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Replacing a Japanese freq fm tuner to USA freq fm tuner

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meepers

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Hello every one. I am interested in converting a Japan market car stereo to receive us stations. Its a digital stereo with the typical lcd screen. I have a basic knowledge of electronics, and the soldering the US receiver in place I can handle. What I would like to know is if anyone has attempted such a thing and knows if I would need to change the programing in any of the IC's to know to look for the 88-108 instead of the lower freq. thanks in advance for any help.

Tim
 
I'm sorry, I guess I did not explain exactly what I was intending to do. I will physically replace the tuner in the head unit completely

https://www.mitsumi-components.com/Catalog/hifreq/tuneram/index_e.html


it looks like there models are followed by the region they are for. J for japan and A-E for America and Europe


The particular unit I have is a mitsumi tuner and they make 2 different region tuners. what I need to know is if I change the tuner completely, does the main control IC that handles the voltage change for tuning, and presets and data bus for the lcd and such, does it need to be replaced or will the unit be able to scan the new freq's and show them on the display? I'm guessing that if it does, I would either need a donor stereo with the same IC set or need to be able to program the chip to recognize the new expanded range. I hope this clarifies what I am hoping to do, and if anyone has any knowledge on the workings of how a digital tuner and works and what I would need to do, I would love to undertake this project with atleast a point in the right direction. Thanks again!!


Tim
 
You've never mentioned the make and model of the stereo, Mitsumi are probably only the manufacturer of the tuner unit (they also make RF modulators for VCR etc.).

You really need to find a service manual for the complete unit, it's quite possible that the existing controller can work with either tuner type - often by making (or cutting) a wire link, or (more recently) setting an option in memory.
 
Well hopefully the unit I will be doing this to will be here in the next few days. I will try to get a hold of the fsm and see what the schematics show. Its a factory honda option car stereo that was only available in japan in the civic. The brand is Gathers, but Honda contracted Alpine, Pioneer and Kenwood for the option line depending on the model. So it could be any one of them. Just looking at the unit it looks like it might be a kenwood. I have a few receivers laying around that have been taken apart. I'm hoping that it might be a similar layout to one that I have so if I need to I could steal some of the main IC's. I know the lcd controller and stuff will be different, but I am really hoping that just swapping the Tuner module will be the ticket. I will wait till I get the new deck and shoot some pics of the inside and see if I can find anything online about the particulars of the components inside.

Thanks
 
Hi,

Saw your question. This gentleman in Japan, one of my contacts, has been in radio repair for 44 years and routinely adapts vintage Western car radios (88-108 MHz) to operate in Japan (76-92 MHz). Customers ask him to do this to keep the original car radio in collectible vehicles.

This is the opposite of what you want to do, i.e. Japan FM to USA, but if you know how to do it one way, you can do it the other way, or at least give advice.

Mr Noriyoshi Tazuka
Mail: n-tezuka AT pop16 DOTodn DOTne DOTjp

Noriyoshi has the wonderful quality of writing in english, so no language barrier here.

Read his interesting & illustrated Repair Blog using Google Japanese to English translation:

https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://blog.goo.ne.jp/vrc-tezuka/

Hope you achieve success,

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France
 
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