Just installed dab dongle to usb on car head. Dab reception poor [my work car has got factory dab and perfect dab signal]so it can’t be the area. I don’t mind paying for a good glass aerial as the one that comes with dongle must be poor quality,,,lcheers
Whats the make and model of your car ?
All sorted now,I ditched the Chinese junk and purchased a Kenwood 7017 dabs and glass mount ,,,no drop out whatsoever ,perfect Thanks anyway
By the way the car is a Kia Sportage
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Recently got an MCTD unit, has a v3 mainboard and I am suffering on poor FM reception and non existent AM (not bothered about AM though)
Have read that sometimes the aerials are not connected internally so had a look, one of the earth points was a bit suspect so re-soldered that, but no improvement. If I am stationary I can get 3 stations, however when I start to move I lose the signal. Interestingly it does seem to improve if I leave the radio out (I.e. Not fixed into position in the car).
I think the unit is an A Media (will have to check later) but it is a Huefei variant (running Android 5.1.1)
I have bought replacement internal aerial adaptors that are boosted to no real improvement (although after doing a bit more reading I need to check if the booster power source (from the ANT wire from the headunit) is actually giving 12V
Any ideas / mods to help improve it? Aerial works fine with standard headunit.
Thanks
anyone any ideas?
ok if anyone is interested, I bought a cheap window aerial that has a power booster, can now get channels but still not great. My next step is to either replace the roof aerial on my car (or certainly the wiring), of take of the power boosting element from the new aerial and incorporate that into the car roof mount
Buy this (don't look to the price) and you will say thanks to me for long time
http://www.dabonwheels.co.uk/Kinetic_DRA-6005_GPS_FM-AM_DAB_car_aerial.html
I am not interested in making publicity of this product but even I would have been you will be as happy as I am. BEST!!!
You will need extra wire extenders as the product has short cables fitted. It's on that page the link of what you will need.
similar issue
Hi are you still having this issue or did you manage to fix it? if so what did you do please?
i am having a similar issue with mine and found that iv improved things by putting a cable to earth my head unit (cable from screw on back to ground on loom) and also i have changed the cable coming from the Headunit with one from halfords (at first glance i thought it was part of the unit as it had the black sheath and blue cable but it just pulls out)
not fully, I am going to look at the antenna wire from the headunit as I dont have that connected and that may help (from reading the pumpkin website).
I have good earths which I have measured with a multimeter so I know thats good.
If I cant imrove then I will look at an aerial from the above place
htt p:// www .ha lfords .co m/ techno logy/ car-audio/ stereo-fitting-acce ssories /aut oleads-pc5-111-fakra-to-din-aerial-adaptor
i used that cable from halfords to replace the one that came with the headunit. For me it was problem solved. obviously the one that came with it wasnt making a good enough contact.
sorry had to put spaces as im not allowed to put links yet.
Thanks for the link but I have about 3 different ones and they all make good contact (have checked with the unit taken apart and everything makes contact where it should)
I am going to check my installed aerial to see if I can work out whats going on with that. I can ge radio 2 now fully on my way to work (50miles each way) but I dont want to listen to radio 2
It is antenna wiring issue, not antenna itself.
I had the same problem in US with my A-Media unit. Initially the seller sent me a power cable and I had poor radio reception, FM working but not great, no AM at all. When the seller figured out wrong cable for steering wheel issues he sent me the correct cable and everything works great including radio FM/AM. My antenna harness has two wires but the first cable connected only one. The 2nd cable has both antenna wires connected, one to antenna socket and the other goes to power cable connector.
Sorted it out, the existing aerial on my car was a dummy aerial (sharkfin), turns out the aerial itself is on the rear windscreen.
Anyway, I got an DAB aerial off ebay (bee sting type) fitted that in place of the sharkfin and re wired it. Result now have perfect reception on both FM and DAB with no loss of signal at all. Only cost £29.99 GBP as well with all wiring extensions etc
jaytc2003 said:
Sorted it out, the existing aerial on my car was a dummy aerial (sharkfin), turns out the aerial itself is on the rear windscreen.
Anyway, I got an DAB aerial off ebay (bee sting type) fitted that in place of the sharkfin and re wired it. Result now have perfect reception on both FM and DAB with no loss of signal at all. Only cost £29.99 GBP as well with all wiring extensions etc
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hello, i have the same problem with my unit.
i wanna buy that antenna also on ebay. but the (bee sting type) you told about have a din style connector.
the original one that was by the radio is a usb type. how did you fix that problem?
I was able to solve my unworking AM Radio here.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/an...questions-development/radio-fm-radio-t3895859
Hi all,
I have an e46 BMW with an Erisin 6046B HU, and the DAB+ unit plugged into USB, with the aerial attached to the windscreen. But the DAB reception is so bad it's basically unusable unless you're on a road with no buildings anywhere near it.
