Radio not very effective

[baby_mikey]

Hi,
My radio is not very effective and i was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what to try? I can pick up Radio 1 & 2 and some classic stuff if i am lucky but no local stations.

I have an aftermarket CD player fitted so its not the usual problem of the original jap players only picking up radio 2 and needing a bandwidth expander. (assuming i have not misunderstood, it is the CD player that is the problem and not the ariel?)

There is a pink wire round the back of the stereo which has been wired up so that looks to be working from that end. Although I did spot what looked like a second pink wire which i have no idea where that goes.....?

Anyways i have the inbuilt ariel which i assume goes through the heated rear screen? Although there looks to be some sort of amplifier behind one of the rear quarter interior panels.

When i heat the rear screen the main grid heats up nicely but there is a small portion up at the top where it splits off from the main grid that doesnt heat. Should this heat up too or is this the ariel? it does look to be attached to the main grid.

Also just out of curiousity, the illumination wire, i know most people dont bother with it but if i wanted to what would i wire it up to and what would it do?

Apologies if this is too vague, i am not an expert.

Mike

[Bernard]

There's been a few discussions on here about reception problems.
Do have a tinted rear window by any chance?

[baby_mikey]

Hi,
Yeah i have seen that a few people have had problems with poor signal.

No my windows are not tinted at all.

Is there any way to test if the signal/power is getting to the ariel? I've tried looking at some wiring diagrams but i got abit lost trying to track how the pink wire from the back of the stereo connects to the rear screen and how that connects to the amplifier thingy thats behind the rear quarter interior panel.

Thank you

[karlf]

One thing you could look for is if there is a frequency expander (think thats what its called) fitted to your radio. It needs to be fitted if a japanese radio is in the car as they work of lower frequencies to Irish radio stations. Basically it allows a Jap radio to recieve Irish stations. If one of these is fitted on an irish radio it can affect the siginal quality, I only found that out myself a few weeks back cant take any credit for it as (I think) it was Bernard who originally posted about it but I could be wrong.
Having looked into what can cause interferance to the signal I was told it can be because of earthing, not sure if that is true but maybe some more knowledgeable can shed some light on this.
Hope that helps and you get it sorted.

[baby_mikey]

I eventually got round to pulling out my stereo and having another good looksee to find out why i can't get a good signal.

It seems it did have a bandwidth expander already fitted so i removed that and sorted out the wiring to the pink wire that fires up the antenna. It appears to already be wired into something but i connected it up to the antenna output from the back of the stereo anyways and sorted! i now get all the stations i got possibly ever want or need.

Unfortunately, whilst doing this, i disrupted the power supply to wing mirror relays that fold the wing mirrors in which meant every time the central locking auto locked the doors (while driving) the wing mirrors went in - quite annoying for a couple of days as i could not work out what the connection was - sorted that aswell now!

Thanks for everyones help!

Mike