From: dt@yenta.alb.nm.us (David B. Thomas)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: car audio for a hacker
Date: 8 Sep 92 00:52:50 GMT
Organization: yenta unix pc, rio rancho, nm

Proving once again that hackers hate to do anything the regular way, here's
how I put a stereo in my car!

I've been puttering around town in a 1970 Maverick with a digital electronic
ignition timing control system of my own design, an electronic combination
lock starter, and a transmission that's about forty miles from death.  Oh,
and the trunk won't close!

I've never had a stereo in there, and the stock AM radio sucks, of course,
so finally, I thought, this weekend I would get me some mobile tunes.  How
else can I truly enjoy my Bee Gees and Barry Manilow tapes?

The first step was to dig around in the garage and find the stock AM radio
so I could steal the mounting bracket off of it.  While I was in there, I
found an old piece-o-junk car stereo my friend Franky gave me years ago.
Well, I was fully prepared to *buy* a stereo, but with this one right here,
I thought I would at least check it out and see if it works well enough.

When I got to the bench, I remembered that I had dropped my 12v supply, so
I had to take that apart and tighten loose screws first.  That's very typical:
fix the tools so you can fix the actual broken item... like debugging the
compiler and then your own code.

The tape player mechanism was dirty as hell -- hadda clean the capstan with
a screwdriver!  Once I got it all cleaned up and aligned the head, I was ready
to try it out.  Well, whaddya know -- it works.  Sounds like crap, but hey --
it's for a *Maverick* for cryin' out loud.

My only complaint was that it played the tapes about a half step sharp (too
fast), and there was no adustment anywhere inside the unit to correct this.
Since I am a musician and have perfect pitch, this is a serious enough
shortcoming to doom the whole project.  BUT -- since I am also an incurable
hacker, and since the thing was free anyway, I decided to try filing down
the plastic pulley on the tape player motor, little by little, until it played
tapes at the correct speed.  It worked -- I got it just right!!!  [I say just
right because I was able to play a prerecorded Journey tape (Raised On Radio)
along with the CD for an entire song with no detectable drift.  Now THAT's
just right! ... assuming of course that the factory that makes Journey tapes
records them at the right pitch to begin with.  It matches the speed of my home
units now, so I'm happy.]

Next I had to nibble the hole in the mounting bracket larger and fashion
some spacers with PVC pipe to make it all fit.  But then there was another
concern: what to do about SPEAKERS!

I decided that conventional car stereo speakers would not do, because the
Maverick is about as quiet as a Spinal Tap reunion tour, and I didn't want to
fork over real money for a booster.  My approach instead was to accept the
fact that I am selfish (ahem -- I mean, that I almost never ride with anyone
else!), and install a couple of those cute little 6" tall home stereo speakers
on either side of the headrest, right behind me.

The result is that the speakers sound so nice.. I'm a little disappointed
with the deck itself, but what the heck.  At least I'll never worry about
anyone stealing this deck ... is has the old dial-cord-and-cursor knob-style
analog tuning mechanism, an obvious piece of junk.

One thing about pieces of junk, though: If it belongs to a hacker, there's
probably a good story in there somewhere.

							little david
-- 
Will hack Unix for food.