{"id":240,"date":"2017-02-01T13:32:38","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T18:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/?p=240"},"modified":"2017-02-01T13:32:38","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T18:32:38","slug":"hacking-my-childhood-panasonic-rc-6064-clock-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/2017\/02\/01\/hacking-my-childhood-panasonic-rc-6064-clock-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"Hacking my Childhood Panasonic RC-6064 Clock-Radio"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Panasonic RC-6064 is an AM\/FM clock-radio produced in the late 80s and early 90s. This one\u00a0I received as a Christmas gift in 1989 and has served me well over the past 28 years. A few years ago I tried to replace it with a newer clock-radio that had an iPod dock. The blue lights from the new clock-radio keep me up at night, so it was time to switch back. Two things my childhood clock-radio always needed was aux-in and an external FM antenna. Thanks to the chipset diagrams available online I was able to figure where I could mod the circuit to add these.<\/p>\n

Aux-In<\/h2>\n

The clock-radio uses a Sony CXA1019P IC (IC2 on the board), an AM\/FM IC with built in power amp. By tapping into the AF in pin (pin 24) for the power amplifier, I was able to wire a 3.5 mm (1\/8th) headphone jack directly in.<\/p>\n

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Sony CXA1019 IC Diagram<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/a>

R and L aux-in soldered to the AF In pin and the ground wire soldered to ground on the IC.<\/p><\/div>\n

External Antenna<\/h2>\n

The external antenna took a little bit more work to figure out. I had to figure out where in the circuit I could tap an antenna into. Using circuit diagrams I found in a google search I was able to discern that the antenna circuit should come off of the FM RF in pin (pin 12). From there I used a test lead on a weak station to identify the ideal spot on the circuit board to solder the antenna lead to. I ended up following the traces and found an unused hole immediately\u00a0in front of the radio\/alarm on\/off switch. I was able to wire the lead to there and ran it out through the back of the case.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

The external antenna starts off as the small black wire in front of the left slider switch<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/a>

The wire is soldered to the antenna circuit which happens to have a trace running along the top of the board in this photo<\/p><\/div>\n

Final Results<\/h2>\n

It is all working. The aux-in works great with my various audio players and cell phones, the external FM antenna helps me to better pull in the public radio station I enjoy listening to.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/16297646_1306187939442139_6220214376733868032_n.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Panasonic RC-6064 is an AM\/FM clock-radio produced in the late 80s and early 90s. This one\u00a0I received as a Christmas gift in 1989 and has served me well over the past 28 years. A few years ago I tried to replace it with a newer clock-radio that had an iPod dock. The blue lights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9],"tags":[27,24],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hardware","category-techhax","tag-hacks","tag-project"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":250,"href":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aradiogurl.net\/hhjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}