poor radio reception !!

[TuxMan]

Been out and about in the car this week and the std sony head unit seems to be constantly serching for a better radio reception ,tried it on radio 1 and radio 2 + local radio and it is bad on all of them , is this normal or is there a fix ?? car had bee sting ariel fitted . simon

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

I shall use the correct phrase which you know now, TADTS

[snuffy]

Radio 1 ?

[TuxMan]

ThatPhilBrettGuy said:

I shall use the correct phrase which you know now, TADTS

..........ok SNM...!!!

[jimbooo]

same with mine but you may want to upgrade the speakers if your looking to improve the sound. i just bought some 6.5 inch 3way infinity reference speakers from halfords. £75 and they are a direct replacement for the standard sony ones. took 5 mins to swap them over and they sound a lot better. the sony speakers are 40W max but these are 60W. max. its definatly worth the upgrade. with cds the sound is now perfectly acceptable rather than below average.

radio reception is always going to be crap though. id be interested to hear if anyones found a cure.

[TuxMan]

No worries only reason i had the radio on was to cover up the sound of the rear baffles shaking in the rear box !!!! getting new exhaust next week so it should sort the problem . simon

[AMG Merc]

TuxMan said:

Been out and about in the car this week and the std sony head unit seems to be constantly serching for a better radio reception ,tried it on radio 1 and radio 2 + local radio and it is bad on all of them , is this normal or is there a fix ?? car had bee sting ariel fitted . simon

Simon, apart from the obvious earthing issues it must surely be your antenna. Which do you have - roof or Heath Robinson internal wing mounted? IMHO the latter is crap, the former (AFAIR, 3R and onwards) is perfectly acceptable (OK the best signal is obtained from a vertically mounted antenna and ours is angled at 28.2 degrees but works OK).

In my experience there's no big problem with the tuner holding onto a signal it's just the acoustics are not built for any kind of ICE whatsoever.

[Adrian W]

Plastic cars have no groundplane.

[caccobra]

Nobles have radios? Whatever for?

[TuxMan]

ariel is a roof mounted unit .....................what a "groundplane" ???

[Adrian W]

TuxMan said:

ariel is a roof mounted unit .....................what a "groundplane" ???

This will explane it better than me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_plane

[art411y]

junked the ariel from mine as i have a dab radio cd player.the ariel for this system is fitted on the inside of the back window and very hard to tell if its there.it runs its own reciever amp and never had a prob with reception in any area ive travelled in.hmmmm!! not really to good an advert as the car has only ever this year been pushed in and out of the garage.i do have this system in my work van with no probs though

[andygtt]

Adrian W said:

Plastic cars have no groundplane.

exactly and thats a problem I struggles to overcome in my Ultima.... is there a viable answer without slapping a huge airial on the car?

[Adrian W]

andygtt said:

Adrian W said:

Plastic cars have no groundplane.

exactly and thats a problem I struggles to overcome in my Ultima.... is there a viable answer without slapping a huge airial on the car?

Not really, trouble is, is you use an amplifier you just amplify the mush. I wanted to play with better quality whips (no not those) but haven't got around to it.

I was at the factory that make the Ford ones recently, I'll get them to send me some samples.

[andygtt]

Adrian W said:

andygtt said:

Adrian W said:

Plastic cars have no groundplane.

exactly and thats a problem I struggles to overcome in my Ultima.... is there a viable answer without slapping a huge airial on the car?

Not really, trouble is, is you use an amplifier you just amplify the mush. I wanted to play with better quality whips (no not those) but haven't got around to it.

I was at the factory that make the Ford ones recently, I'll get them to send me some samples.

Yeh I tried an amp in the Ultima and as you say it didnt work.

Sounds like an upgrade to DAB sounds like the way to go

[Duke Thrust]

Hmmm, I'll speak with the techy chaps here at my clients and see if anything can be done - possibly utilising the ally underside of the car.

[TuxMan]

Have to admit its pretty bad !!! went down to H&S yesterday to drop off the car and the radio was bloody useless !!!! got to get it sorted !!!

[S26VE P]

I have now changed my headunit and the new one has either option of ipod or usb key, will be putting loads on a 2gb key and that will just stay in the car to keep the wife happy, i dont really have the radio on.

[Gadgeroonie]

on my elise i had a special type of screw in ariel that had an extra wire wrapped around the main ariel

it wasn't perfect - but a great improvement