All is well. I did what Michael advised and I now have a factory DIGITAL cell phone. The handsfree works great. I had a dual band phone (old motorola) that my wife used on a minimal plan. I have the 'new' digital phone programmed with her number and just called and said, "My phone died, I have a new one, the electronic serial number is..." They had me working in 5 minutes. Just so everyone understands: DIGITAL phone built in to the center council of the W124 that interfaces with the radio/visor controls. Expensive, but well worth it. I have documented the entire process and even bought a second digital phone for my next car (I hope to get another w124 for a daily driver). Anyone looking to convert their STOCK analog phone to digital please contact me at daveb12@adelphia.net. Thanks Michael for all the help! (BTW, I DID need to change the cradle, found out the hard way!) ++db

Glad it worked out, Dave!

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"If everything seems under control, you're simply not going fast enough" --Mario Andretti

Michael
1995 E500 street car
1986 Porsche 944 Turbo S track car

BMW made available a Startac with TDMA on it. it interfaced with teh BMW allowing you to use it as a car phone and as a true portable. Would this interface.?

I'd say highly unlikely, but worth a look...connectors would have to line up before I'd go anywhere near it

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"If everything seems under control, you're simply not going fast enough" --Mario Andretti

Michael
1995 E500 street car
1986 Porsche 944 Turbo S track car

I did own a VIP 3 watt booster kit from motorola that came with a Startac and gave you the fullsize phone handset cradle as well as another cradle for the portable. If I could get that to work with the top console memories that would be the ideal.

I'm sure there are some of those around and as I understand it you could substitute a digital star tac into that cradle and all the speaker phone and memory functions continued to work as well as your 3 watt booster- you merely had to change the ESN. Whether or not that works with the tri band (national one rate) phones would remain to be seen- however I would doubt you could use the triband in the car as the antennae would not support 1900mhz- but as a portable it would. unless You added another antennae to teh exterior of the car - or better still one of hte inside the bumper mounted ones.

Sorry to say but I've looked into ALL of this, and spoken with a bunch of people at both Motorola and MBZ. The way I was able to even get an Owner's Manual for my digital phone was I got lucky-a customer service rep at Motorola was talking to me, and a Supervisor overheard and happened to have a Manual in his desk! That guy knew everything Motorola ever did, and said what I've done was the only option.

I wish you nothing but luck in your quest, but hope to help avoid you some unnecessary chasing around.

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"If everything seems under control, you're simply not going fast enough" --Mario Andretti

Michael
1995 E500 street car
1986 Porsche 944 Turbo S track car

Well I am sure that I could lose all the top console buttons and install a 3 watt booster like my old one with a digital star tac. But of course we all know that and the idea is to retain as much of the MB functionality as possible.

The thing to weigh is the value of having a digital star tac portable phone vs the top console buttons

If I were to install an entire 3 watt booster kit from scratch I would still be able to use the mercedes hands free speaker and mic system- and have a full size phone in the cradle with the star tac.

It is possible that the pin codes could be deciphered for the memory features and volume up down features.... as I amd sure the interface is similar with the top console and with the star tac in terms of using "remote access" - but hell if I could figure it out.

If I were an electronics engineer I'd do it. But I'm not.

I have digital Nokias in my other 2 W124s, and they are portable like a Startac but have a full function booster setup on both digital and analog (3+ W) along with the handsfree kit and privacy handset.

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"If everything seems under control, you're simply not going fast enough" --Mario Andretti

Michael
1995 E500 street car
1986 Porsche 944 Turbo S track car

I'm a total motorola guy. They seem to have the best reception and fewest dropped calls IMHO. I owned several Samsungs, Nokias, Sony, and Eriksons. They turned out to be "Remote answering machine retrival units".

The reception was so bad that often I was in analog roam and was charged .69 a minute- my digital phone was costing me more than my old analog phone!

But coverage varies so much- I am sure this is more an endemic problem to Boston. I also had a Sprint phone - Samsung. I couldn't keep a connection on I-95 for more than 2 minutes in a moving car.

I found one very helpful person at motorola. His name is Theo Kay at 800- 331-6456 ext 4372. He is a motorola supervisor (total guru) and hence gets all the complaints from subscribers around the country and he advised me about the differences in service plans and how many customers were having difficulty with various plans in various parts of the country.

His feelings were that the best coverage was offered by Verison and Att- with MCI merely a reseller for ATT. He said that the service with these two providers was good with him getting fewer complaints from ATT TDMA Motorola users on the California Coast and fewer complaints from the Islands and resort communities like Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Block Island , Fishers Island etc...and good hampton reception.

Verisons CDMA system allows you to manually "force the call to analog" to get a better signal in weak digital areas- and it will do this for you automatically as well like the other carriers but you do have a choice. Also with laptops and internet access the Verison was better.

He said the ATT call clarity was the best and dropped calls were fewer- though you can not force annalog calls nor use laptops as the network really wasn't able to have consistent service for data.

As for the phone upgrades he said it was best only to move up one generation from what the car originally came with to maximize the chances for a good interface.

Still he said that the TDMA phone you have is rare and was an alternative to the then dominant Analog network. It was only available for sale for a year and then discontinued. Any sources for these phones would be greatly appreciated!

I think the larger phone handsets are safer to use when driving- the new Motorola phone is narrow and places the buttons so close together that trying to dial the thing is akin to russian roulette when driving- even if there is no one on the road.

I believe that you can find everything you need to know about this phone at the following web site. I came across this while trying to set up my 'portable integrated phone' which is by OKI and not Motorola.

http://www.iserv.net/~macleod/mb_phone.htm

Hope this helps

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Dave

1995 S320

I cant even get the analog phone in my W140 to come on! The antenna wont go up when the radio is on, or when the phone is turned on. How can I get it to turn on, and will it work if I do get it turned on? I dont have the buttons under the rear-view mirror, but I do have a controler in the dash. My father had the phone on for a little while when he bought the car new in '93, but it's been off since 1994, and I cant figure out how to turn it on.

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"If I teach you half of what I forgot, you'll still have enough to compete with most people"

Thank You, the switch is on the cradle, but it doesnt work. There is no "force feedback" from the switch, it moves, but with no resistance. I think the switch might be broken, but would this prevent the antena from rising, or would the antena not rising prevent the phone from working? Because the antena doesnt rise with the radio either?

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"If I teach you half of what I forgot, you'll still have enough to compete with most people"

On my 95 S320, the antenna will not rise if the cell phone is turned off or disconnected. I supsect that the switch is your problem.

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Dave

1995 S320

The phone doesnt come out of the car. It is hard wired into the car with the dashbored controler. After reading this post, I really want it to work. By the way, is the only phone antenna in the power mast? Or is there an emergency antenna too? And, where are the brains of the system located?

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"If I teach you half of what I forgot, you'll still have enough to compete with most people"

The switch to turn the phone on is either on the handset in the center console, or on the cradle for the handset, little sliding switch.
Gilly

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