botoo

I am posting this now in a new thread for more clarity.

Hi,
((( I have to do something to get better reception. The Alpine works great except the reception is lousy so far. It is worse than the CD-2 OEM unit. )))

I figured it out. My poor reception is due to the hairthin center conductor inside the coax antenna cable is broken at the fitting where it plugs into the head unit.

Has anyone tried to repair and resolder this coax wire to the antenna plug in? and/or what is the possiblity of running a new antenna lead from the radio to the antenna amplifier? How available is a new lead?

Thanks,

stuart1997

I broke my radio lead when removing the plug from the back of the sony casstte unit .I was fitting a new jvc cd/tuner.
Yes the center conductor is just one strand of very thin wire.
I bought a new aerial lead from a local auto parts place (all i needed was a plug and a bit of lead)
and used that new plug and about a foot of new lead and "spliced " into the exsisting porsche lead.
Everything works fine-just make sure the aerial amplifier lead -thin black wire that is attached to the coax lead is connected to a 12v supply.
p.s the porsche aerial lead is ££££ to buy from porsche (whats new!)

botoo

Hi Stuart,
We'll since my last post, I decided to tackle repairing the factory antenna fitting and its hair thin co-ax. Using tweezers, razor blade, magnifying glass, soldering tip, and a lot of patience, I did it. It can be done and it actually was not as much work as I thought, just very intricate.

Now my reception is really good. I can pick up as many stations as I want and it actually picks up too many with the DX setting.

hawk911

Geez; one more thing to add to my list. Did you take pictures?

botoo

Hi Hawk,
No, I didn't take any pictures. Are you sure this is your problem? In my case, the antenna end (Motorola connector) fell right off the co-ax cable.

I just unsoldered the broken piece off the connector, both the braided outer cable and center hair thin inner conductor. I prepared the end of the remaining cable to accept the Motorola connector again just as it was. I drilled out the tip of the connector where the thin wire was soldered to. Ran the center conductor thru the red plastic pieces and out the end. Bent the metal outer back against the cable. Then removed the outer covering of the co-ax where it was soldered to Motorola end connector and resoldered the braiding (outer conductor) to the Motorola connector. I then soldered the hair thin wire sticking out the end and cut off the excess. Oh, I also had slipped a piece of heat shrink tubing onto the cable before I started (to finish it up and hide the soldering at the finish).

Hmm, does this make any sense??

hawk911

al I got was solder, motorola connector, thin wire, solder, motorola, blah blah blah.... I'll take a look at it when I have time to tear into it. Very poor reception even with a new receiver.

Hambisa

The antenna connector came apart on mine, too, when I had a new Alpine installed. I had the end re-soldered, but it didn't last very long -- not nearly as thorough a job as Rich did. You can't replace just the antenna lead, either, as it's hard wired into the booster. I bought a replacement from Parts Heaven (~$40) and now I have reception again.

Smokin

Hawk... Don't get mad... Get even! I know what you mean though... It seems the only way to get a signal in my car is to drive around the block while circling the radio station! I'd like to replace mine with one of the radios with a hard drive so I can store all my MP3s on it. (Or some of them anyway.) I also thought about adding (dare I say) an exterior antenna of some sort. I've seen some that attach to the glass that look very small but give great reception. (I wouldn't consider drilling the sheet metal of course.) I'll have to look tonight when I get home and try to post a pic or link.

MARC A. 964 C4

Hey Rick, as the radio is NG here in southern France, with my original Blaupunkt, that I re-installed, some new improved, Becker Speakers X 4, a Sony K7 cassette, with its cables and my 2500 all time," Best Keep Me Young Forever Music Collection", on MP3 well, I solved my under 3000 rpm need for music, as the revs go up, well you know the rest,..For Xmas....An Alpine under the pass seat, 4X500,000,000 amp for when I want Frank Zappa* at his best, is on my Want for Xmas list! And no drilling! All the best from here Smokin!
*RIP.

hawk911

Rick, I'm not real worried about radio, as I have an Archos Gmini 120, 20 gig worth of the worst or best songs I can find. I hav that plugged in most of the time, but I need a power adapter for the car. Battery only last 5-6 hrs.

Marc Shaw

I'm with Hawk - who needs a radio?

I have a Denison DH100ix head-unit. It uses a 40 G laptop hard-drive to store all my mp3's so I can leave the iPod at home.

Marc

Smokin

Marc... Can you give me some more info on that head unit and maybe post a pic or two?

I'd greatly appreciate it!

Marc Shaw

Rick,

The web site is here but they say it has been discontinued - too bad as I wanted to buy another for my other car.

If you can find one on eBay, I'd highly recommend it.

I can snap some pictures of it in my car if you'd like.

Marc

Smokin

Wow... That looks beautiful. Marc... If it's not too much trouble... Yes, I'd love to see pictures of it installed. I just checked ebay... No luck.

Heirsh

my answer to the horrible radio in my car was an mp3 cd-player. you can put an awful lot of mp3's on a cd and the units are cheap. I have one of those hd types in my jetta (got it cheap as they were selling out of them) and it is great! I'd love to have it for my porsche, but for weight, wiring, and cost I'll just stick with a cd player in dash mp3 compatible one for now. A dvd mp3 in dash player would be even better, for me.

I love the sound of the car itself, but I've got to have some driving music for the full experience.