Poor radio reception

[McNark]

Hi

My 1.9Sdi 2001 model has just become very poor in radio reception.

All FM sations are very weak and can only be received when I'm on high ground. Been fine for the past 7 years. Been like this for 2 weeks now.

Any ideas?

I thought maybe the antenna plug has come loose - how do I get to the back of the radio to check this?

Thanks in anticipation of your help,

McNark

[moley]

Most likely to be the aerial base amplifier. Failure or corrosion in the base is a common problem with this unit on VAG cars. There is a thread on the Octy II forum relating to this problem.

[AndyPandy]

as Moley states,it 'probably is the aerial amplifier'. Water gets in and 'short circuits' the components on the printed circuit board. The PCB is held in by 2 self tapping screws.Mine went down recently ,I removed the PCB ,and dried it out (on heater or hair drier with care) cleaned it with non lubricated electrical cleaner (not WD40 or switch cleaner).I then resealed it with electronic silicon rubber sealer , (simular to bath sealer). You may find the PCB copper tracks have been eaten away ,making repair impossible by this method

[McNark]

Thanks folks, I'll take a look in the morning.

I may be able to repair/replace any tracks which have corroded - I'm an electronics engineer by trade, so have all the necessary tools and a fair bit of experience working on damaged pcbs.

Any clues on the best way to get to the amplifier?

I guess I'll need to remove the head lining - is there a preferred way to do this without codsing it all up?

Many thanks again,

McNark

[Polo6n1600i]

Or fit an auxilary amplifier from halfords?

[McNark]

Hi Moley and AndyPandy

All up and running now - thanks a ton for your help!

Yes, a track on the pcb was corroded away, so I bridged it with wire, dried out the board, sealed with RTV and everything is running sweet again.

Great help!

McNark

[matt84]

i find that when i have radio 1 on it is inturrupted every now and then which is irritating!! this is the only station to do this...

any ideas...

cheers

Matt

[moley]

I think you mean that Radio 1 is irratating don't you?

[AndyPandy]

Have you got the 'Traffic' button on,if so the tuner switches to another frequency,and back find any local traffic information?

[maffwilson]

How did you get to it then? :confused:

[fabiash]

I have put it my new head unit and it does not have a good reception? I have fitted the pc5-52???

[Dalgor_]

I had a similar problem, the radio reception turned poor whenever my subwoofer's amplifier had it's power on, but I also had some odd humming noise coming from the amplifier no matter what the source was (tuner/cd/aux), I tried to add a radio reception amplifier to the stereo (actually 2 different ones), and they made my radio reception even worse, and still I had some problems in reception, and the humming noise didn't disappear with that. Then I tried 2 different RCA-cables to the amplifier, and it didn't work either. I also tried connecting the power cable to the amp directly from the car battery to the amp (from outisde of the car) to minimize all kinds of grounding issues and whatnot.

Then I tried connecting my mp3 player directly to the subwoofer's amp and the humming noise was gone, so I figured there was something wrong with the stereo.

It still had warranty so I took it to my local dealer and had it checked, and everything works a charm now

So if radio reception is poor, it might be caused by the stereo itself :P

[AndyPandy]

A button marked 'TP' on my Fabia 404 radio

[NeilH]

Sorry for the thread revival but where is this PCB? If anyone has a guide of how to get to it, would be greatly appreciated!

[will_raymo2000]

Sorry for the thread revival but where is this PCB? If anyone has a guide of how to get to it, would be greatly appreciated!

open up the boot, remove the trim around the top of the car and pull the headlining down a bit.. there is a 22mm bolt (i think) on the bottom of the base amplifier. undo this and unclip the cable and it should slot out the top of the roof

[alftupper]

How many cables are there supposed to be on the base unit, I have one very slim cable about six inches long with a plastic pin connector (two connections) - is this correct every replacement seems to have a power cable and a seperate aerial connector.