Accessing phone antenna connection on Nokia 6310i equipped 2003 W211

[jeremy156]

My E320 CDI has the Nokia 6310i telephone pre-wiring in place, working fine but time to move on. I've got a Viseeo MB1000 for BlueTooth, but my iPhone's reception is terrible on the move, so I've been in the habit of re-directing calls to the old Nokia in order to maintain a decent length conversation.

What I'm wondering is whether it's possible to butcher the Nokia cradle and get access to the antenna such that I could install an iPhone cradle with an antenna induction loop and give it a decent signal to play with. I know the "correct" method would be to retrofit UHI at ££££, but I'm keen to explore the art of the possible in terms of a DIY hook-up.

Has anyone explored or have knowledge?

Thanks,
Jeremy

 

[CTR55]

May be worth a thought !

Sent from my iPad using MBClub UK

 

[CTR55]

Opps,

Take a look at what Mercedesstar is selling in the classifieds, an MBU 1000
at least this would keep the car standard.

Cheers,
CTR55

Sent from my iPad using MBClub UK

 

[CTR55]

And there's me trying to be helpful, I clearly didn't read your post correctly, my apologies.

Sent from my iPad using MBClub UK

 

[richard]

The cradle has 2 wiring loom connectors, the one for the electronics and a coax one for the antenna.

You need to have the MBU1000 plugged into the existing 6310i cradle, because the old phone system you have only can deal with that.

I.e you couldn't (somehow) wire up the iPhone 4 cradle to it.

You could however potentially re-route the antenna cable to a spare UHI connector, plug an iPhone cradle into that (which the phone would still have to blutoooth to the MBU1000) - but you'd have to mount it all somewhere, and likely to very difficult.

Changing out the old phone system for the new one could be possible, but expensive. Then you could put the iPhone 4 cradle in instead.

You're probably on about £1000 to sort that lot out though :-(

Richard

 

[jeremy156]

Hi, it's the £1000 bit I'm trying to avoid with some creative abuse of existing components. If I can separate off the antenna cable then I can mount the iPhone cradle in the bottom section of the armrest, leaving everything else in place. Thanks for confirming there's a conventional antenna cable there, I'll get the screwdrivers out and have a go - worth it if I can save that much cash and I'm not worried about selling the car on, at nearly 200k miles, nobody's going to want it after me!

Cheers,
Jeremy

 

[richard]

Ok.

The UHI contact plate (which is what you'll need to install for the cradle to connect onto) has a purple FAKRA connector for the antenna.
You'll need the UHI contact plate, a little mounting plate (to raise it slightly) and some handy cutting ability, and of course an iPhone cradle.

The antenna cable on your existing car will either be a Purple Fakra or a mini-coax cable. You need to access the one at the lower end of the curly cable between the upper compartment and the back of the lower compartment. That panel at the back (from recall) has a TORX screw holding it in place in the middle

Talk to Alfie ([email protected]) he has a good supply of the UHI contact plates and the little mounting plate thing that the UHI contact plate clips into ..

I hope that helps

Richard

 

[jeremy156]

Thanks for your help Richard! Delayed while I source a small enough Torx bit, but will update with my progress.

Jeremy

 

[npuk]

Cheaper way to do it is if there is an active iphone cradle that supports an external antenna use that. e.g. Carcomm - Products Hook the 6310i cradle antenna connection up to that.

 

[jeremy156]

I was going to buy a Brodit mount at £90, but Amazon sells your suggested holder for half that, so worth a go, thank you! I certainly wouldn't spend out on a Mercedes holder given that I won't be using it to integrate at all, just to charge and access the antenna.

Cheers,
Jeremy