really poor radio reception,any ideas?

afcjay · Post by **afcjay** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 10:22 pm

got a mk4 6n polo and the radio reception is really really poor.can anyone help.checkeked conection in the head unit etc and all seems fine

paulzpolo · Post by **paulzpolo** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:32 pm

is it the stanard head unit or aftermarket,if its an aftermarket then u will suffer,as standard has amp built inside to boost signal

inder · Post by **inder** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:19 am

you can buy an inline booster, this will help sort out aftermarket headunit problems

omicron · Post by **omicron** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:25 am

Most likely needs a little booster on. The other main cause is a poorly earthed aerial. If reception improves when you touch the end of the aerial, it's the earth.

afcjay · Post by **afcjay** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 4:47 pm

omicron wrote:Most likely needs a little booster on. The other main cause is a poorly earthed aerial. If reception improves when you touch the end of the aerial, it's the earth.

so i take it where it mounts on the roof,that is the earth,havent got round to tackling it yet.if this is the case i take it the only thing you can do is clean the contact area and make sure its tight?

omicron · Post by **omicron** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 7:18 pm

Usually, yeah, as I say, it's easy to test, just touch the tip of the aerial and see if the problem goes away. Being a later VW though, it's most likely lack of a signal amplifier.

solidsponge · Post by **solidsponge** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 11:37 pm

my reception is ok but sometimes it goes crackly and fizzs which is annoying.

Ive found this

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AERIAL-ADAPTOR-BO ... dZViewItem

But how would this install? Does the lead go into the aerial plug then the aerial end from the car plug into that? Anyone know if these are actually worth getting?

Or is this other type better? or both? its a bit confusing

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VW-AERIAL-BOOSTER ... dZViewItem

solidsponge · Post by **solidsponge** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 4:50 pm

anywho I bought one, needed an extra fitting from halfords for Â£3.99 to fit it on and hopefully the radio will be ok from now on, seems ok.

solidsponge · Post by **solidsponge** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:35 am

As an update, it seems to make No difference so I took it out, tried it again and now it doesnt work at all lol. The booster I mean. So that was a waste of time. The radio is fine up north, but when I go down south it barely works! So thats a bit odd I think.

Shall I clean the aerial on the roof?

solidsponge · Post by **solidsponge** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 9:26 pm

FINALLY after much ado, my radio is hopefully fixed. I bought a new booster and fitted the blue wire to the amp rem blue wire on the iso connection and now I can get MW and LW and some more FM channels. So that seems good so far.

I have bought

2 adaptors
1 booster

and another booster that broke!

Anywho all fixed up now! Hooray

(prolly break again or something)

1stcarsapolo · Post by **1stcarsapolo** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 1:56 am

Hi, sorry having the same problem... Its doing my head in. What booster did you use in the end? How exactly was it installed?? cheers in advance

solidsponge · Post by **solidsponge** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:10 am

Well I think I did it the hard way to be honest. I bought the booster from halfords (my first one broke that I bought off ebay and I dont know how and it was slightly different) its by autoleads and it has pc5-52 on it. It was the only one I could find so I bought it. But I didnt realise it had the wrong end on. However looking online this one would of been better for me:

http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Car_Stereo_fitt ... PC5-91.jpg

(site sells them all http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Car_Stereo_fitt ... aptors.htm)

So it would of saved me a lot of time and money just using that one!

I bought this one you see:

http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Car_Stereo_fitt ... PC5-52.jpg

the problem with this one is that the silver end, where the amplifer is, is the wrong type of end, so I bought this:

http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Car_Stereo_fitt ... PC5-28.jpg

So then I could attach it. But the other end was wrong as well (lol) so I bought this:

http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Car_Stereo_fitt ... PC5-27.jpg

Then it was all well and good.

However. The key to all of this is where you attach the blue wire coming off the booster. There are some instructions (but I already read it on talkaudio.com) and it says to put the blue wire on the blue wire on your iso connection or the blue and white one, I put it on the blue and white one because it had one of those holder plugs on it and it said "AMP REM" on it which is what we are trying to connect to apparently.

The blue wire has an end on it too that fits in, but my end was more round so I had to use pliers and tape to secure it.

Sorry if this is confusing. it depends how your aerial connects at the end of the day. All you want is a booster inbetween so you want the end of the booster to be able to fit the current car aerial in. So If id of seen this one:

http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Car_Stereo_fitt ... PC5-91.jpg

Id of got that, because my aerial has that silver type of end. So all I need to do is put the blue wire on the AMP REM wire (blue and white or blue one) and then plug my aerial into the black one, but because I got a different one I needed 2 more adaptors.

*****************

Basically if your current aerial goes into your stereo using this (or one that looks like it, mines got a bit of red on etc):

http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Car_Stereo_fitt ... PC5-27.jpg

then if I were you Id get this:

http://www.nexxia.co.uk/Car_Stereo_fitt ... PC5-91.jpg

Then it wont need any adaptors, for some reason they say the PC5-90 one is for vw, but my end on the silver plug isnt like that so its the wrong type for me. (but you can get adaptor) but the one above has the same end on each piece so it will fit perfect.

Hope that helps and doesnt confuse too much!

solidsponge · Post by **solidsponge** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:12 am

maybe I should do a diy guide! but its confusing because I think people maybe have different ends and things

1stcarsapolo · Post by **1stcarsapolo** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 7:08 pm

Sound man cheers... ill try that so!