Old factory car phone junk

[RX7guy]

Can I rip all that crap out?

[cschollum]

yes and no, be carefull incase it is the version that interacts with the LCD check control, otherwise when you remove the phone you will get no messages on your lcd as the circuit is broken, its a simple fix to join 2 wires together, but i cant remember which.
If it doesnt display messages on your lcd(many didnt) then yes just remove it

[Jay 535i]

Don't forget to ditch this too:

http://www.herbach.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/mis3003.jpg

Man, it's funny just how thoroughly obsolete the "car phone" is. Do you remember when having one of those squiggly things on your rear window was actually some kind of status symbol?

[Kalevera]

Sell the kit on ebay. For whatever reason, people are hot to get them.

best, whit

[SchnellE34]

Can I rip all that crap out?

Chech your PMs

[E34 530]

Don't forget to ditch this too:

http://www.herbach.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/mis3003.jpg

Man, it's funny just how thoroughly obsolete the "car phone" is. Do you remember when having one of those squiggly things on your rear window was actually some kind of status symbol?

Obsolete??? Car phones are like 20 times more powerful than your everyday cell phone and will make a call ANYWHERE. A regular cell phone has like 2 volts of power while the car phones have anywhere from 3-9 watts of power.

[sKilled]

It's not the power, it's the external antenna that make them so great. A car is nothing other than a Faraday Cage (def thanks to wikipedia.org:an enclosure designed to exclude electromagnetic fields. It is an application of Gauss's law, one of Maxwell's equations. Gauss's law describes the distribution of electrical charge on a conducting form, such as a sphere, a plane, a torus, etc. Intuitively, since like charges repel each other, charge will "migrate" to the surface of the conducting form).
This means that it is very diffivult for the signal from the cellphone to get out of the car, whilst it is difficult for external signals to get in.
So if I were you, I would consider perhaps replacing the ugly external antenna with a more visually pleasing version, and hotwiring a cradle for your current phone into the system.

[cschollum]

here in the UK, most car phones of the fixed variety that were fitted when the car was new like in 1989 1990 no longer work, as the network they were on (analogue) has been switched off - therefore we remove them.

There are fixed versions that work on the later frequencies GSM and these are around 8 Watts, and yes the arial does help but the power output is produced by the transiver not the arial, going off skilled's approach, if you stuck a car arial on a mobile phone you would get an 8 watt mobile, completly incorrect.

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

True the old car phones put out real Watts, but those models disappered real quick once cell phones caught on and the carriers put up more cells. Those old hi wattage models were soon overdriving the system, so even the car phones soon went to milliwatts too.

Plus I don't think the old models are supported any more by the carriers.

[sKilled]

True, but what I meant was if it is doable, to use the old wiring that is already in place. Saves time and money.

[cschollum]

not even slightly feasable, will an old fixed car phone have any usable parts to connect to a modern day mobile

[Qube]

Heh. I ripped out the base in mine. Damn Motorola AMPS unit, does me no good. There's still the headset hookup and the 'handsfree' I need to remove.

[Derek A.]

The old installed phones were 3 watts. The handhelds are limited to .6 watts. But all the installed stuff was analog - not digital. I used to work for Cellular ONe back in the mid 90's. External antenna is a big help and hand free is nice. The factory BMW stuff is just to damn old !

[genphreak]

The old installed phones were 3 watts. The handhelds are limited to .6 watts. But all the installed stuff was analog - not digital. I used to work for Cellular ONe back in the mid 90's. External antenna is a big help and hand free is nice. The factory BMW stuff is just to damn old !Nice to have cat5 cabling from the boot to the console tho... mmm what to do with that... maybe it is time to mount a car pc...

[Qube]

Nice to have cat5 cabling from the boot to the console tho... mmm what to do with that... maybe it is time to mount a car pc...

That's a good point... hmmmmm maybe won't rip it out after all.

[RX7guy]

Ok update! Yesterday while I was taking some of that phone stuff out, I discovered what appears to not be the factory equipment. The stuff I took out of my car was Nokia crap that was half-ass installed. Can someone tell me what the factory stuff is supposed to look like so I can verify?

[SchnellE34]

Ok update! Yesterday while I was taking some of that phone stuff out, I discovered what appears to not be the factory equipment. The stuff I took out of my car was Nokia crap that was half-ass installed. Can someone tell me what the factory stuff is supposed to look like so I can verify?

I belive the factory phones were Motorola brand.

[VentoGT]

I am also going to pull all of my phone crap out--it is the only thing in my car that rattles and it rattles like freakin crazy...is it just as simple as unscrewing those side screws and pulling the thing out? Also, with respect to the whip antenna at the rear, is there a hole in the glass after removing the antenna?

[cschollum]

I am also going to pull all of my phone crap out--it is the only thing in my car that rattles and it rattles like freakin crazy...is it just as simple as unscrewing those side screws and pulling the thing out? Also, with respect to the whip antenna at the rear, is there a hole in the glass after removing the antenna?

no holes in glass

[E34 530]

no holes in glass

Not necessarily. Some were drilled through and others were just stuck on with adhesive.

[theurig]

yes and no, be carefull incase it is the version that interacts with the LCD check control, otherwise when you remove the phone you will get no messages on your lcd as the circuit is broken, its a simple fix to join 2 wires together, but i cant remember which.
If it doesnt display messages on your lcd(many didnt) then yes just remove it

cschollum I purchased my car fairly recently, and I know the PO had chucked the whole phone system. I do get messages like "PARKING BRAKE" , "DOOR OPEN" when these events have taken place , however I am not able to get any OBC messages: time , consumption etc . Does the phone disconnnection have anything to do with this ? Or is there something I am doing wrong. I have tried pressing the turn signal in for a few seconds as manual calls for but my attempts have proven futile.

[ArtemLepilov]

cschollum I purchased my car fairly recently, and I know the PO had chucked the whole phone system. I do get messages like "PARKING BRAKE" , "DOOR OPEN" when these events have taken place , however I am not able to get any OBC messages: time , consumption etc . Does the phone disconnnection have anything to do with this ? Or is there something I am doing wrong. I have tried pressing the turn signal in for a few seconds as manual calls for but my attempts have proven futile.

I got the same exact problem, does anyone know of something we can do to make it display everything?

-Artem

[genphreak]

Not necessarily. Some were drilled through and others were just stuck on with adhesive.I'd like to get a digital antennae to replace the factory analogue one. My car was fitted with an NEC phone with the stick-on type. It is well stuck on, and the tint film is cut round it.

Does anyone know if one can just replace the external piece or has both sides got to go as one might suspect? Also, how do you make sure you can get a good one- there must be heaps of bodgey phone 'twigs' out there....

Cheers, :) Nick

[MBXB]

You are better off picking up a carkit for your current phone and running new cabling. Remove the old stickies.

You can replace your external only.

Just make sure the antenna you are buying is tuned to the system. I dont know what they use in OZ but I suspect it's GSM. If you use a SIM card it's GSM.

There are a lot of sources for the externals.

Here's a good resource site: http://www.geckobeach.com/cellular/intro/