Replaced the factory fit radio in my vw for an aftermarket unit. Alls fine except for the radio. I needed to folio an antenna adaptor for the new headunit which I did but now the reception is shite. AM is non existant and FM is pretty shite. Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

no idea – is it definitely bad reception or interference from the car ? Maybe the new unit needs a different suppressor

or, err, something

some factory installs have a power out to turn on an amplifier in the ariel base

How old? Based on an 03 Skoda, as nwgiles says, you may need to add an inline amplifier to the radio input.

Aftermarket manufacturers presume that if you’re buying a new stereo you want it to upgrade to CD/Aux In/IPod connectivity/DAB so concentrate the performance there. FM reception is a secondary concern, AM pretty much an afterthought. Plus the OE unit will be matched to the aerial in terms of impedance for maximum reception whereas the aftermarket unit will be around the 75 ohms usually stated.

You could try cleaning the base of the aerial as they use the car shell as an earth, might gain you a bit of quality. Or if the car is old try a complete new aerial. AM reception is done by an internal aerial in the unit which is easily affected by other systems in the car, might just not work in your model. I have a sideline of fitting ICE for friends and suchlike and have yet to find an aftermarket unit that works for radio as well as the OE units.

From my Halfords days….

You need a powered aerial adapter – autoleads PC5-136. A few VW’s can get away without it in areas of good signal, but most cannot. It is possible the aerial cable was damaged when the head unit was fitted. They can be a fragile, especially if the car is old.

Try tuning in Classic FM. You can virtually pick that up on the moon! Hope that helps.

I think we live in the same area. Reception in my golf is terrible especially AM. Sympathy but no answer I’m afraid!

Thanks chaps, already have that aerial, I guess I’ll just have to use the iphone as a radio too.

Reception went downhill in my focus too when I swapped head units.

On the plus side it pushed me into getting spotify on my phone, which is great, apart from the unti can’t control the phone, so can’t skip tracks.

What car?

VW and possibly all VAG have two aerial connectors. It’s not clear what each one is for, but it’s definitely NOT one for AM and one for FM.

An excerpt from http://uk-mkvs.net/forums/t/177496.aspx site:

If you want to listen to the radio, you will also need an Autoleads PC5-90 or equivalent adaptor. Contrary to popular belief this is NOT a booster amplifier, it is a phantom power supply that sends power up the aerials coax cable to the matching amplifier built into the base of the aerial, again this also is not a booster but actually makes the radio “think” that the aerial is lot longer for MW reception (ideally it needs to be about 1.5km long for this).This is built into all the OEM radios, and is only needed on aftermarket radios if you want to listen to MW, or not all if you don’t mind no reception at all on MW, or slight loss on FM where it won’t be noticed if you only ever listen to strong local stations.

You will need to connect the blue flying lead to the blue or blue/white wire as outlined in the last step.

This is for a MK4 golf and can be applied to other models in the VAG group from 97 to 2005. There is plenty on the dedicated VW forums out there about replacing the std fit stereos in the different models.

sweet !

I’m off to [that spammed site] right now, to pimp ma truck 8)

As above the ariel needs a power amp as most vws have 3 lives ignition and two perm lives i know as i fried my old golf trying to hardwire and not be a tight arse and buy the autoleads connector. I actually think i have a vag ariel amp somwhere u want it??