instruction sheets in stuff like this.

 

The plus side of this is that it's actually a JVC unit in a scruffy jacket it appears!  Will put up a couple of photos from the teardown in a sec, just reassembling it now...

 

Edit to the edit:

 

Here are some photos...Not great I'm afraid as the area I usually use for photos is currently covered in another project so I had to juggle everything by hand and resort to the flash for these due to lack of decent light.

 

Front panel with the cover removed showing non-populated button positions.  I'm seriously tempted to poke these and see whether the functions are there...Given the IC is dated 84 I'm going to bet the answer is yes.  However with nobody making Metal tapes any more there's no real reason to populate that - and to include the Dolby system would involve having to pay a license fee...so just disable it...

 

 

Back of the display & button PCB.  Clearly showing the JVC labelling.

 

 

Cassette deck motor...

 

 

General view of the PCB showing the JVC and "CZ-300, 301, 302" numbering.  Interestingly, the name Unisef does not appear ANYWHERE inside the unit...the only place it appears is the little plastic window, which isn't even glued in place...

 

 

There are also a number of standoffs etc in the case which are clearly intended to match up with a different internal layout, suggesting that whoever stamped the case (which IS pure 1970s in its construction methods, awkwardness to get into, and "DC-12V NEGATIVE GROUND" stamp on the top) were planning for it to be used with more than one internal layout.

 

 

I originally dismissed the tape deck as probably being a joke...but given all I was intending to use it with was an adaptor to plug an MP3 player into I wasn't too bothered....Given the JVC labels all over everything though - and the fact that it's an autoreverse deck which I hadn't originally spotted (again, totally at odds with the look of the thing or a bargain bin 80s deck), I thought it was worth testing...

 

...You know what, it actually sounds perfectly fine!  Exactly as I'd expect from a JVC deck from the 80s after I'd given it a fresh set of belts...

 

Thank you for one of the more interesting evenings I've had at this workbench in a while!

 

So in summary...As far as I can tell what appears to have happened here is that at "some indeterminate time" but I'm guessing late 90s, some third party OEM has bought a shedload of model-expired radio cassette chassis from JVC who for some reason found they still had a warehouse full of them and decided to sell them off for silly cheap.  That third party then threw together a Cheap'n'Nasty front panel (guessing they already had an old fashioned 70s style case in stock), slapped whatever store brand a buyer wanted on it, and sold em off still cheap but for profit.

 

The end result is that it looks like a cheap and nasty piece of tat, but appears to be 100% genuine JVC inside!

 

Probably explains why it sounded better when I first connected it up and seemed to have a far more sensitive radio than I expected (even with a bit of flex stuffed in the plug as an aerial). 

 

Annoyingly I've not had any luck finding the original JVC model yet as it's in that annoying period which tends to have zero signs of existence on the web...Again, a problem I'm well used to given that resurrecting tech from this era is (yet) another hobby of mine.  If I do find it anywhere I'll add it here, as I doubt I'm the only one who's curious to see what JVC originally intended for this thing to look like.

[Aston Martin]

As these are genuine JVC units, the price is now £120.

 

Thanks Zelandeth, for tearing this mongrel apart. I’ve checked a few times and the instructions have no info whatsoever. ‘Cassette car stereo’ and R-1301A which brings up nothing.

 

The barcode also brings up a blank. If they were made in Japan as the box says and Unisef is apparently Japanese, I wonder if they were some budget special knocked up for an equivalent Japanese Bush/Alba retailer special?

[alcyonecorporation]

Hey Zelandeth, 

Do you refurb old cassette head units? 

I'd like my Philips doing as it's a bit goosed. 

[cpjitservices]

Turned up today, and seems to work just fine.  Just had it on the bench for testing.

 

IMG_20171002_213417.jpg

 

I wasn't sure from the original posts whether this was a new old stock item of a modern one just somehow still being made as though it was something from the 1980s. 

 

Definitely looks to be something made in the last couple of years...though I've not the foggiest idea who the intended market is...

 

The illumination gives a good idea of the general feeling of fit and finish though...

 

IMG_20171002_154001.jpg

 

Seriously does look exactly like the sort of thing that would have come as OE fitment in something like my Lada if you'd ticked the "radio cassette" box on the options list...so absolutely exactly what I was after!  Seem to recall back in the early 90s that Proton were quite proud as I recall that they provided a Blaupunkt head unit rather than some brand you've never heard of like this as you'd expect in most of the budget motors of the time.

 

Also, yes, it does have a "power off but ignition on" clock mode...so I'm very pleased for that...also means that it will be getting fitted to the car long before I get any speakers installed just so I have a clock!

 

Well happy with it.  Even if slightly baffled as to *how* it actually exists in 2017...To be honest if I was planning on keeping the Skoda I'd probably pick up a second one just so I had a clock in there too!

Looks more like something Rotel would knock up.