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Dension, the guys that released the Gateway 500 interface that allows one to listen to their iPod (or other source) through the OEM head unit have now brought out an accessory, that when hooked up inline between the iPod and Gateway 500 gives Bluetooth functionality. The BTA1000 supports both A2DP/AVRCP and HSP profiles which are generally used for hands-free calling and streaming audio from media players or navigation devices. I got my hands on one, so on to the install…

There are a number of items packaged with the BTA1000:

• The BTA1000 itself.
• Microphone, with clip.
• Jack fixture, for securing the microphone jack when plugged in.
• 3 cable clips.
• 4-pin (2×2) microfit connector.
• 12-pin (6×2) Ford connector.
• Some odd shaped red plastic thing – No idea…
• Variety of pre-terminated cables.

This kit can be used in a number of vehicles, hence the Ford connector and pre-terminated cables. These are for constructing the radio mute cable, along with the 4-pin plug.

Considering that the Gateway 500 has already been installed, the addition of the BTA1000 was relatively straight forward, it only had to be plugged inline between the Gateway 500 and the iPod cable. The difficult bit is hiding the microphone somewhere, I didn’t really want it clipped to the sun visor, that’d look a bit wank.

There is a factory option of an in-car phone system when ordering from Porsche, but as you would imagine, it has a silly price tag attached to it. When you have this factory option, the microphone is located behind a grill to the right of the instrument cluster – So this is where I installed mine. It just clips out after getting your nails under the edges. It’s pretty dark inside that little hole, even with a torch I was struggling to see if there was anywhere the cable could be routed through, there’s not really much room in there at all. I have access to a See Snake, which is a camera and light on the end of a bendy tube with an LCD screen. So I messed around with that for a bit, feeding it in from under the steering column, looking for somewhere to route this bloody microphone cable. Not much luck.

The next step was to remove the instrument cluster from the dashboard to get a better look at the situation. This is held in with two Torx 20 screws, one behind the microphone grill and the other behind the hazard light switch. The cluster is then clipped in in a number of places, so takes a bit of rocking and force to set it free. Then there are four wiring looms plugged into it, three of them are removed by lifting the black lever upwards, the forth is clipped in and doesn’t really need to come out as there was plenty of slack on it. A warning though, the clips that hold the cluster to the dash are bloody sharp and risk damaging the dash surface. Also a tip if you’re planning on removing the cluster: Disconnect your battery first! See, I didn’t, and upon reconnection the OBC was spitting out all sorts of worrying errors: Failure oil level indicator; Refil washer fluid; Failure of fuel level indicator Drive to workshop. It took me a while to figure out how to clear these errors! Ooops!

Without completely dismantling the cluster, I could only really see one way in which was a small gap right where my finger is pointing to on the image to the right. It took a bit of jiggling to get the right-angled 3.5mm microphone jack though, I even ended up loosening the back panel to make enough room. There are only two Torx 20 screws holding it down. After removing the pop-shield and cable molding from the microphone, it was pretty much a perfect fit for the grill fixture that houses the original microphone. I fed the cable down through the hole in the dash where the wiring looms for the blue and green plugs go, then round the back and under the carpet behind the pedals over to where the BTA1000 and Gateway 500 live. Then I reassembled the dash and should have reconnected the battery, if I had disconnected it. The Gateway 500 also needed resetting by inserting a pin in the reset hole on the aux switch unit, I was getting inconsistent errors and glitches on the iPod screen before resetting.

As always with Dension, the manual isn’t exactly clear on how the thing works. To clarify the situation, to pair a device with the BTA1000 you have to be in the Gateway 500 mode, then select disc 6 track 6 to get to the Bluetooth Hands Free mode (track 5 takes you to Bluetooth Audio mode), then select disc 1 track 3 to enter pairing mode, which is active for 60 seconds. The pin it asks for is 0000. Though a pretty annoying process, its all easy from here on. The BTA1000 automatically connects to my phone on turning the key and switches to hands-free mode when receiving a call, I either have to press the ‘next track’ button to answer, or ‘previous track’ to decline.

If your phone supports voice dialing, you can use that to make calls though there is a number of buttons to press before you can do this if you’re listening to some music. My phone doesn’t have voice dialing, so I have to initiate the call on the phone, but upon connection it automatically switches to hands-free mode, and then back to the music upon termination. I’m currently using a Blackberry 8800 and I had to switch it to ‘discoverable’ in my Bluetooth settings otherwise it wouldn’t connect for longer than a second, even though it paired fine.

I didn’t install the radio mute cable for a couple of reasons. It’s there to mute any audio source that is not the Gateway 500 so that you can hear the phone ringing, you then have to select the Dension setup (CDC) on the head unit to answer the call. I rarely listen to anything other than the iPod, so I couldn’t be bothered with the extra hassle of installing it. The Becker head units used in Porches were also not documented in the install booklet and a number of people have said on forums that there is no radio mute function on MOST based head units – I have since downloaded the schematics for the CDR23 and there is in fact a pin labeled as ‘TELMU’ which I can only assume means Telephone Mute, though I have not tried it to confirm that assumption.

Tags: Bluetooth, BTA1000, Dension, Porsche

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 11:01 pm and is filed under Car, Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.