DAB in an Elise?

[2Btoo]

Guys,

I am trying to make DAB work in a Lotus Elise. And the reception is terrible.

The radio is a unit I have used in another car (944) with good results. And the aerial is a stick-in-the-windscreen type from Amazon which I have used elsewhere to good effect as well.

The aerial comes with a stick-on copper foil tab that is intended to attach to the metal surround of the windscreen. As this is an Elise (i.e plastic, with a aluminium tub underneath) I have connected this tab to a short wire and connected that to the chassis below.

Here's some photos.





In short; does anyone have any ideas why this provides such poor DAB reception? All suggestions welcome - thanks.

[mmm-five]

Doesn't it need to be vertically-aligned rather than horizontally-aligned (because DAB broadcasts use vertical polarisation)?

Of course you could buy an external DAB 'whip' aerial for better reception.

[2Btoo]

mmm-five said:

Doesn't it need to be vertically-aligned rather than horizontally-aligned (because DAB broadcasts use vertical polarisation)?

Of course you could buy an external DAB 'whip' aerial for better reception.

Thanks. I don't know about the vertical/horizontal thing but that's a helpful one to explore.

DAB 'whip' would be another idea but that would involve putting another aerial on the car, or replacing the existing 'bee sting' one on the engine cover. That would then need cables drawing through the car, which would be a bit more complex than it looks.

I'll look into the horizontal/vertical thing. Thanks for the tip.

[bigmowley]

Here is mine. Works great.
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As noted above ariel is vertical.

[2Btoo]

bigmowley said:

Here is mine. Works great.

As noted above ariel is vertical.

Thanks bigmowley. That's really helpful. What did you do with the sticky copper strip that is meant to connect to steel bodywork? Did you run a wire from it down to the tub?

[2Btoo]

Update: I moved the aerial to the top of the screen and changed it to vertical orientation and it helped hugely; it now works, and works well.

Thanks for the suggestion Bigmowley!