Having swapped the standard Fabia HU for my Alpine I've noticed that the radio reception is not that good.

Did I read some where on here that you need a signal amp. for the aerial if it's not a Skoda HU and, if so, are they small alluminium things with a single power cable?

yes!

funny when i installed my alpine radio i noticed the reception was well, frankly appauling. so i bought one of these radio amplifer 'vw' jobbies off ebay. fitted it yesterday and it works a treat. it also helps if you set the radio in 'menu - setup' to autoscan etc.

When I fitted a Blaupunkt Woodstock DAB radio to my Passat...brilliant reception on DAB but total c**p on FM. Solution...bought an aerial amplifier of ebay and never looked back.