What's the best & cheapest way to improve it? Can you use the shark fin aerial on the roof or is that just for the car's original GPS?
Or can you get some kind of powered DAB aerial fitted to these things?
Thanks
Hi just fitted xtron tr 108 to car must say very pleased but the xtron dab dongle has got poor reception,I used glass mounted aerial but then went all out and fitted roof dab aerial replacing the original car aerial ,but that is worse ,I had no problem with my Kenwood head unit,so I’m thinking could it be the dab dongle,should I just buy a pure highway dab unit. Any thoughts. Cheers
Did you solve?
Did you ever work this out mate? I'm having a similar problem.
With OEM head unit the reception is fine. With the PX6 head unit the FM reception is quite poor. I have checked that the OEM amplifier gets power. I have tried one of those small "FM amplifiers" but it just made it worse.
So I am thinking about getting an external antenna like this one:
Eightwood DAB/DAB+ Antenna Car Radio Antenna Splitter: Amazon.de: Elektronik
Eightwood DAB/DAB+ Antenna Car Radio Antenna Splitter: Amazon.de: Elektronik
www.amazon.de
They seem to get good reviews at Amazon but I am curious to hear if anyone here been using it with a Chinese Android head unit and if it made any difference?
Thanks!
I use one on a Joying HU, It works great. FM is perfect, GPS is also spot on. DAB worked on my last HU but, I needed a new DAB box for this HU, so I didn't bother. The bit rate for DAB in the UK is shocking, streaming is the way forward for good sound quality.
I’ve had one before and dab and fm radio worked perfect.
You should be able to get the oem aerial working properly though with this unit.
Have you got an adaptor for the antenna to go into the new unit or does the oem antenna cable just plug straight into the new unit?
The fm amplifier that you bought will make it worse because the chances are that your car will already have a factory fm amplifier.
ab1702 said:
I’ve had one before and dab and fm radio worked perfect.
You should be able to get the oem aerial working properly though with this unit.
Have you got an adaptor for the antenna to go into the new unit or does the oem antenna cable just plug straight into the new unit?
The fm amplifier that you bought will make it worse because the chances are that your car will already have a factory fm amplifier.
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Click to collapse
Yes, I have an adaptor for the antenna, from Fakra to DIN. I have tried to disconnect power to the OEM amplifier, and then I got almost no reception at all, so I guess the amplifier works.
But I have realized that DAB+ sound quality isn't very good, so now I am hasitating to buy an external antenna. And just stream music and radio from apps.
If you get a good external antenna the sound will be better on dab. I use dab all the time.
It’s one of these that you need to get your FM working properly with your factory antenna https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353322093865 you connect the blue cable to the blue cable that comes out of the back of the headunit and it powers your factory antenna(although you should have got one of these with the headunit).
I bought similar antenna https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B073R8KW7F to try to get better reception of DAB+ (instead of windscreen-sticked antenna), and for DAB it made so much better reception, so i have now DAB+ reception even in my underground parking place %) Cannot say though about FM - i had no problems with OEM antenna before, and new antenna didn't make FM reception better. But as i don't use FM anymore (DAB+ converage in my area is good, and with new antenna i don't have reception problems in other areas either, all FM stations i was interested before, are available over DAB), i compared audio quality DAB+ <-> online radios. Yes, the quality of online services is mostly better, but:
1. while driving, with all exterior sounds (tire noise, air whizzing @ high speeds, noise form other cars), i barely hear the difference.
2. hearing online radio with e.g 128kbps, will eat ~60 MB per hour. If it is OK for you - ignore it.
3. The 3G/4G coverage (at least here, in Germany), isn't perfect - i had already 3-10 minutes of "no internet" while driving, but, surprisingly, DAB was available there.
4. with proper DAB+ software you will get additional services, like possibility of radio recording, or timeshifting (personally me use it often while hearing some news and got distracted with road traffic).
So, after using similar antenna (same manufacturer, but with aerial rod) during last year, i have never had problems with DAB receiving (neither with FM, but i had no problems with FM reception with OEM antenna either).
Is there a difference in signal quality in these window antennas? I am wondering if swapping the one i have now will boost signal?
My original car radio only had FM which worked flawless. Since upgrading to the android head-unit…FM is impossible to listen, strange as it uses the same car antenna to connect into it?
I opted to buy a DAB+ antenna as the head unit will accept one but this is not great either. Any ideas?
You may have an active antenna on your cars roof and missed to connect the power supply.
I only have bad experience with the DAB windows antennas so I was forced to replace the existing antenna.