ianellison

Does anyone know of a way to improve the FM radio reception in a '90 C4? Other than fitting an external (retro) aerial. Is there such a thing as an internal aerial rig that can be fitted in the car (in the cab/under the dash??)? Or a booster as on household TV distribution units? I have a new Panasonic Radio/CD fitted which outputs 50 watts rms per channel so thats not the problem.

hawk911

the antenna connection into the head unit may be bad. Try a search on antenna.

TR6

One of the previous owners of my car fitted an external antenna inside the car hidden under/between the seats. The reception is ok on FM but I still cannot pick up AM at all (no baseball games or traffic reports).

964C2MI

I have the same issue. When I was checking the cables I found that the reception was fine until the radio is plaaced into the mounting can. I need to check to see if the can touches metal, if so it may be a grounding issue. If not the radio itself may be too close to the anetenna (more likely)

Pesty

Ian are you in the Uk or the states?

boze_man

i have the same problem...crap reception...had a tuf ride down w/ none but the strongest of stations coming thru...even the ipod rf transmitter thing was worthless....ugh

ianellison

Hi Pesty - I am in the UK.

IanR

One possibility is that the antenna booster isn't getting power. It gets this from the head unit - if you look at the co-ax antenna cable going in to the head unit, there should be a small black flying lead as well. This needs to be connected to a 12V aux power output on the head unit.

boze_man

ian...thanks for the heads up on the antenna booster flying lead...wil give it a look see....cheers

Pesty

Ok. I had the same problem I cured it in a different way. aactually I didnt cure it Just bypassed it.

I bought a head unit from blaupunkt that has built in DAB decoder. I bloody love it not only do I get crystal clear reception I get loads of stations id never even heard on before. also I did not need to mess about drilling holes I got an internal arial.

As I see you have only just bought a head unit this is not an option for you. but there are, in car units that youcan plug into the aux socket of your exisiting head unit.
something like this but not sure if this one uses existing arial which would obviously be no good in your case.
http://www.comparestoreprices.co.uk/...und-ics100.asp.

probaly best to sort your reception problem just giving you another option to think about.

Good luck

boze_man

pesty....that thing is pretty cool...dunno if they sell em over on this side of the pond...will check...cheers

DustinTarditi

the factory antenna in mine is in the windshield and there is a powered signal booster before it gets to the head unit... sort of mentioned before... if this guy gets disconnected you need to be practically parked under the transmit tower to pic up a station.

I have XM and a CD/WMA/MP3 player head unit, so I never listen to terrestrial radio anyway! :-)

jeff522

I have had problems with reception since I changed my head unit. I found the problem was the wire in the coax for the antenna was broken. I tryed to repair it, but it just kept rebreaking. The whole coax just snapped in two. Right now I'm using an outside antenna inside the cab, with a booster. Much like TR6 I get good FM, but no AM. Someday I'll get around to fixing it. To tell the truth I rarely listen to anything but that sweet flat 6 when I drive her.

Pesty

Boze-man.

DAB-digital Audio Broadcasting is a UK only thing. its pretty good but as good as it was supposed to be. I think it will not be developed any more because we ware the only country who has it. I think qusality is only 128Mbps for example having said that I love it.

You can't get DAB in America But I belive you can get satalite based systems that work in a simular way? I am sure I have seen something like it in America all tough its probably a subscription thing.

Kahdmus

Have you replaced the windshield at all? I seem to recall someone with a similiar problem and it was because they had replaced the windshield and either the new one had no antenna or it wasn't hooked up after the replacement.