Folks,

My Road King has a Dead Center batwing with a Sony MEX-BT3800 radio, which controls iPods, MP3 players, USB drives, satellite radio, and allowed me to put all my CD's in a couple of USB thumb drives, so IMHO opinion, this makes CD's obsolete. The radio controls are very quick to sort out through a thumb drive or an ipod, but the radio buttons are very small. I always wear gloves when riding, so this was the downside to the radio, and this is what got me started thinking about installing remote controls.

The older Sony Marine Commanders go for 29.95 on Ebay, they have a 3.5 mm plug for the remote, and so does my radio. I called Sony to see if the Marine Remotes were compatible with automotive radios and they said nevah! it will nevah work! lol. So I tried it anyway, it was just 29.95 to loose. On the other hand, if it worked, it is a full control, meaning it controls every function, and being made for a boat, it withstands salt water and rain.


This is the Marine Commander:





It only has three wires, those being the control, a hot and a ground wire. It also comes with a loooong control extension wire, which I had to roll up under the radio and I connected two wires a couple of feet long so I could reach the pos and neg wires. I plugged it in, and it worked. It controls everything. (well, except for the bluetooth, I haven't tried it yet)





I mounted it next to the controls on the left side, using a gauge mount. It looks bad, so tomorrow I go looking for a better bracket to mount it.





It works better than I expected. It has large rubberized buttons which are very easy to operate with gloves, and it also works quicker than the radio sorting out through folders and files on an ipod or thumb drive. All I need now is a prettier mount.

The downside to this remote is that it has a red/pinkish light that looks horrible. I am going to take it apart and try to change it to blue.
This remote could be useful to RG owners wanting to go with an aftermarket radio, and poor batwing owners like me, lol. For baggers that didn't come with remote controls, this should be considered, IMHO you can't beat it with a stick. I wonder why I did so long without remote controls, lol.
This is an older model, the new Sony Marine Commanders even have a digital readout, but might be just a tad bigger than mine.

Also, as far as I saw, all the companies make marine remotes, so it may be possible to install other brand radios with marine remotes.


I hope this helps somebody, lol.


Regards,

 

This may be exactly what I need! Read my post, here, and tell me what you think??? I saw one of these on line, but thought they were kinda big and bulky. But maybe I need to spend $30 and see what I think?

Shoot me a PM, so we can discuss it, would you please?

Thanks, Jon

 

JonnyD,

Will do.
Though consider this head unit. It will control satellite radio too, and beam it up to your helmet speakers if they are bluetooth.

If you shop around the 'net, you can find it for 144 bucks, so you can have a radio that will do it all, sound really good, and have remote controls mounted on the handlebars for less than 200

Regards,

 

Very cool!!! Thanks for sharing with the write-up and pictures.

Carl

 

Nice!!! I'd love to find something like that that would work with the head unit in my fairing.

 

Bro,

Like I said, they make them for just about every radio. (except Harman-Kardon, of course, lol)
I like the Alpine marine remote in particular, but I am very happy with mine, lol.

Regards,

 

Good post! Thanks for the info.

 

This is a good idea. I'm gonna bump it so that it stays on top.

Terry

 

PAC makes many interface units that wotk with stock radio controls and different head units http://pac-audio.com/Products.aspx?CategoryId=29

 

i started looking at these right after I read your post. I've got a Pioneer head unit that does accomodate a wired remote. Pioneer also makes a marine wired remote that will work with my stereo, so I definitely have that option. I don't like the pioneer remote nearly as well as your Sony, though. The buttons are much smaller, and the remote is rectangular. That Sony unit is the right size for mounting in a mini gauge housing. I gather that Sony and Pioneer use essentially the same protocol for their wired remotes, so I'm thinking about buying one of the Sony units like yours to see if it will control any of the functions. If it doesn't, I'd be out about 30 bucks, so there's little risk, and I could always get the Pioneer remote at that point. Even if I could just control the volume and channel up and down, it would be worth it.